Chansey

Officially classified as the Egg Pokémon, and for once the label undersells it by being so literal. The pouch on its belly produces eggs every day, and everything else follows from that: the Pokédex says it hands them out to injured people out of sheer compassion, and that their nutritional value is so high that “even someone who isn’t hungry will eat them in the blink of an eye.”

Being a walking pantry comes at a price. Other Pokémon go after those eggs, and the more recent entries explain that it has developed great speed to escape them — hence its reputation for rarity: it’s not that it’s hard to see, it runs away before you can get close. Anyone who comes across one can consider themselves lucky, according to the Pokédex itself.

It is 1.1 metres tall and weighs 34.6 kilograms, the kind of figures you’d expect from something huggable rather than a threat. It occupies the middle stage of a three-member line: below Happiny, which carries a round stone as a substitute egg, and above Blissey. All three are pure Normal types, and all three share the same lopsided stat spread, with mountains of HP and 5 miserable points of Attack and Defense.

The distribution of its 450 base stat points leaves no room for compromise: 250 HP, 105 Special Defense, 50 Speed, 35 Special Attack, and then 5 Attack and 5 Defense. With that Defense, any decent physical hit cuts through it even if it still has plenty of HP left. Against special attacks, though, the combination of 250 HP and 105 Special Defense makes it one of the toughest walls around.

The ability that defines it is Natural Cure: switching out clears any status problem, so poisoning or burning it is pointless as long as the trainer has a free slot to pull it back. The alternative, Serene Grace, raises the chance of secondary effects, and with 35 Special Attack there are almost no moves that can take advantage of that. Healer, its Hidden Ability, occasionally cures an ally’s status conditions in Double Battles.

Normal typing gives it nothing on offense — no super-effective hits, resisted by Rock and Steel, and ineffective against Ghost — so its damage comes from somewhere else. Seismic Toss, a Fighting-type Egg Move, deals fixed damage equal to the user’s level and sidesteps the problem of having 5 Attack. Thunder Wave is usually added to slow down fast opponents, along with Stealth Rock to punish switches. Rest, learned via TM, combines with Natural Cure: it falls asleep, heals completely, and wakes up when it switches out.

What holds it back is obvious. Its weakness to Fighting lines up with half the game’s physical arsenal, and there is no ability that can fix that.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Fairy, and is 100% female. Breeding requires pairing it with a male from that same group, Clefairy among others, or directly with Ditto. Its 40 incubation cycles amount to about 10,455 steps, among the longest stretches in the game: the egg takes almost twice as long as a starter’s.

Four moves can hatch with it that it cannot learn any other way. Seismic Toss is the important one, by a mile. Heal Bell restores the entire team’s health in doubles, Present deals damage or healing depending on what it feels like, and Gravity is also available via TM, so it matters little as an Egg Move.

Its evolution conditions are among the more convoluted ones. Happiny evolves into Chansey when it levels up while holding an Oval Stone, and only during the day. Chansey evolves into Blissey when it levels up with friendship at 160 or higher, starting from a base happiness of 140, so most of the journey is already done when you catch it.

Its habitat is urban, and its catch rate of 30 places it among the hardest Pokémon to catch in Generation I — below the 45 of a starter. In the wild, it can hold three different items: Oval Stone, Lucky Egg, and Lucky Punch. It grows at the Fast rate and yields 2 HP EVs when defeated.