I've been thinking, and I realize now that Meganium fits a very specific role in the Starter pantheon. More specifically, the Grass Starter pantheon.
Grass is one of the more "off the beaten path" types. It favors diversity over all else. Where the Fire type prefers fast, frail sweepers and the Water type likes bulky offensive Pokemon, Grass types in general opt for serving as many roles as possible.
This can be seen in the majority of the type's Pokemon (For example: Ninetales, Arcanine, Houndoom are all fast and frail. Gyarados, Milotic and Lapras are all bulky and powerful. Whereas Tangrowth is bulky and strong, Jumpluff is fast but weak, Leafeon is fast and strong, Vileplume and Bellossom prefer to support teammates, etc), but it is perhaps best exemplified by the Starters:
All the Fire Starters, with the
possible exception of Pokabu, hit fast and hard, but get killed by the wind blowing.
All the Water Starters, again with the
possible exception of Mijumaru, can take hits and dish them out, but aren't especially fast.
But the Grass Starters are very diverse in their roles.
You have four video game archetypes that fit the Grass Starters:
The Mario,
The Medic,
The Glass Cannon and
The Mighty Glacier. All the Fire and Water Starters tend to fall into the latter two categories (respectively) with little to no room for leeway.
With the Grass types though, you have:
The Mario- Venusaur. He's a balanced Pokemon with good stats across the board. He's good at everything but excels at nothing.
The Glass Cannon- Sceptile. He's fast and hits like a truck. His defenses are crap though and
will keel over if someone looks at it funny
The Mighty Glacier- Torterra. Great physical defense and his special one isn't horrid either. On top of that, he has the best attack stat (and physical attacking type) of all the Grass Starters. The downside? He's slow as fuck
The Medic- Meganium. The support Pokemon. Her role isn't to take hits, dish them out or all of the above. Her role is to support her teammates by either healing them (Aromatherapy), or buffing up their defenses (Reflect/Light Screen). She can even cripple opponents to let her teammates sweep easily (GrassWhistle, Toxic, Leech Seed), though she does admittedly gets outclassed in this role. Her stats even have a dash of
Stone Wall thrown in for good measure. This ensures that she'll be able to support her team better.
Could she be a better support Pokemon? Yes, but Sceptile could be a better glass cannon (Earth Power and Nasty Plot would be Godsends), Torterra could be a better Mighty Glacier (better Sp. Def and not having a crippling Ice weakness would help immensely) and Venusaur could be a better Mario (base 90 on all stats minus Sp. Atk and Sp. Def, which stay in the 100? Yes please). So it's not like she's miles behind the others in their respective categories. I'd like to see any other Grass Starter (or any other Starter for that matter) try to do what Meganium can do.
On a related note, I'm crossing my fingers that Gen V gives Meganium access to Wish and Baton Pass, and maybe Growth and Dragon Dance too. This could make her arguably
the best support Pokemon in the game.
Also, I think I just figured out why I like Grass types so much. They're quirky and diverse. Not the same package in a different wrapping like the Fire or Water types.
Slighlty off topic: I'm excited for the Isshu games and their Starters. They look like they'll break the mold (at least the Fire and Water ones do) by making Pokabu the bulky, defensive one and Mijumaru the fast, offensive one. I wonder what side of the spectrum Tsutaaja will fall into.
