Charmeleon

A curved horn grows from the back of its head and points backwards, its scales have darkened to an almost burgundy red, and the claws on its hands are now three usable points. That's the whole change from Charmander: 1.1 metres, 19 kilos and a temperament the Pokédex entries describe without any euphemism. Aggressive, quite literally.

Its method of attack is repeated entry after entry and is always the same. First, a tail swipe to knock the opponent down, then its claws to finish it off on the ground. Its tail also serves as a mood indicator: swinging it raises the temperature of wherever it is, and when a battle truly excites it, the flame at the tip stops being orange and burns bluish white. Against a strong enemy, that change of colour is what announces that it has got serious.

The official category, Flame Pokémon, makes it clear where the design's focus lies. It occupies the middle slot in a three-stage line, the phase that lasts exactly twenty levels—from 16 to 36—and in which the creature still can't fly and hasn't gained its second type yet. In the wild, its habitat is the mountains.

405 points distributed with a clear idea and no safety net: 80 Special Attack and 80 Speed at the top, 64 physical Attack in the middle, and at the bottom 58 HP alongside 58 Defense that can't take a hit. Special Defense is left at 65. It's a fast glass cannon, and pure Fire typing doesn't help hide it: it resists six types, yes, but its three weaknesses are Water, Ground and Rock, the most common ones around.

What gives it a real niche is Solar Power, its hidden Ability. With sun active, its Special Attack rises at the cost of losing HP every turn, and with those base 80 converted into actual numbers, Flamethrower—which it learns at level 30—and Fire Blast stop being filler moves. Smogon has it classified in NFE, where it has hovered between C− and C+ depending on the generation, and always for the same reason: it works as a fast attacker with a held item on a sun team, and outside that team it does nothing that someone better can't do.

Blaze, its standard Ability, only activates below one third of its HP, and with 58 HP that threshold comes around too soon to exploit deliberately. Dragon Dance is in its TM list and is tempting, but 64 Attack is still 64 Attack. The underlying problem is timing: Charizard reaches level 36 with 109 Special Attack and 100 Speed, and very few normal playthroughs give you a reason to stay here.

It belongs to the Monster and Dragon Egg Groups, a combination that lets it breed with both the large reptiles from the first generation and the dragon lines. Its gender ratio is the usual one for starters: 12.5% female versus 87.5% male, so getting a female breeder is harder than breeding afterwards.

The 20 incubation cycles amount to about 5355 steps, and the egg always hatches into Charmander, not this form. That's where Egg Moves come in, and the trip is worth it for Dragon Rush, with 100 physical power, and Iron Tail, another 100-power move that also covers Fairy-types. Ancient Power and Belly Drum round out a list that's stranger than it looks for a fire lizard.

The evolution requirement has no trick to it: it levels up to level 16 from Charmander and becomes Charizard at level 36. No stones, no items, no times of day and no trades. It grows at a medium-slow rate, the kind that lags behind for a good part of the game.

Its catch rate is 45, the same one carried by almost all starters and their evolutions: difficult to catch, with a normal Poké Ball at full HP the odds don't go above one in eight. Its recorded habitat is the mountains, although in practice it is rarely found in the wild. It yields 1 Special Attack EV and 1 Speed EV, which fits what the species is meant to be.