#019 - Rattata

RATTATA

IN SHOW

There has only ever been one Rattata that has interacted with Ash and not tried to beat up one of his pokemon and that was the one in the very first episode. It tried to steal his food, and then the pokedex told him that Rattata tends to sneak out and try to steal food from stupid travelers. I think that is why Ash never actually took the time to catch one, because he knows that all Rattata think he is stupid. Rattata are usually just shown frolicking around in meadows or being owned by younger children because Rattata are the easiest pokemon to catch.

WHY YOU WANT A RATTATA

Hyper Fang. Honestly, that’s about it. Rattata had one signature move that was fairly strong and that it acquired pretty early on so that having a Rattata in your party could be an asset. It only needed to evolve once, and that was good since it was the first pokemon in the pokedex to do so and its picture didn’t look too awful. To be fair, it’s pretty hard to screw up a picture of a rat.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A RATTATA

If you didn’t have a thing for rats it’s pretty hard to see the appeal to Rattata. Yes in the original generations a lot of pokemon were based on living animals, but Rattata is one of the least hidden examples. It’s also a normal type, and lots of people don’t find much use for it. It’s isn’t strong against anything in particular, only immune to ghost, but it can’t hurt ghost either so it really has no advantage. Normal is supposed to be the most basic type.

IN SUMMARY

Rattata was a cute idea, and just like in the pokemon world a lot of younger kids really like Rattata. It’s not intimidating, it can be cuddled, but it can also bite pretty hard. The main problem with Rattata is that a lot of serious trainers don’t really find a huge use for it when there are much better type combinations out there. Pidgey is a prime example. You can catch a Pidgey as easily as you can catch a Rattata and you have the Flying/Normal combination that will become lethal to any fighting pokemon. So Rattata sort of loses the race there.