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Magikarp/Gyarados
Type: Water, Water/Flying (Gyarados)
Ability(s): Swift Swim (Magikarp), Intimidate (Gyarados)
The usual tale about something being a burden to your team until the painstakingly fucking slow evolution at Lv20 or so apples to Magikarp, because let's face it. Magikarp's start sucks donkey cock. Being caught at only Lv5-10 with an old rod, he only knows Splash, which is GameFreak's way of telling you that you have to use bait-and-switch methods to grind your fish. The best case scenario is that you will have to do this for 5 levels until Lv15, when Magikarp gets Tackle, but even then, it is pointless to attack with him since his attack is rock bottom. Actually, all of Magikarp's stats suck royal amounts of ass except defense (55) and speed (80), so don't expect anything good.
After 10-15 painstaking long levels (should happen by the third gym), your crappy fish finally evolves, but unfortunately, Gyarados is lacking in quality moves. Even so, Tackle is going to hurt thanks to a monstrous 125 base attack, and he's fairly fast too, with 81 speed. He does get Bite early on to combat things that resist normal, but good luck hurting things with a 60 SpA base. One thing that Gyara wishes he had during the midgame was some STAB, but alas, he doesn't learn any flying moves through level-up (or at all) and Hydro Pump isn't learned until Lv40, not to mention that the Surf HM doesn't show until after Norman and Water Pulse is unavailable until the endgame, so Gyara's midgame contributions are somewhat limited gym wise, though he tears up regular enemies with Thrash (which you can get from the relearner using a heart scale, which are obtainable early on). Oh, and forget about using him against Watson unless you want some Hoenn Fried Serpent.
Lategame is a bit kinder to Gyara, as he now has some usable STAB. Even if it is coming off a 60 base SpA, Surf is still going to hurt assuming it's SE or the target has poor SpD. And while his gym performance is still quite bad, he is decent if not good against the twins thanks to everything they have except Xatu being weak to water, and he can set up on Juan if he has acquired Dragon Dance by this point thanks to his water resistance and 95/79/100 defenses. It is also around this point (actually a bit before), that Gyara gets Earthquake access, allowing him to do consistent physical damage without getting trolled by ghosts. Speaking of ghosts, while Gyara does ok against the elites, he's not amazing there either.
Other than normal type moves and EQ, Gyara is kind of shafted as far as movepool goes. He does get a crapload of special moves (Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Flamethrower), but with that piddly 60 base SpA, don't expect them to do more than your physical moves unless you are targeting a 4x weakness.
Also, if it means anything, you can catch high level Gyarados in the Sootopolis lake using the super rod. Of course, they have a chance of being low leveled, but the chances of getting a Lv30+ Gyara are pretty good anyway.
Overall, Gyarados is a very strong powerhouse who won't disappoint most of the time.
7/10
Tentacool/Tentacruel
Type: Water/Poison
Ability(s): Clear Body/Liquid Ooze
Another Pokemon you can catch using the Dewford old rod, Tentacool is like the Zubat or Poochyena of the seas; they are everywhere, especially when surfing. However, Tentacool's earlygame is, well, crap. He is stuck with a relatively crappy moveset until Lv25, when he learns Bubble Beam, which means that his damage output is fucking atrocious. For this reason, players who want to use Tentacool are better off waiting until after they get Surf, when they can catch one at ~Lv25. However, assuming you catch him early and actually make an effort to use him, he should reach Lv25 around the time you face Team Magma for the first time, where he can pick off Maxie's Camerupt and soon after, dominate the Lavaridge gym, and even his evo time is perfect in Hoenn's main game.
Tentacruel's stats are hard not to appreciate, even though there are water types out there with better SpA. Even coming off a 80 SpA base, STAB Surf is going to hurt a lot, and Sludge Bomb gives him some additional STAB to work with. Unlike with the second generation, Tentacruel does have Ice Beam access during the main game, allowing him to smite Drake's dragons with hard, cold 4x damage, and thanks to his high 120 SpD, he isn't threatened by any of them except Flygon (who you should outspeed and OHKO anyway).
In a nutshell, Tentacruel is a fast, bulky Pokemon who has good enough offenses to do what you need him to do. His typing allows him to take on the likes of Flannery and Juan, and even some of the elites thanks to Ice Beam nuking Drake's dragons. If you really wanted to (not that it's a good idea), you could have Tentacruel help out against the twins thanks to Surf hitting pretty much everything they have and him having enough SpD to handle a Psychic or two. However, due to the nature of double battles, this will usually result in your Tentacruel being double Psychic'd. Not good.
All in all, Tentacruel is a pretty potent Pokemon in Hoenn despite the issues regarding his start. But that start is quite bad, so he gets a...
7/10
Goldeen/Seaking
Type: Water
Ability(s): Swift Swim/Water Veil
FUCK YEAH SEAKING!
Goldeen is the last Pokemon you can catch using the old rod, so he has some availability, but unlike the other two, Goldeen is not worth it.
Where to start, where to start... What makes Goldeen stand out from the other earlygame water types is that he starts with Peck, which gives grass types something to think about, as well as making bugs cry and fighters quiver. The only issue with that claim is that Taillow does the whole "kill fighting/grass types earlygame" thing better thanks to STAB, even though Goldeen has 67 attack to Taillow's 55 (Taillow also gets Wing Attack early). Like Magikarp and Tentacool, Goldeen lacks any sort of natural STAB until later on, in his case, he has to wait until Lv41 to get Waterfall. Of course, you'll have the Surf HM long before that happens, but before HM03 shows up, Goldeen is pretty helpless against rocks and steels.
So once you get Surf, Goldeen finally becomes good, right? lolno. He takes until Lv33 to evolve, and before then, he's stuck with a shitty 35 base special attack to make use of Surf. And while it does improve upon evolving, 65 SpA is still barely higher than what Gyarados has. Still, Surf will hit decently hard, and later on, he can be a rather subpar (READ: shitty) user of Ice Beam for dragons. Why couldn't he keep his SpA from RBY, I don't know, but even there he wasn't great.
Physical attack is this line's forte, but Goldeen's movepool in that category is shallower than the pool of moments for GrayLu and NaLi. Early Horn Attack at Lv15 is cute and all, and there's the Secret Power TM, but all in all, Seaking's coverage is terrible. While Seaking can technically learn Megahorn, he doesn't have it in his learnset in Emerald, and even if he did, it's learned at Lv69. Teaching him Return can alleviate the coverage issue a bit, but once lategame hits, Seaking is way past fucked. It does not help that he is slow and has terrible physical durability.
Goldeen sucks ass in this gen, he sucked ass before, and he still sucks ass to this day.
3.5/10
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