Pokemon za starters: how the opening trio shapes your Legends run
The choice you make in the first hour of Pokemon Legends Z-A defines more than a single combat specialist. The opening trio are the Johto starters, and one of them becomes the constant presence in your party from the prologue all the way through the rank-climb from Z to A. Which one you pick also gates a second, quieter decision: a separate Kanto starter you can recruit through a side quest within the first several hours of play. If you are picking a team that needs to survive the long tutorial and the night-only trainer battles in Lumiose City, the starter question deserves a real answer rather than a coin flip.
This guide is written for players who want a practical framework for the early roster: what each Johto starter does well, where its type coverage falls short, how the Kanto starter quest is unlocked, and how the research system and Wild Zones interact with your starter pick. None of the mechanics below are hidden behind late-game spoilers, and every detail is anchored to the opening hours of the game. If you have already beaten the main story and are wondering whether to restart, the first section is the one that matters most.
What the game actually gives you at the start
At the beginning of Z-A, you pick from three familiar faces: Totodile, Tepig, and Chikorita. The trio is small, the moment is staged, and the choice is permanent in the sense that you cannot undo it inside a single save file. You walk away with one of them, and the other two are sent to the storage system that the game treats as a separate menu from your active party. None of the three are traded to a later NPC, so once you release the box, your starter is the one you will see in the first trainer battle in the city streets.
The second starter layer is the one newer players miss. Within the opening stretch of the game, you can pick a Kanto starter through a side quest rather than through the main story. That means the realistic end state of the early game is a party of two starters, with a strong third member pulled from a Wild Zone to round out your type matchups. The Kanto pick is yours alone, and the game does not pick for you, but it does not happen automatically either. The side quest is short, but it is gated, and the trigger is easy to overlook while you are still being walked through the basics of real-time combat and the Wild Zone system.
Why the Johto trio is a deliberate design choice
Each Pokemon in the Johto trio covers a different role that maps onto how Z-A wants you to play. The game is built around night-time trainer battles in the streets of Lumiose, a Wild Zone system that funnels catching into specific parks, and a research tree that rewards catching new species and raising your research level. The starter is the one creature you can be sure will be useful across all three systems, because it is the creature you have the longest. The game does not need the starter to be statistically perfect. It needs the starter to be forgiving in a real-time battle system where you can swap your active creature on the D-Pad and chain a quick status effect into a heavier hit.
The trio is also a callback to the second generation of the mainline series, and that matters for returning players. Totodile, Tepig, and Chikorita are not regional forms and not new creatures. They are the same species the series has used for twenty years, and their move pools, evolution lines, and type identities behave the way long-time players expect. The first 5-8 hours are quiet enough to learn the new system without having to learn a new creature at the same time.
The Johto trio at a glance
The table below is a starting point for the decision. It is not a tier list, and it is not a prediction of late-game performance. It is a summary of how each of the three Johto starters fits into the early-game combat and research loops in Lumiose. The type coverage column lists the second type each line picks up after evolution, which is the version of the creature you will actually have in your party after the first few Wild Zone runs.
| Starter | Primary type | Evolution line | Added type at final stage | Early-game role | Best early matchups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Totodile | Water | Croconaw then Feraligatr | None (pure Water line) | Aggressive physical attacker with reliable coverage | Fire, Ground, Rock |
| Tepig | Fire | Pignite then Emboar | Fighting | Heavy hitter that swings into the mid-game | Bug, Grass, Ice, Steel |
| Chikorita | Grass | Bayleef then Meganium | None (pure Grass line) | Defensive pivot with support and status options | Water, Ground, Rock |
The most common mistake is to treat the table as a ranking. None of the three are wrong, and the game is not punishing you for picking the creature you prefer. What the table does show is the type you are committing to for the entire run, and which Wild Zone species will give you the most trouble in the early battles if you do not also pick up a counter from the Kanto set or from a Wild Zone catch.
Totodile: the offensive default
Totodile evolves into Croconaw and then into Feraligatr, a pure Water line with high physical attack and a move pool that opens up Dark, Ice, Dragon, and Ground options as you progress. In the early game, that means you have a creature that can take a free hit on a sidekick Pokemon through stealth, then force a switch with a strong neutral or super effective attack before the trainer’s main creature has a chance to retaliate. The night battles reward that opening because most of the trainers in the first few hours are unprepared for a heavy physical hit at the start of the round.
The reason Totodile is the creature the guide source openly recommends is the combination of raw power and the ability to pivot into other types without losing momentum. Feraligatr can carry Ice, Dragon, and Ground moves, which means a single evolved Water starter can hit four different type matchups in a row without being forced to swap to a bench member. That matters in the Lumiose night battles, where the trainer roster shifts every time your rank goes up, and you cannot always predict what you will be facing.
The cost is that you are a pure Water type until you learn coverage moves, and pure Water has two rough matchups in the early game: Grass and Electric. Grass is manageable because the early Wild Zones do not have a huge number of Grass specialists. Electric is the real problem, and the easiest way to soften it is to add a Ground or Grass type to your party from a Wild Zone or from the Kanto starter quest.
How Totodile fits the research loop
The research system rewards catching new species and completing tasks. Totodile is one of the first creatures the research tree will point you toward, because the game wants you to evolve it and to use it in battles. Picking Totodile means the research meter fills quickly in the opening hours, which in turn gives you access to TMs earlier. TMs are the easiest way to teach Feraligatr the coverage moves that turn it from a strong Water creature into a versatile attacker.
Tepig: the slow-burn physical wall
Tepig evolves into Pignite and then into Emboar, a Fire and Fighting type. The Fire start is awkward in the early game because the Johto trio is built around the second generation, and Fire has fewer obvious matchups in the first Wild Zones than Water does. The trade is the Fighting type, which arrives with Emboar and gives you a built-in answer to Normal, Ice, Rock, Dark, and Steel types. If you are the kind of player who wants one creature to handle both halves of a Rock and Ground roster, Emboar is the cleanest single-piece answer in the trio.
The cost is tempo. Emboar evolves late, and the early Pignite form is not the strongest physical attacker per level. You will be carrying a Fire type with Fighting in its future through several hours of trainer battles that mostly feature Water and Grass types. Pignite can handle Grass types comfortably and is a hard counter to Bug, Ice, and Steel, but it is a worse answer to Water than Totodile is, and Water is everywhere in the early game.
The smart play with Tepig is to evolve it as soon as the level curve allows and to push it into the Fighting move pool as quickly as the research tree will let you. Once Emboar is in the party, you have a creature that can carry a long stretch of the mid-game on its own, especially once the rank battles start to feature more Normal and Ice trainers than Water trainers.
Why Emboar is not a top-tier late-game carry
Emboar is a special-attack-leaning evolution of a physical line, and that mismatch shows up when the move pool opens up. The trick is to teach it the right TMs early, rather than trying to brute force through the rank battles with its base moves. The research tree will give you the tools to do this, and the game does not punish you for swapping TMs, but the time you spend grinding research to unlock those tools is the time a Totodile would have spent hitting neutral matchups with stronger base moves.
Chikorita: the defensive support pick
Chikorita evolves into Bayleef and then into Meganium, a pure Grass line with a reputation for being defensive rather than aggressive. The opening of Z-A is not a turn-based game, and the action combat changes how a defensive creature feels. Meganium can take a hit, drop a status effect, and let you swap to a hard hitter to finish a fight. In a battle system where the D-Pad swap is essentially free, a creature that exists to take one strong hit and then hand the round off is more useful than it would be in the older mainline games.
The matchup table is the reason most players skip Chikorita in tier discussions, and it is also the reason it is a legitimate choice. Grass has a bad matchup against Fire, Flying, Ice, and Poison. The early game does not have a huge number of Flying or Poison specialists, but Fire and Ice do show up in the rank battles, and the Kanto starter quest does not give you an obvious Fire counter. You will need to fill the Fire matchup from a Wild Zone, which means one of your six slots is going to be dedicated to a single type relationship rather than to a creature you actively want to use.
The honest read on Chikorita is that it is a support creature rather than a carry, and that the game does not require you to carry. The research system gives you the tools to bring Bayleef into the mid-game without falling behind, and the Wild Zones give you a wide enough catch pool to patch the type weaknesses. If you like the creature and you want to play around status effects and pivots rather than raw damage, Chikorita is a valid pick. If you are picking a creature that you want to be the strongest creature on the team in the final boss fight, you are probably not picking Chikorita.
The Kanto starter quest: the second starter pick most players miss
The Johto starter is not the only starter you will pick in the first several hours. Z-A gives you a second starter through a side quest that opens up the Kanto trio: Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. The quest appears after you have spent a few hours in the city and have started working through the rank battles. It is not part of the main story path, and it is easy to walk past the trigger if you are focused on the night battles and the Wild Zone loops.
The quest rewards you with a single Kanto starter of your choice, which becomes a permanent member of your party. The Kanto pick is yours alone: the game does not pick for you, and the quest does not give you all three. The realistic end state of the early game is a party of two starters, which is the strongest possible foundation for a first run because starters have high base stats, strong evolution lines, and access to the best TM coverage in the game.
The Kanto pick is the place where the Johto pick really starts to matter. A Totodile and a Squirtle is a Water-heavy party that needs a Fire or Grass member from a Wild Zone to handle its weaknesses. A Chikorita and a Charmander is a balanced party that handles most of the early matchups without needing a third specialist. The Kanto pick is also a free second chance if you chose your Johto starter on instinct and want to patch the type chart before the rank climb gets harder.
How to trigger the Kanto starter quest
The Kanto starter quest is given by an NPC in the city, and the trigger is connected to your progress through the main story. You do not need to finish the main story, and you do not need to hit a specific rank. The NPC will appear once you have worked through the opening tutorial and started earning your first rank tickets. The quest itself is short, and the reward is the Kanto starter of your choice.
Two practical notes. First, do not save the Kanto pick for after you have started building a Wild Zone team. By the time you are deep in the rank battles, you will have already filled the open slots in your party with Wild Zone catches, and the Kanto starter will sit in the box until you swap something out. Second, do not assume the Kanto starter will level on its own. It arrives at a low level, and the research tree does not give you a free pass to bring it up to the rank curve. Plan to spend a few hours grinding the Wild Zones with it in the party, or accept that it will be a bench member for a stretch of the mid-game.
Type coverage and how to plan your party
Type coverage is the underlying reason the starter question is worth taking seriously. Z-A is still a Pokemon game, and the type chart is still the single biggest factor in any individual battle. The game will display the type effectiveness of your moves during combat through small icons on the ability display, which is a useful safety net for new players, but the chart itself is the only reliable way to plan a team before a battle.
The table below is a working map of the six type matchups you are most likely to face in the early rank battles. It is not a complete type chart, and it is not a prediction of what you will encounter. It is a quick reference for the question that actually matters when you are picking a starter: which matchups is this creature going to lose without help, and where do I need to fill the gap from a Wild Zone or from the Kanto quest.
| Enemy type | Strong against your Water starter | Strong against your Fire starter | Strong against your Grass starter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire | No (neutral) | No (resisted) | Yes (super effective) |
| Water | No (resisted) | Yes (super effective) | No (neutral) |
| Grass | Yes (super effective) | No (resisted) | No (resisted) |
| Electric | Yes (super effective) | No (neutral) | No (neutral) |
| Ground | No (neutral) | Yes (super effective) | Yes (super effective) |
| Ice | No (neutral) | Yes (super effective) | No (neutral) |
| Fighting | No (neutral) | No (neutral) | No (neutral) |
The simplest way to read the table is to look at the column for your starter and count the rows where the answer is “Yes.” The fewer the rows, the more help you need from the Kanto pick and from your Wild Zone catches. Totodile has the most “Yes” rows, which is the main reason it is the recommended pick for first-time players. Chikorita has the fewest, which is the main reason it is the hardest starter to build a party around.
Wild Zones, research, and how the early game expects you to play
Lumiose is a single city, and all the wild Pokemon are locked to Wild Zones, which are essentially parks scattered around the map. The Wild Zones tell you how many different types are available inside, which is a useful planning tool. The research system rewards catching new species, and the main way to increase your research level in the opening hours is to clear out the Wild Zones and add new entries to the Pokedex. The combination is the early game loop: enter a Wild Zone, catch as many new species as you can, fight any trainer that gets in your way, and exit when the zone is empty.
The starter you pick does not change the Wild Zone loop, but it does change the research tree. The tree is structured around the assumption that you have a single creature you have used since the start of the game, and that creature is the one that will appear in the research tasks most often. That is why the research meter fills quickly with Totodile and slower with Chikorita, even if both starters are in the same number of battles. The system is not punishing you for picking the defensive creature. It is rewarding you for picking the creature you use the most.
The Wild Zones also give you the type counters you need to fill the gaps in your starter’s matchup chart. The first Wild Zones feature a mix of Normal, Bug, and Water types, and later zones open up Fire, Electric, and Ground. The system is not a random encounter system. It is a list, and you can read the list before you enter the zone. Use the list. It is the difference between spending thirty minutes catching the right type counter and spending thirty minutes catching a duplicate of something you already have.
Battle mechanics that change how the starters feel
Z-A uses real-time combat rather than turn-based combat, and the difference is the reason the type chart alone does not decide the fight. The action combat has a few mechanics that change how each starter is going to feel in your hand.
- You can see the opponent’s main Pokemon before the battle starts, which means you can swap your starter for a better matchup from the D-Pad before the trainer even sends the creature out.
- You can sneak up on a trainer’s sidekick Pokemon for a free hit, which is the easiest way to start a fight with a damage lead and to preserve your starter’s health for the second Pokemon.
- You can swap your active Pokemon mid-battle through the D-Pad, and the swap is fast enough to be used as a tactical tool rather than a last resort.
- You can access the Box from the menu during a battle, which means you are not locked to the six creatures in your active party.
None of these mechanics are starter-specific, but they all favor a player who plans the type matchup before the fight starts and who is willing to use a swap to chain a status effect into a heavy hit. The starter that benefits the most from this style of play is the one that can deliver the heavy hit on command. Totodile, with its physical attack and its coverage move pool, is the cleanest fit. Chikorita, with its defensive stats and its status options, is the cleanest fit for a player who wants to use the swap to set up a teammate rather than to close out the fight.
Common mistakes new players make with the starter pick
Most of the early-game frustration in Z-A comes from a small set of repeating mistakes. The starter choice is the one that gets the most attention, but the mistakes that actually slow down the rank climb are the ones that follow the pick.
- Picking a starter and then building a party around creatures of the same type, which leaves the type chart unbalanced and forces you to swap to a bench member you have not leveled.
- Skipping the Kanto starter quest because the trigger NPC is easy to miss in the city, which leaves the second starter slot in the party open for a Wild Zone catch rather than a creature with a strong evolution line.
- Ignoring the research tree in favor of grinding rank battles, which slows down the TM unlocks that give the starter its coverage moves.
- Treating the Wild Zones as a side activity rather than the main early game loop, which means the research meter does not fill and the TMs do not unlock on time.
The fix for each of these is mechanical rather than strategic. Pick a starter, pick a Kanto starter that covers the gap, run the Wild Zones, fill the research meter, and unlock the TMs that turn the starter from a strong creature into a versatile one. The game is built around this loop, and the players who follow it are the ones who finish the rank climb without having to grind.
Frequently asked questions
What are the three pokemon za starters in the Johto trio?
The opening trio is Totodile, Tepig, and Chikorita, the three Johto starters from the second generation of the mainline series. You pick one at the start of the game, and the other two are sent to the storage system. The game does not let you pick a different Johto starter later, but it does give you a second starter through a separate Kanto side quest within the first several hours.
Can I get all three Johto starters in one save file?
You can store all three in the Box from the moment you pick your starter, but you can only carry six creatures in your active party at a time. The two you do not pick are not lost, and you can swap them in through the menu at any point. The Kanto starter quest is a separate reward and is not connected to the Johto trio.
Which Johto starter is the strongest in the early game?
Totodile is the most commonly recommended pick for first-time players because its pure Water typing and its access to physical attack and a wide coverage move pool make it the easiest creature to carry through the early rank battles. The other two are not weak, but they require more support from the rest of the party to cover their type matchups in the opening hours.
Is there a way to pick a second starter after the opening?
Yes, the Kanto starter quest gives you a second starter from the original trio: Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle. The quest is a side activity that unlocks after you have worked through the opening tutorial and started earning rank tickets, and it is easy to miss if you are focused on the main story and the night battles.
Do the starters evolve through the normal level curve?
Yes, the starters evolve at the same level thresholds as they do in the mainline series. The exact levels are not gated by story progression, so the only thing that slows down an evolution is the time you spend grinding the Wild Zones and the rank battles to reach the threshold.
Can I reset and pick a different starter without starting a new save?
No, the Johto starter pick is permanent within a single save file. The only way to pick a different Johto starter is to start a new save. The Kanto starter, by contrast, is a separate reward and can be picked independently of the Johto choice.
What level should my Kanto starter be when I get it?
The Kanto starter arrives at a low level compared to the rank curve, and the game does not give you a free level boost. Plan to spend a few hours grinding the Wild Zones with it in your party, or accept that it will be a bench member for a stretch of the mid-game. The easiest way to level it quickly is to run the closest Wild Zone on repeat and swap it in for the easier fights.
Does the starter I pick affect the Kanto starter quest?
No, the Kanto starter quest is independent of the Johto pick. The game does not reward you with a specific Kanto starter based on your Johto choice, and the quest is open to any player who has started earning rank tickets. The only thing the Johto pick changes is the type coverage of your active party when the Kanto starter joins.
How long does it take to unlock the Kanto starter quest?
The quest appears after a few hours of play, once you have worked through the opening tutorial and started the night battle loop. The exact timing is not fixed and depends on how quickly you clear the early rank battles and the first Wild Zones. Most players will see the trigger NPC within the first 5-8 hours of the game.
Is the choice of starter locked to a single playthrough on the same console?
No, the choice is per save file, not per console or per profile. You can have multiple save files with different Johto starters, and the game treats each save as an independent run. The Kanto starter pick is also per save file, so the two choices do not carry over between runs.
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