Exeggcute

A bunch of coconuts hanging from a palm tree: that’s what you’re looking at, whatever the name and faces might suggest. The six pink shells look like eggs, and the Pokédex itself goes out of its way to deny it — even though they really do look like eggs, they’ve been confirmed to function as seeds, and another entry adds that the creature contains genes from plants and other species. The official category, Egg Pokémon, keeps the misunderstanding going on purpose.

The six aren’t just decoration. They communicate with each other telepathically and, if something scatters them, regroup on their own; if it loses one, it grows back the next morning. The whole set measures 40 centimetres and weighs 2,5 kilograms, so each head is roughly the size of a real large egg.

The shell is also the clock for its evolution. When the cracks multiply and the compact pineapple starts splitting apart, Exeggutor is just around the corner, marking the end of a two-step evolution line. Life is worse in Alola: the entries in Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon describe it defending itself with its psychic powers against constant attacks from Crabrawler, which mistakes the bunch for food.

325 badly distributed points. The only respectable figure is 80 Defense, and it comes with 45 Special Defense, 60 HP and a pair of 40s in Attack and Speed that rule out any kind of trade. Its 60 Special Attack is its route to dealing damage, and that isn’t much: Solar Beam, with its 120 power, comes from a stat that doesn’t back it up.

Chlorophyll doubles Speed in sunlight. The problem is where it starts from — a doubled 40 is still slower than any reasonable attacker, so the Ability only makes it fast compared with itself. Harvest, its Hidden Ability, returns the consumed Berry at the end of the turn and does so without fail in sunlight; it’s the more interesting of the two, and the one that justifies keeping it unevolved on a sun team.

Defensively, the combination is one of the worst in the first generation. Bug deals quadruple damage, because both Grass and Psychic are weak to it separately, and Fire, Ice, Poison, Flying, Ghost and Dark all hit it super effectively as well. In return, it resists Water, Electric, Grass, Ground and Fighting.

What it has are status moves, not attacks. Hypnosis from level 1, Leech Seed at 10 and Reflect at 5 let it steal health and get in the way while the team sets up, and Giga Drain at 35 gives it an attack that heals as well. It works at the start of a normal playthrough, when putting the opponent to sleep is worth more than dealing damage, and as a Sunny Day user with Synthesis, which restores considerably more HP in sunlight at level 25. Against a Steel type, it has nothing to work with: neither of its types hits it effectively.

The Grass Egg Group and nothing else, which cuts the possible partners down to the plant half of the Pokédex; with a 50 % female ratio, at least there’s no need to wrestle with the sex distribution. The 20 hatch cycles come to roughly 5355 steps, neither especially fast nor especially slow.

It gets eight egg moves, and two are worth the trip: Ancient Power is its only way to deal Rock-type damage to the Fire, Ice and Flying types that destroy it, while Moonlight gives it recovery that doesn’t depend on sunlight, unlike Synthesis. Sleep Powder and Stun Spore round out the status repertoire; Block and Ingrain are for unusual playthroughs.

Its evolution has no minimum level or hidden condition: use a Leaf Stone and that’s it. Where you use it does matter, because in Alola the same stone produces the regional form instead of the regular Exeggutor.

It lives in forests, and in the wild it may be holding a Psychic Seed. Its catch rate, 90, puts it in the middle ground — much easier to handle than the 45 of a starter, nowhere near the 255 of a first-route Pokémon. It grows at a slow rate, so levelling it takes more effort than its stats justify, and defeating it yields 1 Defense effort point.