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In Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire in addition to Mew/Celebi/Jirachi/Deoxys, Chikorita is also not required to obtain the National Pokédex. Therefore, you can obtain just 381 Pokémon (386 minus those 5).

If it is more optimal over the Emerald Generation II starters gift, it might save a little time for any% diploma because you could trade over purified Shadow Bayleef from Colosseum and not have to breed it.

This glitch doesn't occur in FireRed/LeafGreen, Emerald and later games.

Actually Treecko is technically not required for the National Dex diploma either, but the Hoenn Dex check (in which Treecko is required) prevents that from happening under normal circumstances.

Explained here:

https://github.com/pret/pokeruby/blob/0ea1e7620cc5fea1e651974442052ba9c52cdd13/src/pokedex.c#L4081

"
// BUG: This function indexes pokemon checks by 0, but adds
// 1 before passing to GetSetPokedexFlag. Normally, this is
// fine, because GetSetPokedexFlag subtracts by 1 to get the
// array index value, but since the array is 0 indexed
// starting with Bulbasaur, values passed actually means that
// dex entries 152 (Chikorita) and 252 (Treecko) are skipped.
// Because an earlier Hoenn Dex check prevented Treecko from
// being skippable, it means that Chikorita is not required
// to obtain the National Diploma. This was fixed in Emerald. "