Grumpig

The black pearls it wears look like costume jewelry, but they’re machinery. Two small ones on its forehead, and a large, flat one over its belly: that’s where its psychic waves are amplified, and the Pokédex entries always repeat the same routine — a strange dance, the pearls gathering the movement, and the opponent’s mind completely under its control. When it pushes that power too hard, breathing becomes difficult and it snorts heavily. That’s the only pig-like thing it does in its entire description.

The rest of its body certainly is. Purple on top, black ears and limbs, a pink snout, an upright stance, and a curled tail that’s what remains of the spring Spoink used to bounce on. It stands 90 centimetres tall and weighs 71.5 kilograms, a density you wouldn’t guess at a glance: by height, it looks like something you could pick up; by mass, it’s an adult human.

The official category doesn’t say what it is, but what it does to others: the Manipulate Pokémon. The pearls also have a second life outside battle, since one of the entries says they’re considered valuable works of art. Awkward, for an animal that needs to wear them.

The line ends here. Two forms, with no branches or regional variants, and the second one arrives by levelling up to level 32.

Its 470 points are spread with a clear idea and one glaring hole. The 110 Special Defense is the high figure, 90 Special Attack is enough to hit back, and 80 HP with 80 Speed leaves it in the middle: it moves before walls and after almost every attacker. The problem is twofold. With 65 Defense, any neutral physical hit gets through cleanly, and its 45 Attack is a stat you can cross off entirely.

Thick Fat is the ability that defines it: it weakens Fire and Ice, two types that often break through a defensive specialist, and neither appeared among its weaknesses, so it covers new gaps instead of patching old ones. Own Tempo only prevents confusion. Gluttony, its hidden ability, makes it consume its held Berry sooner, and wild specimens carry a Persim Berry or a Tanga Berry.

Being a pure Psychic type gives it little on the offensive side. It resists Fighting and Psychic, struggles against Bug, Ghost, and Dark, and the last of those is also immune to its preferred attack. The sensible plan is Calm Mind, which raises both Special stats at once, followed by Psychic — which it learns late, at level 52 — or Psychic Noise, which stops its target from healing. Shadow Ball is the usual answer to Ghost types coming in to exploit the gap.

It doesn’t measure up in serious formats: it holds one side and collapses on the other. Where it does its job is as support and in a normal playthrough — it learns Trick Room by TM and, with 80 Speed, sets it before most of the slow Pokémon it benefits, and on a journey through Hoenn it fills the role of a Fighting-type specialist that can absorb those attacks.

A single Egg Group, Field, which is the most populated in the Pokédex, and a clean 50% female split. Breeding it is completely straightforward. Its 20 hatch cycles work out at roughly 5355 steps, an average figure.

It has no Egg Moves. None. Everything it knows comes from levelling up or TMs, and its TM list is long, so breeding here is only useful for its characteristics and nothing else.

The evolution doesn’t ask for anything special either: Spoink reaches level 32 and that’s it. No item, no time of day, no friendship, no trading. Its growth rate is Fast, so it reaches level 32 earlier than most species. Defeating it gives 165 base experience and two effort points in Special Defense, which fits its stat spread.

Its habitat is the mountains. A catch rate of 60 sits in the awkward zone: it doesn’t force you to spend half your bag, but it won’t stay in the first Ball either. Its base friendship is the standard 70.