How do your favorite childhood Pokemon stand up in competitive battling today?

The first two Pokemon games came out 18 years ago. That’s bound to make you feel old. On the positive end, it might make you happy to know that many of your childhood favorites can still bruise it out with the best in today’s competitive Pokemon metagame.

Here’s a list of some of your favorite Pokemon from the first generation, and how they fit into competitive battle in the latest Pokemon games, Pokemon X & Y.

Charizard

Even today, when casually talking about Pokemon with your friends, an inevitable question is: “which starter did you pick?” And I think it goes without saying that for many of us, that Pokemon was Charmander, who eventually evolves into Charizard, the flame Pokemon.

For many years, Charizard was considered to be a very weak competitive Pokemon, because he takes four times extra damage from rock-type attacks. However, in X & Y Charizard has made a triumphant return to the top of the tier list, thanks to the two mega forms he gained, allowing him to evolve mid-battle into Mega Charizard X or Mega Charizard Y.

Mega Charizard X fixes its weakness to rock-type attacks by changing his type to a fire/dragon mix, and Mega Charizard Y deals with his weakness in an entirely different manner- by having ferocious damage potential via an extremely high special attack stat. Mega Charizard Y can simply decimate the enemy before they can take advantage of his weaknesses.

(See: Proof that in Singapore, a gamer’s passion can find a way)

Verdict: One of the best offensive Pokemon available, Charizard is back and he’s burning down the house.

Blastoise