Well, Fenniken is certainly not a bad starter. It's typing makes it an early game menace. Fire and psychic are good against all rivals typing, all doubled gym leaders typing, a lot of early game gym leaders typing. Even Shade makes the pkmn usefull, with doublades and trevenant secondary typing. Chesnaught was quite usefull to be honest in my hardcore run: hammer arm, curse, leech seed and spiky shield made it a very good pkmn to me. Froakie was the most dissapointing, it was quite frail and didn't get a lot of moves making it very lackluster over time. Late game I'm feeling its getting better but I still have my doubts.