Noctowl

The nickname given to it by Pokédex entries is “Night Emperor”, which sounds like some huge, fearsome creature. The huge part is true: a 1.6-metre wingspan and 40.8 kilograms, an owl the size of a fully grown person. The fearsome part depends on who you ask, because this predator hunts mice and not much else.

Its entire design is built around two organs. Its eyes concentrate the light they receive, allowing it to make out prey where there is barely any light, and its wings are so light and flexible that they make no sound when they beat. A hunter that can see in absolute darkness and approach without warning. The other habit repeated by the games is the 180-degree head turn: according to the Pokédex, it does this to think better. It is worth knowing how to read it, because if it turns its head while already agitated, a peck is what comes next.

It is the adult form of Hoothoot, that round bird that stood on one leg, and that is where the line ends: there is no third stage. The official category, Owl Pokémon, is one of the most literal in the game. It lives in forests, and its colour is a bark brown that works exactly the way it does in real owls.

The distribution of its 452 points is deliberately lopsided. 100 HP and 96 Special Defense against 50 Defense: it can take a beam or a Psychic-type attack and folds to any decent physical hit. Its Attack is also 50, so Aerial Ace, Take Down, and Brave Bird are there as decoration; what gets used is its 86 Special Attack, and 70 Speed is nowhere near enough to outspeed almost anything.

The only thing that sets it apart is Tinted Lens, its hidden Ability: moves that are not very effective go from dealing half damage to dealing full damage. With Normal and Flying as its attacking types, one of the poorest offensive combinations there is, that Ability covers the entire hole — Hurricane, with 110 power, no longer has any opponents that can tank it by resisting it. Hyper Voice and Air Slash do the same thing with less power, and Nasty Plot raises its Special Attack by two stages if you give it a turn.

Everything else is what holds it back. Without safe switch-ins and with that 50 Defense, getting into battle costs it dearly, and its three weaknesses — Electric, Ice, and Rock — are among the most common in the game. In return, neither Ghost nor Ground can hit it.

In a normal playthrough, it is a different story. Insomnia lets it ignore any attempt to put it to sleep, Keen Eye protects its accuracy, and Tailwind, in its TM list, doubles the team's Speed for four turns.

Flying Egg Group and nothing else, the usual bird pool, with Ditto as a shortcut. The gender ratio is straightforward: 50% female, without the skewed proportions of starters. Its 15 incubation cycles come to roughly 4080 steps, on the fast side.

The egg passes down five moves it does not learn by level: Supersonic, Wing Attack, Whirlwind, Feather Dance, and Night Shade. Feather Dance is the interesting one of the five, because it lowers the opposing Pokémon's Attack by two stages and fits a Pokémon with 50 Defense that needs all the help it can get.

The evolution has no trick to it. Hoothoot reaches level 20 and that is it: no items, no time of day, no friendship. It grows at a Medium rate, the standard curve, and awards 2 HP EVs when defeated.

Its habitat is the forest, and that is where you look for it. Its catch rate, 90, puts it in the comfortable range: twice as easy to catch as a starter, and a long way from the 255 of the early-route birds. A Poké Ball at half health is usually enough, and at night, when it appears, a Dusk Ball multiplies the odds.