Squirtle was always my favorite Kanto starter. Charmander is cool too, but I always felt like it was way overrated - though I can understand why. I feel like Bulbasaur always kind of got the short end of the popularity stick, but I think gen 1 was one of those times when a lot of people liked each of the three starters a lot.
Like the original thread says, one benefit of choosing one pokemon over the other was gym type advantages. Bulbasaur was strong against Brock and Misty's pokemon, and even Lt. Surge's, but then was weak against the later gym leaders. Squirtle was strong against Brock, but then didn't really have a type advantage until Blaine and Giovanni later on. Charmander, meanwhile, struggled against early gym leaders, but had an advantage in the middle against Erika, and then Charizard just becomes pretty strong by late in the game anyway.
Another thing to look at was how useful the three starters were in the bigger picture. Fire pokemon are pretty dang rare in gen 1 - your options outside of Charmander were essentially Vulpix, Ponyta, Growlithe, Magmar, Flareon and Moltres. Grass pokemon were equally pretty rare (actually maybe more so) - you had Tangela, Oddish, Bellsprout, and Exeggscute outside of Bulbasaur. But then like half or better of the gen 1 pokemon were water-type! So by not choosing Squirtle, you already had access to a type that wasn't very common for the rest of the game. Bulbasaur was probably most useful against all of those water-type pokemon.
Squirtle could also learn Surf. I don't know if Charizard could learn Fly, maybe it could in later versions at least. (Because, you know, it's gotta be OP.) Bulbasaur could use Cut I remember, maybe Charmander could as well. And I think they could all use Strength. Take from that what you will.
There's also the consideration that Bulbasaur has two types - it is part poison-type from beginning to end. Charizard gains a second type. Squirtle is the only one that is pure water-type for all three evolutions.
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