Dodrio

Three long necks grow from the same body, and none of them has wings underneath. Each head ends in a beak and functions on its own, so while one attacks, the other two keep watch; the Pokédex puts it bluntly: anyone who loses sight of one of them ends up receiving an enormous number of pecks. It is 1.8 metres tall and weighs 85.2 kilograms, almost all legs and neck.

It appears when one of Doduo’s two heads splits, and the multiplication does not stop at the visible part: inside, it has three hearts and three pairs of lungs. With that equipment, it crosses grasslands at 60 km/h and can handle long distances without running out of breath, which is what a flightless bird needs to survive.

The symbolic reading goes back to the first generation and has been repeated ever since. The three heads represent joy, sadness and anger, and that same entry also describes it as a rare species that is difficult to find. Its official category is the Triple Bird Pokémon.

It completes a two-stage line and does not evolve into anything else. It is the end of the road for one of Kanto’s earliest families, the one that is fully completed before level 31.

110 Attack and 110 Speed are the only two respectable figures among its 470 points. Everything else is below the minimum: 60 HP, 70 Defense, 60 Special Attack and 60 Special Defense. It hits fast and hard, then goes down to almost anything that hits it first, including any priority move.

Its three abilities are among the weakest in the game. Run Away only lets it flee from wild Pokémon. Early Bird halves the time it spends asleep, which only matters after something has put it to sleep. Tangled Feet, its Hidden Ability, raises its Evasion while it is confused, meaning it requires a status condition that nobody causes on purpose. None of the three affects its damage.

Attacking with Normal and Flying is flat by definition: nothing double-resists it except Rock and Steel, but it is not super effective against much either. The route is Swords Dance, at level 34, followed by Thrash at level 50, with 120 power and guaranteed confusion once it ends, or Brave Bird by TM, with its recoil. Quick Attack, available at level 1, finishes off anything left weakened. Tri Attack, which it learns upon evolving, is special, and with 60 Special Attack it is not worth using.

Defensively, it inherits two convenient immunities, Ghost and Ground, and three widely spread weaknesses: Electric, Ice and Rock. A Zapdos wipes it out without breaking a sweat.

Where it does the job is in a normal playthrough, halfway through the adventure. It evolves at 31, arrives with 110 Speed while the opposing team still does not break 80, and clears routes with Peck and Drill Peck.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Flying, so it can breed with the rest of the birds and little else. The gender ratio is straightforward, with 50% females, so capturing two specimens is enough to get started without depending on a Ditto.

The 20 incubation cycles equal about 5355 steps, a slow egg for what a first-generation Pokémon usually takes. Four moves can come from the egg: Sky Attack, with 140 power and a charging turn; Assurance; Whirlwind; and Flail, which gains power the less HP it has left. The last one pairs with Endure, which it learns by TM, although it is a plan that depends on surviving with a single hit point.

The evolution condition has no trick to it: Doduo reaches level 31 and that is it. No items, no friendship, no time of day. Dodrio does not evolve afterwards.

Its habitat is grassland. A catch rate of 45 puts it among the difficult ones: with a normal Poké Ball and the opponent at half health, things drag on. In the wild, it can be holding a Sharp Beak. Defeating it awards 2 Attack effort points and 165 base experience, and it grows at a medium rate, without the penalty of those that need a million and a half points.