We’ve Ranked All 151 Gen 1 Pokémon And It Nearly Killed Us

Over the holidays we’re republishing some of our best features, interviews, opinion pieces and talking points from the previous 12 months from staff and contributors alike — articles that we feel represent our best of 2021. In them you’ll find our usual mix of thoughtfulness, frivolity, retro expertise, gaming nostalgia, and — of course — enthusiasm for all things Nintendo. Enjoy!

The term ‘genwunners’ gets thrown around a lot in the wider Pokémon community, but when forced to actually rank all the original 151 we think many fans would think twice about at least a few of the original ‘mon.

That’s not why we decided to subject ourselves to ranking all 151 of them, but it was an adequate introduction. No, we’re just gluttons for punishment, and with each Pokémon comes at least one vaguely interesting story from either Alex, Zion, or Jon, who decided to tackle this task.

Make sure you check out the video above with all its regular scaling changes, and if you fancy ranking these suckers yourself you can do so by following this link. Share your own rankings the comments below, because Ivysaur demands it.