Gastly

Under house eaves is where to look for it when the wind picks up. The air carries away some of its gaseous matter and its body shrinks, so they gather in shelter until the wind dies down. Inside an abandoned building, the warning is different: a faint light where there shouldn't be one.

The Pokédex entries can't agree on its origin, and that's part of the character. One says it was born from poisonous gases capable of suffocating anyone caught in them. Another says it was clouds of gas rising from a cemetery that came to life, imbued with resentment. They all agree on the method: it wraps itself around its opponent, no matter how large, and chokes it.

It is 1.3 metres tall and weighs 100 grams. The imbalance is literal, because almost all of what it occupies is gas, while its visible body is reduced to a dark sphere surrounded by a violet halo. You don't see one coming, you smell it: it gives off a sweet scent that gives it away before you spot it.

The official category, Gas Pokémon, leaves little room for interpretation. It is the first of three stages: at level 25 it evolves into Haunter, which in turn needs a trade to become Gengar. Its registered habitat is the cave.

Its 310 base stat points are split with absolutely no attempt at balance: 100 Special Attack and 80 Speed on one side; 30 HP, 30 Defense and 35 Special Defense on the other. Anything that gets through knocks it out. And the 35 Attack leaves half the TM list as decoration, because a creature with no hands learns Poltergeist, with 110 power, and the three 75-power elemental punches.

Levitate is its only Ability, with no Hidden Ability, and it does one very specific job: it cancels the Ground weakness it carries because of its Poison typing. That leaves three: Psychic, Ghost and Dark. In return, Normal and Fighting do absolutely nothing to it. Offensively, Ghost works against Psychic and other Ghost types; Poison punishes Grass and Fairy and crashes into Steel.

Three parts of its movepool matter. Nasty Plot doubles its Special Attack in one turn. Shadow Ball, at level 40, is its strong same-type attack. Hypnosis, at 4, puts the opponent to sleep when it hits, which is nowhere near guaranteed.

It isn't competitive, and the reason is built into its own evolutionary line: Gengar does the same thing with bigger numbers, so nobody brings the smaller stage when they can bring the fully evolved one. Where it does perform is in a normal playthrough, and early on. Its two immunities leave entire routes with no way to damage it, and with Mean Look, at level 8, it can stop an opponent from escaping and wear it down at its leisure while the rest of the team gets some breathing room.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Amorphous, the category for bodies with no fixed shape. That narrows its breeding options, but pairs it with species that look nothing like it. The sex ratio is no surprise: 50% female.

The 20 incubation cycles come to about 5355 steps, a slow egg for something so insubstantial. They produce eight moves that aren't in the level-up list, and two deserve attention. Perish Song counts down three turns and takes out whatever is still on the field. Reflect Type copies the opponent's types. With Mean Look preventing a switch, the first stops being a curiosity. Astonish, Smog, Clear Smog, Disable, Toxic and Haze complete the list.

Its evolution hides nothing: at level 25 it becomes Haunter, with no item, time of day or friendship involved. The complication comes afterwards, when Haunter requires a trade.

The catch rate is 190 out of 255, one of the easy ones. A regular Poké Ball is almost always enough once you lower its HP a little, although with 30 base HP the problem is usually the opposite: taking it too far. It grows at a medium-slow rate and gives 62 base experience points and one Special Attack EV when defeated.