Jigglypuff

It first appeared in Generation I, when the Pokédex still had room for creatures that didn’t win battles so much as interrupt them. Its official category is Balloon Pokémon, and it describes the body with surprising accuracy: half a metre tall, 5.5 kilos, hollow inside and able to inflate itself before it starts singing.

Pokédex entries almost always talk about its voice and hardly ever about its looks. One mentions vocal cords that adjust the wavelength until they find the one that puts the opponent to sleep. Another gives it a range of 12 octaves, with a detail you don’t often see: its ability to sing depends on how much effort each individual puts in; it isn’t built in from the start. The more it inflates, the longer the song lasts and the more people in the audience fall asleep.

And then there’s an entry that’s considerably more sinister than the others. Since it doesn’t stop to breathe while singing, if the opponent manages to stay awake, it’s Jigglypuff itself that runs out of air and puts its life at risk. An animal that chokes because it refuses to stop.

It occupies the middle slot in a three-stage line. Behind it is Igglybuff, which joined the series quite a bit later, and ahead is Wigglytuff, which can only be reached with a Moon Stone. Of the three forms, this is the one that sings.

270 base stat points, with 115 of them packed into a single place: HP. The rest is a poor spread — 45 Attack, 45 Special Attack, 25 Special Defense and a double 20 in Defense and Speed. A lot of HP without the defenses to support it means damage comes in at full force, and it also moves last.

Of its three Abilities, the only one that really changes anything is Friend Guard, the Hidden Ability, which reduces the damage taken by allies and therefore only exists in doubles. Cute Charm can infatuate anything that touches it, while Competitive raises its Special Attack when one of its stats is lowered; both depend on the opponent cooperating.

The type combination is the best thing on the sheet. Normal and Fairy give it two immunities, Ghost and Dragon, and leave it with only two weaknesses, Poison and Steel. On paper, an enviable matchup chart. With 20 Defense, it makes no difference.

The little it can put together revolves around status. Sing is available from level 1 and is the whole reason the species exists, although its accuracy isn’t good enough to build anything around. Encore locks the opponent into its last move. Pain Split averages out both Pokémon’s HP, and with 115 base HP to distribute, that’s a favourable trade against almost anyone. For damage, there’s Dazzling Gleam by TM and Hyper Voice, which arrives at level 36 with 90 power.

It isn’t a serious battle Pokémon, and there’s no elegant way to put it: they knock it out before the lullaby is over. Its place is in a normal playthrough, where putting an awkward wild Pokémon to sleep is worth more than damaging it, and in its role as a toll — you catch it to turn it into something else.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Fairy, which lets it breed with Clefairy and the rest of Kanto’s pink club. The gender split is heavily skewed one way: 75% are female, three out of four, so finding a male usually takes longer than the other way around.

Ten Egg cycles work out at roughly 2805 steps, putting it among the quicker eggs. It also grows at the Fast rate, so it levels up before almost anything else it might be travelling with. It has no Egg Moves: the list is empty, and everything it learns outside of levelling up comes through TMs.

The line’s two evolutions work under different conditions. From Igglybuff, you get there by levelling up with friendship at 160 or higher. To reach Wigglytuff, you use a Moon Stone, with no minimum level or anything else to wait for. The detail is that wild specimens can be holding exactly that Moon Stone, meaning the species supplies the item needed to stop belonging to it. They also sometimes appear holding an Oran Berry.

Its habitat is grassland and its catch rate is 170, towards the comfortable end of the scale: it isn’t the 255 of a first-route Pokémon, but a Poké Ball at half health will usually do the job. Defeating it gives 2 HP EVs.