Blastoise

It fires through the tubes in its shell with enough accuracy not to miss a small can placed 50 metres away. Another Pokédex entry measures the jet by its pressure, greater than that of a firefighter’s hose, and a third says outright that it can punch through steel. The artillery is half the picture. The other half is messier: to finish off an opponent, it crushes them under its body weight, 85.5 kg resting on 1.6 metres of a bipedal turtle.

When a fight starts going badly, it does what you’d expect from an animal with a shell: hide inside it. Withdraw, which it has had since level 1, is that habit turned into a move.

Its official category is the Shellfish Pokémon, and the shell matters more than the animal: the cannons aren’t on Squirtle or Wartortle; they appear when it reaches its third stage. The whole line is Water-type, and none of the three stages adds a second type, which sets it apart from Kanto’s other two starters. Its Japanese name is カメックス.

Its 530 points are distributed the wrong way round: 105 Special Defense and 100 Defense ahead of 85 Special Attack and 83 Attack. Its 78 Speed leaves it slower than almost anything that wants to outspeed it, and 79 HP is hardly a generous cushion for such a defensive body. The 3 EVs it gives on defeat, 3 Special Defense, say the same thing.

Torrent boosts Water-type attacks when its HP is low: one strong hit just before going down, and not much more. Rain Dish, its hidden Ability, restores HP while it’s raining, and fits with Rain Dance, which it learns at level 25.

On offense, pure Water doesn’t break anything: half the Pokédex resists it. Defensively, it works better, with just two weaknesses, Grass and Electric. Hydro Pump arrives at level 49 with 110 power, and Wave Crash at 56 with 120, but what really sets it apart is Rapid Spin, at level 9, which clears hazards from its side of the field. Shell Smash, at 35, raises Attack, Special Attack and Speed by two stages in exchange for lowering both defenses by one — in other words, it burns exactly what it does best.

Most published competitive material is about the Mega form from X and Y, which replaces Torrent with Mega Launcher: it powers up Dark Pulse, Dragon Pulse, Aura Sphere and Water Pulse, all four on its TM list. The trick there is to spin and punish the Ghost-types that block the spin with Dark Pulse. Without the stone, 85 Special Attack is the ceiling, and from that ceiling Hydro Pump doesn’t take down anything that isn’t weak to Water.

It belongs to the Monster and Water 1 Egg Groups, making it an easy match with starters from other regions and much of the aquatic fauna. The gender ratio is seven males for every female: 12.5% female, so starting your own line means finding that female or relying on Ditto. Its 20 Egg cycles come to about 5355 steps.

From its Egg Move list, the ones worth having are Aqua Jet, a priority attack that partly makes up for its 78 Speed; Yawn, to force switches; Aqua Ring and Life Dew, which address the line’s real problem: it has no decent recovery; and Mirror Coat, which sends special damage back at the attacker. All of them have to be taught to Squirtle, not the final form.

The evolution has no trick to it: Squirtle evolves into Wartortle at level 16 and Wartortle into Blastoise at 36, with no items, time requirements or friendship. It grows at a medium-slow rate, one of those Pokémon that lag behind at first and pull ahead later. Its habitat is the water’s edge, and its catch rate, 45, belongs to a Pokémon that doesn’t give itself up: the same figure shared by almost all starters, with the particularity that in Kanto none of the three can be caught in grass.