Hbthebattle posted... Garchomp is available after the second gym in Platinum, so people are gonna go for it early if they can.
it's also in a hidden location though is what i mean. i was definitely a weirdo about this but it just felt like... you know. i was also the type of person to pick out turtwig as a starter most runs
not just because i think torterra rules but also because it felt wrong for the rival to have anything other than infernape, i was extremely conscious about not taking advantage of walkthrough knowledge unfairly for that too since it just felt to me like they put gible where they did as... kind of also a trophy mon in a way. not like, anywhere near feebas tier or anything like that but still
part of it was also admittedly because i didn't really want to use something with better stats than the starter.. i just kind of take having a "canon" feeling run to an extreme...i also get that this is a weird stance to take straight after also talking about expecting drifblim to show up once or twice here but idk the drifloon thing feels like a "fated encounter" kind of deal compared to it