"Um... Is there a fourth option?"note Only if you're late.
It's a simple fact in the world of Mons Series: Given the way that most problems resolve around mon-on-mon fights, you need a Mon yourself to get anywhere. But Mons themselves are often recruited through combat—either by defeating them, catching them, or appealing to them to join your cause. Since you need Mons to fight Mons, how do you even get into the world of Mon combat in the first place? Enter the Starter Mon!
The Starter Mon is exactly what its name implies: It's the first Mon the player (or main character) receives on their journey To Be a Master. Unlike regular Mons, this one is usually not caught or recruited like other Mons would be; it's typically given to them by an outside source, such as an Old Master. While in many RPGs, the Starting Equipment tends to be bottom-of-the-barrel, cheap and ordinary stuff, the Starter Mon tends to be a bit different (and a bit more valuable). They typically have three or more of the following traits:
- They tend to run the gamut from rather rare to outright unique. Frequently, the only place they will be available is from the start of the game. If they can be found in the game world, it's often only under special conditions, or in out-of-the-way places. They also tend to possess unique abilities no other Mon in the series has.
- The player is offered a choice between more than one. In this case, picking one is a lot like picking a starting class in other RPGs.
- They tend to be at the very least moderately powerful; usually strong enough to be worth using the entire game. The Starting Mon is often intended to function as The Hero of the group, sometimes in more ways than one.
- If they aren't very strong to start off with, they'll become so later on...
- Or they can be useful early on in the adventure, but fall behind later and are eventually replaced once better alternatives are found (This is a rare occurrence, though).
- Even if Mons in the series aren't necessarily Bond Creatures, the Starting Mon has a higher than normal chance of being a Bond Creature, or of having a special link with the protagonist.
- They are iconic of the game, or franchise, in some way. They are often pushed in The Merch and the marketing for the series. If the franchise has any adaptations, expect them to be the Signature Mon of the protagonist.
In other words, think Starting Equipment meets The Hero.
Free-to-Play games with Mons elements tend to use a slightly different set of characteristics for their starters. Their starter mons tend to be much weaker and more common, more like Com Mons. While they can be useful later in the game, the intention is usually to keep you playing the game so you can earn better creatures—and possibly pay for better ones. On the other hand, a well-raised Starter Mon can become a character's Signature Mon.
Examples:
Examples from Pokémon can be found on their own page.
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Anime & Manga
- The Burnt Meatballs in Fighting Foodons were Chase's first attempt at making a Foodon. They're not particularly powerful, but Chase nonetheless has a special connection to them and keeps them around.
Fan Works
- In Borne of Caution, Vulpix is Lee's first Pokémon and fiercely loyal to him. She's unusually strong and well-trained due to coming from a modded game, as well as possessing the rare Drought ability that Vupix didn't have access to in the original version of Pokémon Emerald.
- The title character of Jessica is this in Cameron's Pokémon Yellow game. This is part of the reason why Cameron is so attached to her.
- In Pokémon Collagen, the player is given the choice of three unconventional starters, altered by the cataclysm: Koffing (now a Fighting-type with a human face and bloody ichor instead of gas), Paras (whose mushrooms have been replaced with glitchy patches), and Peltrap (a new Pokémon based on a beta Pokémon design). Unlike typical starters, these Pokémon have only one evolution each: Writhing, Apoflyosis, and Skinvert.
- In Pokémon Strangled Red, Steven's starter is Miki, an enormously powerful Charmander/Charmeleon/Charizard.
- We Are All Pokémon Trainers: Chiyo's first Pokémon (and only for more than 20 years) is Dactyl, a Purple Core Minior she met when they were on the brink of death after falling to the surface.
Pinball
- Unlike the video games, the Pokémon (2026) gives the players four Pokémon to start with — Charmander, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and Pikachu. Each one is represented by a dedicated ramp or lane, and is used to build the corresponding Elemental Powers for battles.
Video Games
- At the start of Animation Throwdown: the Quest for Cards, you get to choose from one of five heroes: Bob Belcher, Roger Smith, Brian Griffin, Turanga Leela and Bobby Hill, which also determines the cards your starting deck will use. The heroes you don't choose will be unlocked later on in the game through the Arena mode.
- In Asphalt 8: Airborne, your starter car is a Dodge Dart GT. It's easy to upgrade and will be very helpful to you as your first vehicle, even if eventually she will get you to the finish line –on her own sweet time, that is.
- Kewne in Azure Dreams. He is explicitly closely linked to the protagonist—necessarily so, because he's the one who levels up in the protagonist's place. (Or rather, the protagonist de-levels whenever he leaves a dungeon, and Kewne doesn't.) He's also the only monster who doesn't follow the elemental color-coding of the other monsters (Well, aside from the final boss), and has his own special sprite.
- Azur Lane features quite a few "starters" for each category of ship. The absolute classic example of this trope note (pick one of three choices at the start depending on server; they're "Elite" [second-highest] rarity; all ships are bundled together in maps, which will always have a chance of dropping any of the four (once the fourth one is unlocked via collecting and limit-breaking the others) if they drop at all; they're all considered among the top ten destroyers with retrofit upgrades; they're heavily promoted as the cute "starter squad" Cast Herded across national lines) occurs with Javelin, Z23, Laffey, and Ayanami, the destroyers you start the game with. As a Free-to-Play game, the "cheaper" variant of the trope also occurs with some Crutch Character ships in their class that get obsolete fast: Repulse (BC/BB) and Long Island(CV/L). A few strong free ships are also given to the player for simply progressing, without needing to dive into the gacha or map drops: Portland will usually be a player's first heavy cruiser, and Prinz Eugen is another heavy cruiser and typically a player's first "Super Rare" (highest-rarity) ship.
- Beastieball: Axolati, Kichik and Bildit, as well as Sprecko all fall into this category, the first three being presented to the player as a choice, while the final is given to them during their first match regardless of their previous decision.
- Blue Archive: New players get three Strikers in Yuuka, Hasumi, and Suzumi, plus Chinatsu as a Special.
- In Cassette Beasts, the player receives either Candevil or Bansheep, both of which are Beast Type, from Kayleigh when a Traffikrab attacks you. Candevil can be remastered into the Poison type Miasmodeus or Metal type Gumbaal, while Bansheep can be remastered into the Astral type Ramtasm or Earth type Capricorpse.
- In a way, Chrono Cross gives you starter mons too, or rather, starter men; when Serge and Kid arrive at Termina to recruit a third party member for their heist. Here, you can choose between the enigmatic magician Guile, the visual kei bard Nikki, or the wannabe knight Pierre.
- Mobile/DSi game Crystal Monsters gives you a choice between the Grass-type Flowerpower, Fire-type Kiticon, and Water-type Tadpolaris. They can't be obtained anywhere else, but they can be bred.
- In Darkest Dungeon, the player will start with a Highwayman named Dismas and a Crusader named Reynauld. Given that the game is rather difficult, has Permadeath and autosaves to prevent Save Scumming, those two most likely won't last very long, but there's an achievement for taking them to the Final Boss quest.
- The Digimon video games, naturally, use this trope. In many of the standard RPG titles, the player will often be presented with a member of the "Attribute Triangle", picking between a Vaccine type, a Data type, and a Virus type before the journey begins. Usually, the other two options will be made available fairly early on.
- World games (mostly V-Pet-like games):
- In Digimon World, a short questionnaire determines whether you begin with Agumon or Gabumon as your first Partner Digimon. Technically, you only have one Digimon throughout the game, but it can evolve into anything and will be reborn once it dies. And it will die if you play long enough. Depending how you raise it, your reborn partner can be drastically different from their previous incarnation. The Digimon you do recruit are NPCs that provide you all kinds of services.
- Digimon World 2 has you choosing to join one of three Guard Teams, each of which will provide you with your starter based on their type speciality: Vaccine specialists Gold Hawks (changed from Silver Cross) will provide you with Agumon, Data specialists the Blue Falcons give you Patamon, and the Virus-preferring Black Swords give you DemiDevimon/PicoDevimon
- In Digimon World 3, you're actually given a selection from a number of different Starter Mon packs, as opposed to just one. The Balance Pack includes Kotemon, Renamon and Patamon; the Powerful Pack provides Monmon/Koemon, Agumon and Renamon; and the Maniac Pack gives Bearmon (misnamed as Kumamon for this game only), Guilmon and Patamon. Bearmon, Kotemon and Monmon also form the game's resident Vaccine/Data/Virus trio. You can get the Starters you missed out later in the game by acquiring their DDNA (as well as Veemon/V-Mon's) and giving them to DDNA Agents.
- In Digimon World 4,note original title: Digimon World X you start with either Agumon, Veemon, Guilmon or Dorumon as a playable character, but can unlock the other three through side missions.
- Digimon World Re:Digitize: The game doesn't give you an option to choose from, so you always get Agumon as your Partner Digimon, but like in the first World game, your partner can evolve into anything and will be reborn upon death. In Decode, when you have reached the New Game Plus, you can choose between playing as Taiga or Rina, the latter having Veemon as her Partner Digimon.
- Digimon World -next 0rder-: The story starts by giving you WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon from the get-go during the prologue, both of them being Stage 6 Digimon. However, after that prologue battle against Machinedramon/Mugendramon, they revert to two Digi-Eggs, but you can choose which eggs you want to raise, of which there are 10 eggs to choose from. Each egg hatches into a specific Stage 1 Digimon.
- Story games (story-focused RPGs with monster collecting):
- Digimon World DSnote original title: Digimon Story has you choosing between Agumon, Gaomon and Lalamon, in conjunction with the then-airing Digimon Data Squad (Digimon Savers).
- In Digimon World Dawn/Dusknote original titles: Digimon Story: Sunburst and Digimon Story: Moonlight, you also get to choose from different starter "packs." Although they have different supporting 'mons, each pack also contains its versions' unique mascot: Coronamon for Dawn and Lunamon for Dusk. They also include high-stage Digimon that seem unusually strong for the beginning of the game (usually one Champion and one Ultimate, though some packs straight-up have two Ultimates), which are naturally reverted to their Rookie forms early in the plot.
- Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth revives the Vaccine/Data/Virus trend after over a decade of it being phased out, which also marks the first time it's present in a Story game. In this case, you can choose from either Terriermon (Vaccine), Palmon (Data) or Hagurumon (Virus), and you end up saving the one you picked from a rampaging Chrysalimon. In the Master Cup, your Mirror Match counterpart will use the "canon" Mega forms of the three (MegaGargomon/SaintGalgomon, Rosemon and HiAndromon). The manga one-shot gives Takumi all three starters, which respectively digivolve into their usual Champion forms (Gargomon/Galgomon, Togemon and Guardromon).
- Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory instead has the player end up in the Black Market, where they can save either Tentomon (Vaccine), Gotsumon (Data) or Betamon (Virus); the other two are released into the wild after the ensuing scuffle. Promotional material also shows the player with their starters' final forms (TyrantKabuterimon, PileVolcamon and MetalSeadramon), and like the Cyber Sleuth trio above, Keisuke gets all three starters in his manga one-shot, which also digivolve into their usual next stages (Kabuterimon, Golemon and Seadramon).
- Digimon Story: Time Stranger follows the same initial Vaccine, Data and Virus patterns, this time with Gomamon (Vaccine), Patamon (Data) and DemiDevimon (Virus), the latter two being noteworthy since they were starters in a previous game. The release date trailer shows the trio having digivolved into Ikkakumon, Angemon and Devimon, respectively.
- Other Digimon games:
- Digimon Survive: You, as Takuma, get Agumon early on, and throughout the game, you can recruit free Digimon through talking, as well as story-related Partner Digimon along with their human partners by progressing the story. Partner Digimon tend to have better stats, can be buffed by human partners (regardless of the partner), but they have their evolutions locked behind story progress and story route. However, you keep all the partner evolutions (and recruited Digimon) in the New Game Plus. Three of the ten Partner Digimon (Agumon, Gabumon and Renamon) have free counterparts that appear in the middle or later parts of the game, but with different evolution trees, whereas the other seven Partner Digimon (Labramon, Falcomon, Kunemon, Floramon, Lopmon, Dracmon and Syakomon) are exclusive.
- World games (mostly V-Pet-like games):
- In Dinosaur King, your starting mon is determined based on your choice of player character. Max starts with a Triceratops, while Rex gets a Carnotaurus.
- In Disc Creatures, the game gives you a choice between five different starters and lets you pick three of them, ensuring you start the game with a full team: In addition to Fire, Water, and Plant types, there's also an Electric type and an Earth type. The game explicitly warns you that they're all rare, so think carefully about which you want, and they can otherwise only be won as prizes from a random NPC who may or may not spawn in certain towns.
- In Disney Mirrorverse, your first Guardian is Rapunzel, and then you're given a choice of Hercules, Mulan, and Ariel. After that, you get Merida in the gacha tutorial; and then Sulley and Jack Sparrow are awarded for completing early chapters of the game; ultimately giving new players a starting selection of characters from all four categories.
- Dragon Quest Monsters
- The first two games each start you out with an ordinary and humble Slime. For the most part, it's largely because Slime is the Mascot Mook of the Dragon Quest series... but Slimes in the DQM universe do have the potential to learn the single most powerful attack spell in the game, typically only usable by boss monsters and other difficult-to-breed creatures. The Level Cap might keep your starter from learning that spell, but that's not to say its offspring won't be able to.
- Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker instead gives you a choice of a Dracky, a Platypunk, and a Mischievous Mole for your first monster. You also get a special, form-swapping monster partner called Incarnus that's central to the story and a member of the special "???" monster family that normally only holds bosses — but he doesn't actually join you until midway through the second island.
- The Video Game Remake of Dragon Quest Monsters 2 gives you a unique "Montner" ("monster partner") whom you can customize both the appearance and stat growth of. It's part of the special "???" family, it learns a special skill set exclusive to it, it stays the same species whenever you breed it, and in the story, it's the child of an immense, godlike monster who chose your protagonist to guard her egg.
- In Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, the selection of starters is a Platypunk, a Fright Bulb, a Mud Mannequin, and a Cruelcumber.
- Eternal Eyes gives you Mooscue, the game's Mascot Mook, as one of your two starting mons.
- Familiars.io has the selection between Carbon, Cobby, Patch, and Tent for your starter familiar, but you can also find them elsewhere early on.
- Farmagia: Each playable character comes with a default group of Battle Buddies that you can use freely as they are unlocked — Ten comes with Fangs, Leii with Arkies, Arche with Turnies, Chica with Ribbhets, Emero with Salamads, and Anzar with Toytans.
- Fate/EXTRA: At the end of the prologue and that of the semi-sequel Fate/Extra CCC, the player chooses one of three Servants to fight alongside: Saber, Archer, or Caster, with CCC adding a fourth choice in Gilgamesh.
- Fate/Grand Order: The game has two types of Starter Servants:
- The first type is the guaranteed Shielder every player will start with: Mash Kyrielight. She will always be the player's first Servant and she's the only one the player doesn't need to roll or to have partake in events for. She also serves as the player's Signature Mon and the game's Series Mascot.
- In addition to Mash, every new player will perform a Starter Summon, a tutorial-type 10-summon which guarantees them at least one out of ten (later 14) available 4* Servant. The original ten Servants were Siegfried (Saber), Chevalier d'Eon (Saber), EMIYA (Archer), Elisabeth Báthory (Lancer), Marie Antoinette (Rider), Saint Martha (Rider), Carmilla (Assassin), Stheno (Assassin), Heracles (Berserker) and Tamamo Cat (Berserker). The Caster-class was notably the only main class not covered by the ten. As of July 3rd, 2019, five new Starter Servants have been added to the Starter Summon pool, which are Suzuka Gozen (Saber), Atalante (Archer), Parvati (Lancer), Helena Blavatsky (Caster), and Nursery Rhyme (Caster). As of 2022 the available servants are Lakshmibai (Saber), Watanabe no Tsuna (Saber), EMIYA (Archer), Zenobia (Archer), Elisabeth Báthory (Lancer), Valkyrie (Lancer), Astolfo (Rider), Dobrynya Nikitich (Rider), Nitocris (Caster), Circe (Caster), Stheno (Assassin), Yan Qing (Assassin), Heracles (Berserker) and Tamamo Cat (Berserker). Of the original ten, only d'Eon has been removed while the other nine remain within the pool. With this change, each of the seven main classes is represented by two Starter Servants. 5* Servants or other 4* Servants are not available for the Starter Summon. Random 3* Servants that are neither story-locked nor limited are available for the Starter Summon, thus the player is guaranteed to have at least three Servants in their party when they start out. Due to the nature of Starter Summon, it's easy for new players and veterans to reroll it (read: re-start a new game and roll again) to obtain the 4* they desire, with Heracles and EMIYA being the two most popular choices.
- Fire Emblem games often start you off with a number of units but almost all army have a sword wielding lord, two cavaliers with one being red and the other green and a pre-promoted character that powerful but has low stat growths.
- In Fire Emblem Heroes , the player starts with three heroes — Anna, Alfonse and Sharena, the commander of the Order of Heroes, prince of Askr and princess of Askr, respectively. The three cover the weapon triangle, wielding an axe, a sword and a spear, respectively. As part of the tutorial, the player will also receive Takumi, who is an archer and allows the player to field a full team of four.
- Flower Knight Girl: When logging in for the first time, the player pulls one of the following four-star Flower Knights, each having a different attribute: Great Burnet (Magic), Saintpaulia (Slash), Silver Orchid (Blunt) or Turnip Rape (Pierce). All four are also the main characters of Part 1 of the main campaign.
- Fossil Fighters
- The first game has a Spinax who is given to you to start. Spinax is actually a fairly ordinary and easy-to-find fossil in the first area, though he is fairly useful throughout the game.
- The second game takes a more traditional approach to this trope: At the start of the game, Joe Wildwest offers you a choice between four different dinos, one for each main element in the game. All of them possess Super Evolver capabilities and all are fairly strong, and cannot be found until later in the game. You also receive a Tricera after the cleaning tutorial.
- The third game, Fossil Fighters Frontier, has Chompasaurus, a tiny T-rex like dino who can change form and evolve like a more traditional Mon. Your entire group of friends treats him like your Team Pet and he's a special friend of the main character. And he's the de-powered form of a powerful genetically-altered beast.
- Dinosaur-themed RPG Fossil League has a Staurikosaurus who befriends the protagonist the first time he travels back in time. In addition to being a Neutral-element dinosaur who can use many different skill types, he's also the only one of his species you meet, and the only dinosaur you get to name. You can't take him out of your party, and he behaves more closely to a pet than the other dinosaurs you recruit do.
- In Genshin Impact, playing through the prologue will unlock Amber, Kaeya, and Lisa as playable characters in additional to your choice of protagonist; similarly, Noelle is a guaranteed character on the discounted Beginner's Wish gacha roll. Later updates made Barbara, Xiangling, Collei and Lynette unlockable by playing through the early stages of the story (for Barbara) and a unique combat challenge, ensuring that free players (and even those who ignore the gacha after the beginning) have access to at least one character with every element and weapon.
- In Gensou Ningyou Enbu, this is played with somewhat, as while there is a clear starter 'mon (in line with its inspiration by the Trope Codifier), the trope is Exaggerated in a certain way: Specifically, you can pick ANY of the one hundred and eighteen (one hundred and twenty-six in the expansion, Yume no Kakera) to be that starter (And they can all be caught elsewhere). No matter which one you pick, though, they are guaranteed start with maxed happiness, maximum IVs in all stats and come with a unique item, the Dream Shard, which boosts all of their stats by 10%. These three traits, especially the last one, are unique to Starter Puppets. To make note of these, a Starter Puppet also has a unique tag that lists that they were met in 'a fateful encounter'.
- Golden Sun: The first Djinni you find and explains the mechanics is always a Venus-elemental one (Flint in the first and third games, Echo in the second). You also can't not get them no matter how often you refuse, but doing to leads to some of the funnier dialogues.
- Granblue Fantasy: Katalina is the starting Story character, while Walder is the tutorial R character who everyone gets. An update in 2017 included the rigged SSR tutorial draw which gives out a free SSR character of a specific element. They are Carmelina, Melleau, Charlotta, Zeta, Lady Grey, and De La Fille.
- In inviZimals, you have a choice between two insect-like Invizimals, Stingwing and Ironbug, to catch at the beginning of the game.
- Jade Cocoon:
- Downplayed in the 1st game — Levant is a warrior who can fight and catch monsters by himself, but if he completes the monster capture tutorial with Koris, he'll be allowed to keep Arpatron, the water dragon he caught.
- Played straight in the sequel — Kahu must find and hatch a Tamatoch egg before he can fight anything else. At a certain point in the tutorial, Ra will gift him another minion to support it — he can choose either a wind-type with a sleep spell, an earth-type that can summon a defensive wall, or a water-type with a healing spell.
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Northern War: Lavian Winslet, the protagonist of the anime, is one of the first characters party members recruited in the game.
- In Lobotomy Corporation, One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds is always the first Abnormality that you receive, and it's among the easiest ones to manage because it cannot escape and does very little damage to your employees. It later becomes a very useful ally if you run into WhiteNight, as you can call upon it to quickly stop the chaos that ensues whenever WhiteNight escapes.
- Mecharashi starts you off with Kaiden, Dana, Grant, and Ana. In addition to covering the three types of ST, the four also teach the usage of basic skills, with Kaiden and Dana being able to attack up to three times if the destroy a part of an enemy ST with their previous attack (and both have skills that make it easier to destroy specific parts of an enemy), Grant being an introduction to healing and by extension backpack skills, while Ana introduces shields and the Taunt ability.
- Mewgenics starts with Dr. Beanies (the game's morally bankrupt parody of the Pokemon Professors) giving you a choice of three cats and asking you to choose two in order to introduce the breeding mechanics later on. He then tells you that the one you didn't choose was the best of the group before proceeding to send said cat to a grinder for resources.
- Metal Walker has Meta Ball. He's explicitly a good friend of the protagonist, and he's also the Mascot Mook who shows up on the game's box art.
- Moco Moco Friends has Scrunchie, a mysterious, chipmunk-like Plushkin whom no one had ever seen before until Moco befriended her. Unlike other Plushkins, she evolves through story events and learns powerful Light spells.
- Monster Hunter Stories series:
- The first Monster Hunter Stories plays with this. In general, Rathalos ticks all the boxes: rare, powerful, the first "Monstie" that the player meets, forms a special bond with the protagonist, and already a mascot of the parent franchise. However, it suffers a Disney Death at the end of the prologue before you get any actual game time with it. When you actually start playing, you're given a Com Mon Velocidrome instead, and have to wait several hours until about halfway through the game before you're reunited with Rathalos. Once it does reappear, it's even further treated as special, as it opens up a sixth slot in your team roster exclusively for it, and you won't be able to switch it out until the post-game.
- Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin: A Rathalos is again the main, plot-important Monstie, but you don't get it right away as the first few chapters of the game revolve around acquiring and hatching its egg. You again start with Velocidrome instead, though in this case, it's "loaned" to you until you acquire and hatch your first egg, a Kulu-Ya-Ku, after which it decides to stay with you permanently anyway.
- Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection once again has a Rathalos as the focus, but it remains to be seen if you'll actually start with it for once or not.
- Monster Racers has Leafee, Cuboom, and Phoechick. Each one specializes in running on a different kind of terrain (Grass, Sand, and Lava respectively).
- Oddly for a Mons Series, the Monster Rancher franchise usually averts this: Since monsters in the game are randomly generated based on different factors (such as CDs or other games inserted in the console, or strings of code), the player can start with just about any monster they want, and as many as they want. Some breeds are locked from the start, however. Played straight in 4 and Evo where you start out with a Garu and Piroro, respectively.
- In Moonstone Island, you are given a choice between Capacibee, a Weak, but Skilled Lightning Spirit, Anklyo, a Mighty Glacier Earth Spirit, and Sheemp, a damage-over-time specialist Fire Spirit.
- Nexomon gives the player a choice between seven starters: the Normal-type Vulazy, the Water-type Bedam, the Fire-type Sprunk, the Mineral-type Blizo, the Wind-type Fethra, the Electric-type Velokitti, and the Plant-type Petril. All of these can later be found and caught in the wild, though they're relatively uncommon.
- Ni no Kuni:
- The game has Mite, Oliver's first familiar. He is explicitly formed out of Oliver's soul, and his melee attacks remain powerful for most of the game. He's also the first familiar you get to metamorphose into a stronger form, as a tutorial for that mechanic. In the DS version, he's even the only familiar you can't take out of your party.
- Since you don't actually get the ability to recruit familiars until some ways in, you are gradually given a few extra "starters" to tide you over in a Thumbelemur and a Seed Sprite; plus Esther comes with a Drongo when she joins. When you do finally get to recruit your own, you're given a choice of Shonky-Honker, Boggly-Boo, and Lagoon Naiad for free as the recruitment tutorial.
- The console version has a special island that contains only the base versions of the "storyline familiars", such as Mite, as well as the other human characters' default familiars, and those who join you during the story.
- In Octopath Traveler II, Ochette can choose between one of the two animal companions at the beginning of her story. They are Akalā the physical-oriented jackal and Mahina the element-oriented owl. Both animals are stronger than many other beasts in early game, and can still be used to discover enemy weaknesses later on.
- When players are first introduced to the Summoning feature in Onmyoji, they are guaranteed to get a 3-star SR Yuki-onna and a 2-star R Sanbi-no-kitsune. Both are powerful attacker-type shikigami.
- Ooblets has four to choose from, based on what club you join in the beginning — Frunbuns (the cute ones) gives you Tud, Peaksnubs (the elite ones) give you Bittle, Mossprouts (the outdoorsy ones) give you Shrumbo, and Mimpins (the nerdy ones) gives you Sidekey.
- Ova Magica: At the beginning of the game, the player has to choose between the Magma-type horn blob, the Storm-type feather blob, or the Forest-type leaf blob.
- In Paleo Pines, your first dino is Lucky, a Parasaurlophus your Player Character raised from the egg. Not only do you and her have a plot-related special bond, but she also is the only dino who can never leave you due to neglect, and her skills, ground-clearing and sprinting, are necessary for the early game. She's also the only parasaur in the game, as you're searching for what happened to the rest of her family. Even after you find them, she's still the only Sky Blue-colored parasaur in the game, making her one-of-a-kind.
- Palworld starts you naked with no Mons at all and you can fight on your own, but game mechanics all but force you to start with a cattiva, lamball, and chikipi. They are found in abundance where you start, are easy to fight and catch even bare-handed, are useful — if mediocre — to have as base pals, and the game's tutorials heavily encourage starting with one. Cattiva has a myriad of work suitabilities and boosts your carry capacity, lamball drops the all-important wool need to craft a ton of armors and support items, and chikipi is a good source of food on a base. You're free to try starting with things like dinossoms, eikthyrdeer, or hoocrates, but they're much harder to fight and not nearly as useful out the gate.
- Pocket Mortys: Rick starts with his own Morty on his team. Unlike most other Mortys, he can't evolve via fusing with others and lacks an element.
- In Punishing: Gray Raven, Lucia (Lotus), Liv (Eclipse) and Nanami (Storm) are the first three characters you acquire in game, and together form the first Attacker-Support-Armor team the game encourages players to use. They also happen to be the only B-Ranked characters in the game, signifying that they're intended to only last until the player can assemble teams of A or S-ranked characters obtained from the Gacha.
- Puzzle & Dragons:
- In the first game, you're given the choice between Tyrra, Plessie, and Brachy.
- In the 3DS spinoff Puzzle & Dragons Z, the choices are instead Melagon, Zabgon, and Morigon. In plot terms, the Starter Mon's narrative role goes to Syrup, a little dragon that befriends the hero and is the Sleep-Mode Size form of the Skydragon of Life, Zerclea, but he's an NPC that never takes part in combat. As a nod to the parent game, Tyrra, Plessie, and Brachy can be found in the post-game areas.
- For Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition, the Leader characters, Mario and Luigi, have most of the Starting Mon traits; you start with Small versions of each but unlock more versions of both throughout the game. You're also given Red Toad as your first Helper character and a Goomba and Green Koopa Troopa to fill out your Mons roster slots at the start.
- The traditional starter 'bot in Robopon is Sunny, a vaguely rabbit-like red robot. The Japan-only second games also have C-Cell, a battery-like robot.
- Shin Megami Tensei will often start you off with Pixie, a low level tiny fairy with usually the lowest level elec spell and lowest level heal spell.
- Averted in the first two games, where the heroes get the Demon Summoning Program for free, but have to recruit demons on their own. Since the heroes are active combatants, you don't need demons to fight, but it's highly recommended.
- In Shin Megami Tensei NINE, a Cait Sith is automatically added to the party when you enter Idea Space for the first time.
- The first demon recruited in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne is a Pixie who asks the Demi-Fiend to escort her somewhere. If he visits that place, she asks if he wants her to leave; if she leaves, she's gone for good. If she's in your party when visiting a certain spot near the end of the game (it's fine if she'd been fused into a different demon, but don't sacrifice or delete her), she'll evolve into a level 80 Pixie.
- Both Flynn of Shin Megami Tensei IV and Nanashi of Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse obtain Centaur as their starter demon, in very different circumstances.
- In the Shin Megami Tensei spinoff Devil Children, the only installments in the Lighter and Softer Devil Children series to come to the US, there are Rox and Nex; Rox in the dark version and Nex in the light version. They are the human characters' special partners, and can evolve at certain moments in the games (which no other monster can do). They even have special fusion rules associated with them, and can't be removed from the party, either.
- The Persona subseries has the protagonist's initial Persona. While other Personas are mostly generic demons from Shin Megami Tensei games, these initial Personas have unique designs exclusive to the game, and are heavily associated with the protagonists themselves. In addition, they start with level 1, are of the Fool Arcana from 3 onward, and cannot be gotten through random encounters.
- Persona 3 has Orpheus, the starter Persona of the protagonist. It's fairly unremarkable and players will often fuse it away for better Personas. Fairly late in the game, however, you can fuse Orpheus with Thanatos to create the protagonist's ultimate Persona, Messiah. Additionally, in the Updated Re-release versions, a much stronger version, named Orpheus Telos, is available as the highest level and most customizable Persona in the game.
- Persona 4 has Izanagi, the initial Persona of the protagonist. Like Orpheus in the previous game, it's fairly unremarkable and players will often fuse him away. In New Game Plus after getting the True Ending, however, you can fuse Izanagi-no-Okami, a level 90 Persona and the only one of the World Arcana, which requires regular Izanagi as one of its component. It also plays into the story as The Killer's Persona is its Evil Twin, Magatsu Izanagi and the True Final Boss is Izanami, the vengeful wife of Izanagi in the myths. In the Persona 4 Arena duology, the protagonist exclusively uses Izanagi and Izanagi-no-Okami.
- Persona 5: Arsene, who you get at the very start of the game and starts with nothing but a weak physical attack and a weak darkness spell. Leveling him up will take longer than any other Persona in the game, and you'll have to sacrifice dozens of stronger Personas to him to give him enough high-end skills to make him useful beyond the first dungeon, which many players do simply because of his cool design. At the end of the game, Joker breaks Arsene's chains to evolve him into Satanel, who then proceeds to shoot an evil genocidal pretender of God in the head in order to save Christmas. Similar to Persona 4 Arena, Joker exclusively uses Arsene when he appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate despite his lack of power in his home game, which is explicitly noted in the launch trailer but Handwaved away by Rule of Cool.
- Spectrobes actually gives you three starters: Two adult Spectrobes for combat, and one child Spectrobe for finding fossils/gems with. In every game in the series, either the child, one of the adults, or both with be members of the Komainu family, Komainu being the Mascot Mook of the games.
- In Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido, you get Jinrai. He's an all-powerful Sushi Sprite who choses to ally himself with the protagonist, Musashi. He's a major character in the game, participating in most cutscenes, and his power changes all sushi on your side of the board to the same color, so you can link it all freely.
- In the first Telefang games, your Starter Mon depends on your version. Power version nets you the armadillo-like Crypto, while the Speed version gets you the draconic Fungus.
- Temtem offers a choice between three starters right off the bat: the Crystal-type Crystle, the Melee-type Smazee, and the Mental-type Houchic. After your first battle, however, you also receive a Tuwai, which has a variety of different evolutions. You'll still be able to catch these Temtem later in the game, though they're very rare.
- In Wuthering Waves, new players are given several 4-star Resonators for free early into the game. You get Yangyang as soon as you gain control of the player character, then Chixia joins you once you enter Jinzhou, and finally Baizhi is obtained in the scripted tutorial for the game's gacha mechanics. Between them and the Rover, you have access to three of the game's five weapon types and four of its six elements.
- In World of Final Fantasy, you have Tama. While most of the Mirages in the game are classic Final Fantasy monsters, she's a unique design. She's the only one of your Mirages to be a character in her own right, and even though you can remove her from your party, she still appears in cutscenes. She also can't evolve until very late game, when a certain event happens, which allows her to break out of her Sleep-Mode Size and assume her true form as a divine protector.
- In Yo-kai Watch:
- The first Yo-kai you recruit in Yo-kai Watch 1 is Cadin, closely followed by Buhu. Yeah, not Jibanyan, the Series Mascot. Jibanyan himself is the final member of your team of six mons.
- The sequel makes Jibanyan the actual first Yo-kai you recruit, he can't be traded, and unlike in the first game, when you evolve him into either Thornyan or Baddinyan, you can still use his regular form. It also introduces Jibanyan S, an S-Rank version of Jibanyan with the same abilities, but increased stats.
- In Yo-kai Watch 3, since it has the player play as both Nate and Hailey, it introduces Usapyon to be Hailey's Stater Mon. He starts off as a reasonably powerful B-rank, and he also serves as the Deuteragonist in Hailey's half of the story, being both her guide to the world of Yo-kai and having a dream of his own to fulfill (that of going to space).
- In Yo-kai Watch Blasters, the first Yo-kai available are Jibanyan, Sandmeh, Hidabat and Noway, who form Jibanyan's Blasters team.
- In Yo-kai Sangokushi, you have the option to choose between Jibanyan, Komasan or Usapyon as the protagonist, and thus the first Yo-kai to be recruited.
- ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal: Before you leave the First Town, you must choose one three starter fairies offered to you by Rufus: an all-rounder Nature fairy Sillia with a good evolution path, a tanky Stone fairy Grem, or a wonky Water fairy Tadana. The last one seems like an odd choice, except that you won't have a chance to capture another water fairy for quite a while after that.
- Zenless Zone Zero gives Anby, Billy, and Nicole — the focal characters of the first two chapters, conveniently — to the player to get started. Progressing through the story and clearing out the unlocked challenge modes also gifts Ben and Soukaku, providing a minimal representation of the game's five elemental damage types and most of the combat styles (barring the Anomaly specialty) even if a player never uses the game's gacha mechanics to acquire the rest of the cast. That being said, you'll want to immediately replace all of these A-Rank Agents as the game introduces far stronger threats that they are incapable of dealing with quickly and efficiently.
- Zoids Saga has the player making the choice of their starting Humongous Mecha from Shield Liger, Saber Tiger or Raynos.
Web Videos
- Pokémon Legends Neo: Ghetsis: Guardes-in-training are given a choice between three Pokémon to have as a partner. Unlike the starters of the past, which three species they are vary due to general lack of beginner-friendly 'mons in Neo-Kanto. Protagonist Auburn is shown to have had the choice between Snivy, Therpal, and new Pokémon Dreel.