The staff of Polygon officially crowns Pokémon Sun and Moon's best starter

Can't make a choice? Let us do it for you

Like many people, when The Pokémon Company revealed the first look at the new starter monsters in its upcoming Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, Polygon staffers got excited.

Not too long after the excitement died down, however, a few of us started arguing about which starter Pokémon was the best. Was it Rowlet, the adorable, bowtie wearing owl? Or Litten, the appropriately named fire-type cat? Maybe it was actually Popplio, the water-type clown seal.

To say that we argued about it for quite some time would be a bit of an understatement, so we thought we'd collect answers from people on staff and figure out mathematically which new starter Pokémon was indeed the best. You can find the team's responses below — and our ultimate result at the very end.

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Nick Robinson

Are you joking? Litten. Of course it's Litten. Why would you even ask? Like, first of all: Look at it! Look at what it looks like! And second of all: It's named Litten. The literal only interesting thing about the other two is that the owl one can rotate its head 180 degrees. That's neat, I guess. But, on the other hand: LITTEN. For the first time in 17 years, I'm picking a non-grass-type starter. Litten is the perfect Pokémon, and anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves.

Simone

Simone De Rochefort

I guess I'm going to have to fight the entire staff. And I will, and I'll WIN because I'm choosing Rowlet. Listen, he's an OWL. Have you seen birds lately? They are terrifying primordial beasts. Rowlet is cute, but I bet he has hidden, dangerous depths. Also when was the last time we had an owl-like starter? Never? I don't know? The point is, it's time for Rowlet. And I'm ready.

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Ben Kuchera

Every morning Rowlet wakes up and wrecks another Pokémon. Just destroys it. While the creature is begging for its life, Rowlet asks but one thing: "Can you put on my dumb little bow tie? I can't with these nubby wings."

Do the right thing. Vote Rowlet.

Megan

Megan Farokhmanesh

Rowlet's bow tie is certainly tempting (It thinks it's people! Where are you even going in that bow tie, you fancy little friend?), but in this modern age there is none more lit than Litten. Will Litten evolve into a fire tiger? A panther? A GODDAMN LION WITH A FLAMING MANE? I don't even care. They're all great options.

Rowlet and Litten may divide us, but at least we can all rally behind "IDK not Popplio tho" as a slogan.

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Susana Polo

I barely play Pokémon but I obviously have an opinion on starters, and that is that you should go with the cutest starter that has the most badass evolutions. As evolutions are not available yet, I'm on team Rowlet, because it is objectively the cutest. Even though I can't stop seeing its bowtie as a bikini top.

griffen mcelroy

Griffin McElroy

the owl has a bowtie

any other choice is wrong

New Polygon Portraits

Samit Sarkar

Look, I don't have any dog — er, kitten — in this fight, but I just wanted to say: For the record, owls eat mice.

So they're A-OK in my book.

Ashley Oh

Okay, first of all. Popplio is a shitty, nominal derivative of Piplup, who is the most adorable thing to grace the planet. Popplio has a lot of things wrong with it, but maybe it's not Popplio's fault that Popplio looks like a secondhand child clown. Popplio's trying to make the best of what he's got, and you know what? If that were his backstory, I might actually choose him. But I don't think Nintendo thought that deeply about it, so no.

My first instinct is to go with a fire starter. I've always loved them and I will pick Charmander every time if I had to play Blue/Red over and over again.

That said, I ... I don't know if I'd pick Litten in this case. I love the name (for obvious reasons), I love the elemental type, but I'm not in love with how it looks. CALL ME SHALLOW, but I just don't like it as much. I wish it looked ... not like that.

Rowlet is my choice for a couple of reasons. He is very cute. His bowtie is leaf-themed, which at first seems a little cheap in terms of character design. "How on Earth do we communicate that this adorable owl is also a grass type? LET'S GLUE A LEAF ONTO HIS CHEST AND CALL IT A DAY."

His appearance aside, I think that it would be a nice change of pace for me to choose a grass-type. I generally don't like grass-types or really own any. Call it just a weird preference, but I don't care for them. They have never spoken to me. Their soft, verdant tendrils don't call to me like the flames do. Now maybe I can finally be the well-rounded Pokémon trainer I somewhat aspired to be. This last point really sells it to me.

Rowlet also has cute nickname potential: J.K. ROWLET.

Rowley.

Rowley Boy.

If Rowlet ends up with a disgusting evolution though, I will be very angry. Bird Pokémon do not age well.

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alegra

Allegra Frank

The obvious choice here is Litten. It's absolutely wild that anyone can see it differently. Yes, I have a bias here: I love cats. I love fire Pokémon. I love when people refer to things as "lit," ironically and otherwise. There was no way I wasn't going to fall in love with Litten as soon as the thing said "mrowr."

But even without these predilections, it's just clearly a better option. Litten is smart, it's fierce, and it doesn't have time for your crap. Sorry. Move along. Litten has better stuff to do.

We already have owl Pokémon. Lord knows we have seal Pokémon. How many fire cats do we have? And no, Litleo doesn't count. That kid is a lion. Rowlet is cute; I can respect that. I can also respect the fact that Popplio is clearly lost in the world. But when I start up a Pokémon game, I want a partner I can trust, and Litten is the only hill I'm willing to die on.

russ frushtick

Russ Frushtick

FUCKING PROPER OWL FOR LIFE

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Julia Alexander

Unquestionably, the Pokémon I most want to pick is Rowlet. I mean, it's cute and it's wearing a god damn bowtie. If you're going to be an owl, you might as well be the fanciest owl on the island. But I'm conflicted. In all my years of training to be the very best, the best there ever was if you will, I've always gone with a water-type starter. It made sense to me. The water-type Pokémon seemed to be the most powerful (even if that wasn't necessarily true) and as someone who grew up with the series as well as the games, Squirtle was undeniably the coolest Pokémon.

So, if the question is which Pokémon do I think is the best of these new starters, it's Rowlet. If the question is which Pokémon am I going to pick when I buy the game, the answer is Popplio. Who, by the way, is undeniably the worst looking of the three. If Insane Clown Posse had to choose a Pokémon that most connected with them as human beings — and clowns — it would be Popplio.

Still, I can't turn my back on Squirtle, which means I can't turn my back on water-type Pokémon. I guess I choose you, Popplio. I guess.

Final tally

We've tabulated the votes from the participating Polygon-ites to come to the conclusion that ...

Rowlet is the official best pick of the new starter Pokémon trio, with seven staff votes. The grass-type also won our Twitter poll, with 44 percent of the vote.

We'd like to note, however, that it wasn't an overwhelming majority, at least on social media: Litten trails behind by just 3 percent. Popplio, on the other hand, never stood a chance.

Agree? Disagree? Tell us which #Team you belong to in the comments, or throw your chosen starter support in our poll! We promise we'll continue to debate this until Nov. 18, when Pokémon Sun and Moon are on store shelves nationwide.