Omastar

Thirty-five kilos spread over one metre of height, and most of it goes into the shell. The Pokédex entries do not merely hint at it, they state it outright: that bristling spiral of spikes grew until it weighed more than the animal could drag, hindered its movements and ultimately brought the species to an end. Few official entries explain an entire extinction as a manufacturing flaw in the creature itself.

Beneath the shell is a cephalopod. Four thick tentacles that serve as hands and feet, smaller ones around them, and a beak ringed with sharp fangs. The hunts described in the text always follow the same sequence: grab, immobilise, never let go, tear apart bite by bite. One of the entries points to it as a possible distant ancestor of Octillery, with which it shares tentacles and little else.

It evolves from Omanyte at level 40, with no items, schedules or trades involved. Official category: Spiral Pokémon. Recorded habitat: the sea. Blue in colour and classified as having a “Tentacles” body shape, two archive labels that describe what you see fairly well in its case.

Its 495 base stat points are distributed with very little elegance: 125 Defense and 115 Special Attack on one side, 60 Attack and 55 Speed on the other. The slow, armoured animal described in the entries is also written into the numbers.

The spread is 70 HP, 60 Attack, 125 Defense, 115 Special Attack, 70 Special Defense and 55 Speed. Two figures are useful, four get in the way, and one of the troublesome ones is Speed, the stat that decides almost everything.

That leaves its prospects resting on two things. Shell Smash, learned at level 63, raises Attack, Special Attack and Speed by two stages and lowers both defenses by one: it doubles the 115 and doubles the 55 in exchange for throwing away the 125 Defense that was its best number. The other is Swift Swim, which doubles Speed in rain without costing a turn; Rain Dance is among its TMs, although someone else would normally set it up. Shell Armor, its second ability, blocks critical hits, which matters precisely when it has already been left exposed. Weak Armor, its hidden ability, raises Speed when it takes a physical hit and lowers Defense: it trades its best stat for its worst.

As an attacker, Water works for it: Hydro Pump at level 70 has 110 power, while Scald from a TM has 80. Ice Beam covers what Water does not. Rock is the problem. Its best STAB move from a TM is Stone Edge, with 100 physical power, wasted with 60 Attack, while the special move it learns by level is Ancient Power, 60, at level 30.

Defensively, Rock and Water leave it quadruple-weak to Grass and doubly weak to Electric, Fighting and Ground. On the plus side, it takes Fire at one-quarter damage, and also resists Normal, Ice, Poison, Flying and Steel.

In a normal playthrough, its role is clear: Fire-, Rock- and Flying-type Gyms, and setting up Stealth Rock with enough Defense to put it in front of a physical attacker and get it out alive.

Water 1 and Water 3 Egg Groups, two lists that pair it with almost anything that swims. The gender ratio is seven males for every female, with a 12.5% female rate, so any planned breeding starts by obtaining the female or a Ditto.

Thirty incubation cycles work out at roughly 7905 steps, putting it among the slow-hatching eggs of the first generation.

The evolution has no trick to it either. Omanyte reaches level 40 and that is it: no stone, no friendship and no time of day. Since the entire line comes from a fossil that has to be revived, the usual approach is to breed from the revived specimen rather than search for it on the map: its recorded habitat is the sea, but that is more of an archive entry than somewhere you can find it.

Its catch rate, 45, is that of a Pokémon that is difficult to catch, a figure that matters little when the specimen arrives already inside a Poké Ball. It grows at a medium pace and yields 173 base experience. When it goes down, it gives 2 Defense EVs, consistent with the 125 it carries. Its starting friendship is 70, the standard value.