Loudred

It sucks in air until it is completely full, then lets it out in one blast by pulling in its abs—which is about as inelegant a way of putting it as possible. Pokédex entries measure that bellow by the damage it causes: waves strong enough to flip a truck, screams that bring down a house reinforced with wooden beams. It is not just noise. The sound alters the air pressure and sends opponents flying.

Its round ears work as loudspeakers, and to add power it stomps the ground while it screams, as if it needed the drive from its legs to push the air. The detail that defines it most comes right after: once it stops shrieking, it remains deafened for quite a while, and the Pokédex itself points this out as its weak spot.

Exactly one metre tall, 40.5 kg, and with a mouth that takes up half its head. The official category, Loud Pokémon, makes no attempt to hide it.

It occupies the middle slot in a line that runs from whisper to thunder. Whismur, which gets scared by its own crying, evolves into this at level 20, and this evolves into Exploud at 40. This is the stage where the volume has already gone up, but the body still has not grown enough to support it.

Its 360 base stat points are split with a symmetry that does it no good: 71 Attack and 71 Special Attack, 43 Defense and 43 Special Defense. Its 84 HP is the only useful thing on the sheet, and with two defenses sitting at 43, those HP disappear in two turns. Its Speed, 48, leaves it moving last against almost anything put in front of it.

Soundproof, its regular Ability, blocks sound-based attacks—the Jigglypuff's Sing just washes over it, as do other Pokémon's Uproar and Screech. The fact that the defensive Ability of a Pokémon built entirely around its voice consists of ignoring other voices is the only joke it has going for it. Scrappy, its Hidden Ability, lets its Normal- and Fighting-type moves hit Ghosts, which means Stomp (level 23) and Strength no longer have exceptions.

The Normal type offers nothing on offense: it is not super effective against anything, and Rock, Steel, and Ghost resist or ignore it. On defense, it grants only an immunity to Ghost and a weakness to Fighting.

What sinks it is the timing. Uproar, its best special attack at 90 power, is learned at level 43. Screech comes at 50 and Hyper Voice at 57. It evolves at 40. To see it use any of those three moves, you have to cancel the evolution by hand and keep a smaller, slower version of Exploud, which learns the same moves earlier and uses them better. In a normal playthrough it does its job between levels 20 and 40, handing out Stomp and carrying the Strength and Earthquake TMs until it evolves.

It belongs to the Monster and Field Egg Groups, two of the most populated, so finding a partner is not the problem. The gender ratio is an even 50% female, and there is no need to go through a Ditto to start breeding. Its 20 Egg Cycles amount to roughly 5355 steps, an average figure that does not force you to cycle around forever.

It has no Egg Moves and no Tutor Moves either: everything it knows comes from leveling up or TMs. That reduces breeding to a matter of Nature and IVs.

Its evolution has no trick to it. It evolves from Whismur at level 20 and continues on to Exploud at 40, with no items, no time requirements, and no friendship involved. It has a Medium Slow growth rate, so the stretch in which it can be used as Loudred goes by slowly.

Its habitat is caves, and the games stick to that: in Hoenn it appears on Victory Road, in Sinnoh inside Mt. Coronet with the Poké Radar, and in Generation VIII in Brawlers' Cave. Its catch rate, 120, leaves it in no-man's-land—it is not a difficult Pokémon to catch, but it does not go down to the first Poké Ball either. In the wild, it may be holding an Aspear Berry. Defeating it gives 2 HP EVs.