Hitmontop

Upside-Down Pokémon. The official category describes a stance, and everything else follows from it: it fights balanced on the horn growing from the top of its skull, with its body spinning and its legs sticking out, and only stands upright when there is nothing left to hit. Pokédex entries have been repeating this since the second generation. It does handstands, spins quickly and dishes out kicks; one says the technique is both offensive and defensive, while another says it moves faster by spinning on itself than by walking. It is also said that centrifugal force multiplies its destructive power tenfold, and that if it picks up enough speed it can bore a hole into the ground.

It is 1.40 metres tall and weighs 48 kilograms, a compact body on disproportionately long legs. In the wild, it usually carries a Black Belt.

Within its evolutionary line, it occupies the strangest of the three spots: Tyrogue can end up as Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan or this one, and the latter arrived in Gold and Silver to complete a duo that had already existed since Kanto. The other two branches kick or throw punches. This one spins.

Its 455 base points are the same total spread across its two brothers, just arranged differently. Its 110 Special Defense is the highest figure on the sheet, Attack and Defense are tied at 95, and Speed stops at 70. The two numbers that drag it down sit at the top and in the middle: 50 HP, which turns those decent defenses into middling staying power, and 35 Special Attack, which leaves all the special moves it learns by TM dead on arrival.

The ability that defines it is Intimidate: when it enters the field, it lowers the opponent’s Attack by one stage, which combined with 95 Defense turns it into an emergency brake against physical attackers. The alternative is Technician, which boosts moves with 60 power or less by 50%, and it does have the tools for that — Feint, Triple Kick, and, through breeding, Mach Punch and Bullet Punch, two priority attacks that partly make up for its Speed. Steadfast, its hidden ability, raises its Speed when it flinches and rarely matters.

As a pure Fighting type, it hits Normal, Rock, Steel, Ice and Dark types well, resists Rock, Bug and Dark, and takes double damage from Flying, Psychic and Fairy. Close Combat, at level 36, is its serious attack, and lowers both defenses when used. Sucker Punch, at 24, punishes anyone who tries to attack.

It is not a front-line Pokémon. What it knows how to do is switch in, weaken a physical attacker, clear hazards with Rapid Spin (level 16) and get out.

It is a species with no females: 0% of specimens are female, so its only possible breeding partner is Ditto, and the egg always hatches into Tyrogue, never directly into Hitmontop. It belongs to the Human-Like Egg Group. Its 25 incubation cycles amount to around 6630 steps, putting it among the longer stretches.

Its egg-move repertoire is one of the best parts of its entry, largely because of what Technician does with it: Mach Punch, Bullet Punch, Feint, Vacuum Wave, Rapid Spin, Counter and High Jump Kick, the latter with 130 power and the risk of crashing into the ground if it misses.

Its evolution condition is the strictest in the old Pokédex. Tyrogue evolves upon reaching level 20, and becomes Hitmontop only if its Attack and Defense are exactly equal at that moment; if one exceeds the other by even a single point, Hitmonlee or Hitmonchan appears instead. It is worth keeping an eye on the vitamins and EVs distributed along the way.

Its recorded habitat is urban, it grows at a medium rate and gives 2 Special Defense EVs when defeated. Its catch rate, 45, puts it in the difficult bracket: without weakening it first, a normal Poké Ball will almost always fail.