Ralts

Generation III placed it on Hoenn’s Route 102, just two steps from the player’s house, and yet plenty of people finished Ruby and Sapphire without ever seeing one. They’re rare. That’s the point: 40 centimetres, 6.6 kilograms, and an entire behaviour pattern built around hiding from anyone it doesn’t trust.

What it senses isn’t shapes but moods. Its two horns — one on top of its head and the other behind it — work as antennae, and the Pokédex’s four entries keep insisting on the same thing from different angles: when it senses hostility, it hides; when it sees goodwill, it approaches; if its Trainer is happy, it becomes happy too; and when it picks up positive emotions, its body warms slightly. Its official category is the Feeling Pokémon, and for once the name describes the mechanism rather than the personality.

A green fringe and small red eyes show beneath the white helmet covering half its face. With 198 base stat points spread across six stats, none of them reaching 50, it isn’t built to fend for itself. It’s the first piece of an evolutionary line that splits in two: Kirlia at level 20, and from there Gardevoir or Gallade. Wild ones usually hold a Twisted Spoon.

The numbers leave no room for debate. Its best stat is 45 Special Attack, followed by 40 Speed, 35 Special Defense, 28 HP, and two 25s in Attack and Defense. Any decent physical hit takes it out in one turn, and even special attacks find little resistance. It gives 1 effort point in Special Attack when it faints.

Its abilities are worth much more than the stat sheet. Trace copies the opponent’s ability as soon as it enters, which in practice lets it steal things like Intimidate or reveal what it’s dealing with. Synchronize passes poisoning, paralysis, or burns back to whoever inflicts them. Telepathy, its Hidden Ability, dodges its partner’s attacks in Double Battles, and it’s the one that remains useful through the evolutions.

Psychic and Fairy is a defensive typing with one good side and one bad side. The good side: complete immunity to Dragon and quarter damage from Fighting, as well as neutral damage from Dark. The bad side: four weaknesses — Bug, Ghost, Poison, and Steel — and 25 Defense with which to take them.

It has no place in competitive battling, and there’s no elegant way to put it. Where it does work is in the first half of a Hoenn playthrough: it gets Hypnosis at level 9 and Draining Kiss at 12, so it can put an opponent to sleep and chip away at its health while it levels up. Disarming Voice, available from level 1, never misses, and that’s its real value when Hypnosis lets it down. Confusion at 6 and Psybeam at 18 are all the direct damage it gets before evolving.

It belongs to two Egg Groups, Human-Like and Amorphous, opening up a longer list of compatible Pokémon than its size would suggest. The gender ratio is 50%, and that matters more here than in almost any other species: the Gallade branch requires a male.

Its 20 Egg Cycles work out at roughly 5355 steps, an average figure. Eight Egg Moves can come from the egg, and several don’t fit its appearance at all: Destiny Bond, which takes the opponent down with it; Memento, which sacrifices it to fully heal the next Pokémon sent out; Mean Look, to prevent switching; and Mystical Fire, a Fire-type attack with 75 power that also burns. Disable, Confuse Ray, Knock Off, and Shadow Sneak complete the list.

The evolution conditions are straightforward at the first step and branching at the second. Ralts becomes Kirlia when it reaches level 20. Kirlia becomes Gardevoir at level 30, or Gallade when exposed to a Dawn Stone, and the latter only works if it is male. It grows on the slow experience curve, so reaching level 20 takes longer than you’d expect from a Pokémon this fragile.

Its recorded habitat is urban. Its catch rate, 235, is twenty points short of the maximum of 255: with a normal Poké Ball and a little damage, it goes in without putting up a fight.