Charmander

The flame at the tip of its tail has been burning since the moment it was born and never goes out. The Pokédex entries treat it like a medical reading: bright if the Pokémon is healthy, weak if it is exhausted, and if it were ever extinguished, the Pokémon would die. Another entry adds a finer detail — the flame responds to its mood, flickering only slightly when it is happy and burning fiercely when it is angry. In quiet places, you can hear it crackle.

Under that pilot light is a small, slight creature: 60 centimetres, 8.5 kilograms, bipedal and upright. The official classification calls it the Lizard Pokémon, although both the Japanese and English names point to a salamander. It prefers heat. It is said that steam comes from its tail when it rains, an image that sums up the problem of living with a bonfire attached to you rather well.

It occupies the first step of a three-stage line that climbs very slowly and ends up very high: Charmeleon at level 16 and Charizard at 36. That long wait is part of its character in the game, because for quite a few hours the Trainer is carrying around a creature with 39 HP that promises more than it can deliver. The habitat assigned to it by the Pokédex is the mountains, and its reference colour is red.

The distribution of 309 points leaves no room for ambiguity: 65 Speed and 60 Special Attack at the top, 52 Attack, 50 Special Defense, 43 Defense and roughly 39 HP that leave it at the mercy of almost any priority move. Its EV yield is 1 in Speed, which fits the only thing it does reasonably quickly.

Blaze powers up Fire-type moves when its HP is low, and with 39 HP that threshold arrives early, although it almost always arrives alongside the defeat. Solar Power, its hidden ability, raises Special Attack in sunlight at the cost of draining HP every turn: with such a short HP pool, it is an ability that collects the loan before there is time to use it.

Offensively, Fire serves it well against Grass, Ice, Bug and Steel, and defensively it resists those same types plus Fire and Fairy. What sinks it are its three weaknesses: Water, Ground and Rock, three of the most widely distributed attacking types there are.

In Little Cup, Smogon describes it as directly outclassed by its rivals and places it near the bottom of the format's National Dex ranking. What gives it a reason to exist there is Dragon Dance, uncommon among small Fire types, which boosts Attack and Speed at once and fits with Dragon Claw and Rock Slide. The downside is that it has no priority moves at all and dies to them. In a normal playthrough, the story is different: Fire Fang arrives at level 17 and Flamethrower at 24, and that is enough to get through the game's entire middle stretch.

It belongs to the Monster and Dragon Egg Groups, a combination that lets it breed with starters, pseudo-legendary Pokémon and a good part of the Pokédex's reptiles. The sex ratio is seven males for every female: 12.5% females, so anyone wanting to breed their own line starts by hunting for the female or relying on Ditto.

Its 20 Egg cycles are equivalent to about 5355 steps, an average figure among starters. The Egg can produce worthwhile moves: Dragon Rush, with 100 power, is the strongest attack it can access this early; Belly Drum raises Attack aggressively at the cost of HP; Ancient Power and Iron Tail give it Rock and Steel coverage. It also inherits Counter and Bite.

It evolves into Charmeleon upon reaching level 16, with no items, time requirements, friendship or unusual conditions. It grows at a medium-slow rate, so during the early stages it levels more slowly than an ordinary Pokémon and then makes up for it.

Its catch rate is 45, the same as Squirtle and the other starters, and it fits the category of difficult to catch — a fairly theoretical detail in its case, because it cannot be found on routes in Kanto: it is handed over directly. Its stated habitat, the mountains, describes a place where the original game never actually put it.