Right? Foolishness.
The thing about GOAT Mainline Game Platinum is that yes, you really have incredible options at your disposal and yes, a lot of major battles also are pulling up with a full clip, and not just near the endgame with Lucian and Cynthia, I'm talking about Roark's Pursuit Cranidos, Jupiter's Skuntank in Eterna making Team Galactic look like a real threat, Fantina's Mismagius having the Hearthome Pokémon Center look like Vermillion's Center in the Anime...
What is SEVERELY underrated is the sheer number of legit good options Platinum offers for team building.
Let's start with the starters. We're talking about a game where all starters are legit good.
Infernape needs no introduction and neither does Empoleon, but Torterra might legit be the best in-game Grass Starter.
We're talking about a mon that gets Curse, Leech Seed, Wood Hammer, Crunch and Earthquake by Level-Up. Razor Leaf is early and Bite comes in time for the dreaded Fantina match-up.
Coverage? A wealth of Rock moves via TM to pair up with Earthquake. Rock Tomb, Slide, and Stone Edge are all available to it. Crunch also helps against tricky matchups like Lucian.
Speed? Rock Polish may be late, but it's nigh-uncontested and turns Torterra into a bulky, hard-hitting, and fast mon that can pull off quick sweeps even in the E4.
Matchups? With that coverage? You're only in real, real trouble against Candice and Flint. Everyone else can be taken down with a good set and a little preparation. It legit has good matchups due to its offensive prowess too, most notably against Volkner.
Now you might be asking, "Sure, Torterra for A. Who else?"
Who else? Here's a list that can only be rivaled by SwSh's broken raids.
Besides the obvious Starter + Staraptor, Luxray and Garchomp, there's also Gallade, Gliscor, Floatzel, Scizor, Toxicroak, Gastrodon, Porygon-Z, Gardevoir, Rotom, Gengar, Houndoom, Froslass, the Eeveelutions, Roserade, Magnezone, Magmortar, Rhyperior, Electivire, Milotic, Probopass, Togekiss, Tentacruel, Yanmega, Rampardos, Machamp, Bronzong, Medicham, Lucario, Bastiodon, Weavile, and Abomasnow.
All kinds of mons that require all kinds of effort or not, but all of them are at least not going to be liabilities. You can easily pick a team out of this list without picking the staple Platinum MVPs and still have a pretty good team.
Oh yes, Gabite with EQ + Rock Tomb and Dragon Rage, very broken indeed...
CAN'T EVEN GET PAST FANTINA'S MISMAGIUS.
Hype up No Eviolite Gabite until post-Distortion World as broken in-game brehs.
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That's a good looking team bro, good job. Nice catch with the Vespiquen, that 1:8 Fem rate is no joke.
Oh yeah, another one for the list.
Yeah, you are really right though, But Gibble evolves into Gabite at level 30? ( don't remember ) and then you can get fire blast, after you get strength I think you can get earthquake on it, and dragon claw on level up, which is pretty good early on, so by the 4th gym you might already have gabite i think (?) Giving you a pretty good dragon stab move fairly early on, But he mostly picks up momentum twoards the end. when he evolves into garchomp. Why I'm really supportive of the line is because I used one and it wrecked, ( even as a gabite ) so get it in like the 3rd hour, throw the exp share on it, and by the 5th gym it has to be a gabite, and then you got a psudeo legendary mid stage that isnt a shelgon. Also, garchomp/gabite can have a super effective move against every single like major trainer i think ( maybe not lucian idk )
So overall, you can get the guy in less than around 5 hours, so he's really good. I say get infernape because you can already have a amazing early grass type in roserade, so infernape is honestly the best choice over rapidash, ( fire is basically essential to any normal playthrpugh team, ) and fire has some of the best matchups in the game as a whole, so i say inferanpe is the best one overall. ( Also, if you want a full replacment to tortrra, pick up a tangela in the great marsh and get a tangrowth around like level 35 ) and infernape also is the best starter on their own, so infernape is all around the best choice. This doesn't make sense lol.
Edit: This is a really puny argument, so sorry. I'm just being really defensive.