Cubone

It’s the first half of a two-stage line, and what separates it from Marowak is more than just reaching level 28. One Pokédex entry puts it bluntly: it evolves once it has managed to overcome the loss of its mother. Until then, it wears her skull and never takes it off, so nobody knows what its face looks like underneath.

Everything else is a small, brown reptile, 40 centimetres tall and weighing 6.5 kilos, that walks upright and carries a bone like a club. The entries keep coming back to its crying. At nightfall, it breaks down in tears thinking about its mother, and the streaks running across the skull are made by the tears it sheds. That crying comes at a cost: it gives away its position to Mandibuzz, which dive-bomb it as soon as they hear it. The official category, Lonely Pokémon, is not a metaphor.

It’s pure Ground, with no second type to soften the spread. It lives in the mountains, and some wild specimens carry a Thick Club, the item only this line can make use of. Its listed form is bipedal, and all six Pokédex entries collected here talk about the same thing: its dead mother.

The total is 320 points, and the spread is skewed in one direction: 95 Defense against 50 HP, 50 Special Defense, 40 Special Attack and 35 Speed. It can take a physical hit and falls apart to anything special, because 50 HP doesn’t support much.

The Thick Club fixes exactly that number: it doubles the Attack of this species and its evolution, and nobody else’s. In its hands, those 50 perform like 100, which is a high figure in a format for unevolved Pokémon. Rock Head completes the idea by removing recoil damage, so Head Smash (level 48, 120 power) and the 130-power move it gets as an Egg Move hit without giving anything back. Earthquake comes from TM with a fixed 100 power, while Bonemerang, learned at level 40, deals 50 power in two hits. Swords Dance also comes from TM.

Everything else is what holds it back. With 35 Speed, it moves last against almost any rival in its category, Ground does nothing to Flying-types, and its three weaknesses—Water, Grass and Ice—are among the most common around. Lightning Rod sounds better than it is: it already has immunity to Electric because it’s Ground-type, and the Special Attack boost lands on a stat of 40. Its only real use is in doubles, redirecting Electric moves aimed at its partner. Battle Armor, its Hidden Ability, blocks critical hits and little else.

Outside formats that pit unevolved Pokémon against each other, there’s no reason to bring it over its own evolution. In a normal playthrough, it works as a mid-game physical wall, yielding 1 Defense EV per defeat.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Monster, which lets it breed with most of the bulky reptiles in the Kanto Pokédex and with lines such as Rhydon. The gender split is clean: 50% female, without the skew that complicates other breeding projects.

The 20 Egg Cycles work out at roughly 5355 steps, an average figure that doesn’t force you to cycle around forever. The Egg gives it ten moves, and three of them justify the detour: Head Smash, with its 130 power, which only makes sense alongside Rock Head; Iron Head, an 80-power Steel-type move that is the only decent coverage it gets against Ice and Fairy; and Curse, which raises Attack and Defense at the cost of Speed, something that barely hurts a Pokémon with 35. Belly Drum and Perish Song are there more for curiosity than usefulness.

Evolution doesn’t require items or friendship: level 28 and that’s it. The exception is Alola, where reaching level 28 has to happen at night and produces a different form. It grows on the Medium Fast experience curve, with no delays or early evolutions.

In the wild, it appears in mountainous areas. Its catch rate is 190 out of 255, far from the starters’ 45 and close to the easy end of the scale: an ordinary Poké Ball with the opponent somewhat weakened is usually enough. It’s worth catching several, because around 5% of them are holding a Thick Club.