Cyndaquil has never caught my interest.  I’m not sure why; maybe I’m just prejudiced against mammals (Cyndaquil is, believe it or not, the only mammalian starter Pokémon of the first three generations; the vast majority were reptiles).  In principle, though, she’s based on a fairly neat idea; take a spiny mammal like a hedgehog or echidna and set its spines on fire, because fire is awesome.  A lot of Fire Pokémon earn their place in the ranks of their element purely by virtue of being able to breathe fire, so she’s clearly off to a good start in the creativity stakes by integrating her element with her design base in a pleasing way.  Personality-wise, although Cyndaquil herself is very shy and timid, her evolved forms, Quilava and Typhlosion, are stereotypical hot-headed Fire-types.  That’s not especially bad; there’s no point to Pokémon that defy the stereotypes without Pokémon who conform to them, and if you need to do something like that, the starters are the place to do it.  If there’s one place in the game where you want Pokémon to be exactly what players expect, this (arguably) is it.  On the other hand, Charizard did it so well that it becomes difficult to expect Typhlosion to live up to that standard.  I’m uncertain exactly what kind of animals Quilava and Typhlosion are based on; their colour scheme reminds me of badgers, but their general attitude makes me want to call them wolverines.  Either way, we’re looking at a feisty, tenacious animal that can be a terror when it’s cornered, but as far as “burn ‘em all, and let Arceus sort them out” goes, there’s just no contest when you pit them against a fire dragon.  Accordingly, those traits – stubbornness, defiance and the like – might have been better ideas to emphasise, especially since they would also make a more natural progression from Cyndaquil’s timid nature.  One of Typhlosion’s more unique tactics is her fondness for obscuring herself and distorting her opponents’ vision with heat haze.  This is one of Game Freak’s less clichéd ways of ramming down our throats just how hot a Fire Pokémon can get, but it feels like an intimidation tactic more than anything else, a way of avoiding fights, and not entirely consistent with the explosive rage that seems to be thought of as Typhlosion’s defining characteristic.  Again, I think Typhlosion would actually have made more sense and presented a more interesting take on Fire as an element if she’d been a far less aggressive, more reactive Pokémon.

Since we’re here, let’s talk about Fire.  Fire traditionally has a wide range of symbolic associations that are consistent across many cultures; fire is destructive, but also creative because it provides the warmth that nurtures life; it symbolises passion – even today we talk about strong emotions ‘burning’ inside us – as well as invention, because of its importance to the development of civilisation, and purity, because it burns away the impure.  With a few notable exceptions, Fire Pokémon are a lot less varied.  Fire (in stark contrast to Grass and Water) is one of the more underrepresented elements in Pokémon, with fewer than fifty species (still a lot more than Ghost or Dragon, though), and most of them tend to place a lot of weight on the destructive aspect of fire, both in their powers and their personalities, some of the most notable examples being Charizard, Typhlosion, Magmortar, Entei, Houndoom and Camerupt.  Fire Pokémon also tend to be very fast, though not all of them are, by any means (Magcargo, for instance, is one of the slowest Pokémon in the game).  Pokémon that deviate from the idea of fire as a swift-spreading force of destruction are much fewer.  A few, like Ninetales, Arcanine and Rapidash, actually have little to do with fire in terms of their flavour; they just happen to breathe fire on top of everything else they do.  Magcargo and Torkoal are weird and clever and creative and really deserved to be much more powerful than they are, but in any case they have very specific associations with particular manifestations of the idea of fire, so they aren’t really a part of this.  The only Pokémon I know of that really embrace different symbolic meanings of fire are Ho-oh, Volcarona, Victini, and Reshiram (Moltres arguably counts too, for a story told by one of Blaine’s gym trainers about how Blaine was rescued by a fiery bird, presumably Moltres, when he was lost on an icy mountain).  Ho-oh and Volcarona, as a phoenix and an avatar of the sun, respectively, wholeheartedly embody the concept of life-giving fire, while Reshiram and, to an extent, Victini seem to draw on fire as a symbol of inspiration.  Notably, these are all legendary Pokémon (well, okay, Volcarona… arguably though Volcarona is thematically speaking a ‘legendary’ Pokémon in that she is a Pokémon of legend, and worshipped as solar deity).  The point I am by slow degrees trying to construct here is that Fire as an element does not automatically straightjacket you into creating a Pokémon dedicated to blowing things up.  A Fire Pokémon could easily be something that uses fire to keep others warm on cold winter nights, sear away mould to nurture plants, or captivate people by creating visions of beauty.  If I were constructing a history of the Pokémon world, I’d even be tempted to make a Fire-type the first Pokémon ever to take a human partner… but now I’m getting too tangential.  Let’s get back to Typhlosion.

Typhlosion’s base stats are actually identical to Charizard’s, so she’s basically fast and likes blowing things up.  Her big draw over other Fire-types in Gold and Silver was her ability to learn Thunderpunch (which, remember, was a special attack before Diamond and Pearl) to smite Water Pokémon.  She also learned Earthquake but was held back somewhat by her lower physical attack stat.  She was a relatively simple point-and-shoot Pokémon, but by the standards of the time she was pretty good at it.  Ruby and Sapphire took Thunderpunch from her, but she got it back in Emerald, and like most Fire-types she was delighted by the introduction of Lavaridge Gym Leader Flannery’s signature move, Overheat, a move more powerful and accurate than Fire Blast which came at the tiny, tiny cost of half of the user’s special attack stat.  The third generation didn’t change her much, though.  Diamond and Pearl, on the other hand, shook things up considerably.  Thunderpunch was now a physical attack, which, combined with its relatively low power, took it off Typhlosion’s list of favourite moves.  In its place, along with most of the other Fire Pokémon in the game, she got Solarbeam, a very fun move for smacking around Water-types but one to be used with caution because of its reliance on fine weather.  Like many of the older starters, she also gained Focus Blast; it may be inaccurate but a strong Fighting attack is nothing to sniff at, even if you already have a way to break Steel-types as Typhlosion does.  Those aren’t the big changes, though; the big change to Typhlosion in Diamond and Pearl was the addition of Eruption to her list.  This highly exclusive move deals damage based on the user’s current health; an uninjured Pokémon with Eruption is capable of tremendous destruction.  The other Pokémon that get it are all either too slow to fire off an Eruption without getting hit first or physical attackers anyway, which gives Typhlosion a unique niche as the only truly competent user of this devastating attack.  This remains Typhlosion’s main draw in Black and White, which have so far brought her little of interest.  Flash Fire, Typhlosion’s Dream World ability, will make an awesome bonus once it’s available; immunity to Fire attacks is merely amusing when you already resist them anyway, but actually boosting your own Fire attacks when you absorb them is, as Rapidash and Houndoom will gladly attest, something else, especially for a Pokémon whose biggest draw is her ability to make one single massive Fire attack.

For reasons I’ve already discussed, Typhlosion doesn’t do much to dissuade me from my belief that Gold and Silver had the ‘worst’ starters, but, like the rest of them, she’s not actually a bad Pokémon.  Like Meganium, she’s one of those that prompt me to make exaggerated sighing noises and ramble at length about wasted potential.  I won’t deny, though, that there is something quite satisfying about Cyndaquil’s growth from a timid, trembling child into the intimidating walking explosion that is Typhlosion.  As a battler, I think Typhlosion really came into her own when Diamond and Pearl gave her Eruption, because that’s what made her unique and special; it’s a shame, though, that this coincided with the advent of Stealth Rock, which makes it very hard to keep her uninjured.  If Typhlosion’s your kind of driven pyromaniac, more power to you – she can be tricky to use, but those Eruptions are worth it.