Hypno

Seventy-five kilos and six hundred grams spread across one metre sixty. Those are adult human measurements, and the design goes in the same direction: bipedal, with five-fingered hands, a white mane, and a pendulum held the same way you would hold a tool for work. Under the yellow there is a tapir — the snout gives it away — and behind the tapir is the baku, the creature from Japanese folklore that eats dreams.

The Pokédex entries are some of the most uncomfortable in the game. Just watching the pendulum swing and shine is enough to fall asleep in three seconds, even if you have only just woken up. Once the person is asleep, it samples their dreams; if it likes them, it keeps them with it. An old entry says it made a child it had hypnotised disappear. Another says that people suffering from insomnia consider it their salvation. Both things are in the same file, and neither contradicts the other.

In Alola, the conflict has shifted elsewhere: there, its favourite targets are Komala, which always sleep, and altercations with humans are rare. It closes the Drowzee line and has nothing ahead of it. The official category, Hypnosis Pokémon, does not bother hiding it.

The 483 base points are distributed with a single peak. Special Defense, 115, is the high figure; its 85 HP support it and make it take anything that reaches it from the special side well. Everything else sinks: 70 Defense, 73 Attack, 73 Special Attack and 67 Speed. Two stats tied at 73 mean it threatens nothing, either above or below.

Of its Abilities, Insomnia is the one with a point to it: the Pokémon that puts everyone to sleep is immune to being put to sleep. Forewarn announces the opposing Pokémon’s most powerful move on entry, information that almost never changes the decision for the turn. Inner Focus, its Hidden Ability, prevents flinching.

Pure Psychic type: it resists Fighting and Psychic, and falls to Bug, Ghost and Dark. Worse still, its Psychic moves do nothing to a Weavile or any other Dark type, so half of what it learns is useless against the type that also tears it apart.

It has no place in regulated battles. Where it does work is in a normal playthrough, through the middle stretch: Hypnosis from level 1, Zen Headbutt at 32, Psychic at 42 and Future Sight at 56, with 120 power and the two-turn delay. The three elemental punches are available through TMs, but with 73 Attack they are compromise coverage, not a threat. Calm Mind, also through a TM, raises the Special Attack and Special Defense it already had high — it fixes the wrong side.

Human-Like Egg Group and nothing else, with a clean sex split: 50% female. The 20 hatch cycles work out at around 5355 steps, an average figure within the first generation. In Scarlet and Violet it has no Egg Moves, so breeding adds nothing that cannot be learned by levelling up or with a TM — a rare and rather convenient case.

The evolution has no trick to it: Drowzee reaches level 26 and becomes Hypno. No item, no friendship, no time of day, no trading. With a Medium growth rate, it reaches 26 earlier than the slow-growth lines.

Its habitat is grassland, and the catch rate, 75, leaves it in no man’s land: it is neither the 45 of a difficult species nor the 255 of the ones that drop to a Poké Ball first try. An Ultra Ball and a little damage are enough. What usually goes wrong during the catch is obvious: if the wild Pokémon lands a Hypnosis, the team falls asleep before the ball goes flying.

Defeating it yields 2 Special Defense effort points, and its starting friendship is the standard 70.