The best Pokémon to befriend early

Prioritize Chop and Crush specialists first (Scyther, then Geodude/Graveler) since wood and stone feed almost every early recipe, with Water and Grow specialists close behind for farming.

Nearly every early build — furniture, storage, crafting stations — needs Lumber and Stone, which makes the Chop and Crush specialties the two to chase first. Scyther is the standout early Chop Pokémon: it's available right away in Withered Wasteland, mills Small Logs into Lumber, and is also the Pokémon that teaches Cut, so befriending it covers both wood-gathering and wood-processing at once. Geodude covers Crush from the very start of the game and upgrades naturally into Graveler, which also teaches Rollout — the move that turns terraforming and mining from a slow grind into a fast, satisfying sweep.

After wood and stone are covered, Water and Grow specialists open up farming: Squirtle teaches Water Gun (needed to revive dead terrain and water crops) and Bulbasaur teaches Leafage while carrying the Grow specialty itself, which speeds up crop growth. A sensible befriending order is Chop and Crush first, then Water and Grow to unlock farming and habitat-building, then Burn once you're ready to start smelting ore into ingots and processing glass.

A few non-move Pokémon are worth an early detour too — Drifloon (daily Dream Island access), Vespiquen, and Gulpin (unlocks a storage feature) are called out repeatedly as good early unlocks because their utility keeps paying off for the rest of the game rather than being a one-time boost.

Related: Small Log, Lumber, Stone

Regions: Withered Wasteland