Sharpedo

The official category, Brutal Pokémon, lives up to its name. Pokédex entries call it the “Terror of the Seas”, credit it with fangs capable of piercing steel and claim that a single specimen is enough to tear apart an oil tanker. Its body is a shark redrawn as a projectile: 1,8 metres, 88,8 kilograms, rough skin and rigid side fins.

The figure that defines it is 120 km/h, propelled by its rear fin. The one that contradicts it appears in that same Pokédex — it cannot swim long distances. It is an ambush hunter that runs out of fuel almost immediately.

Its fangs grow back as soon as it loses them, so it leaves teeth scattered across the seabed. And one entry breaks from the heroic tone of the rest: it says that the species was once overfished because its dorsal fin was delicious. An animal that terrifies fishermen and that fishermen almost wiped out.

It finishes a two-stage evolutionary line. Carvanha evolves at level 30, and that is where it ends: there is no third stage, only an alternate form that activates during battle.

The 460 base points are distributed with no attempt to hide what it is. 120 Attack, 95 Speed and 95 Special Attack up front; 40 Defense, 40 Special Defense and 70 HP at the back. It hits first and hits hard, and takes whatever comes its way as if it had no skin.

Speed Boost, its Hidden Ability, is what gives it a purpose. Speed rises by one stage at the end of every turn, so one turn of Substitute or Protect is enough to make those 95 no longer debatable. Rough Skin, its regular Ability, chips away at the health of anything that hits it with contact; it is amusing, but it does not solve the real problem, which is lasting.

Offensively, Water and Dark complement each other well, and almost nothing resists both at once. Defensively, it is a different story: immunity to Psychic and resistances to Fire, Water, Ice, Ghost and Dark come at the cost of five weaknesses —Electric, Grass, Fighting, Bug and Fairy— and with 40 in both defensive stats, any of the five can take it out in one hit.

Its movepool is short and gets straight to the point. Crunch comes at level 34, Liquidation at 46, and Aqua Jet is available from level 1 to finish off anything that survives with a sliver of health. Scald, Earthquake and Dark Pulse come through TM, as does Taunt to clip the wings of anything planning to recover. Ice Fang, at level 20, is the answer to Dragon- and Flying-types.

In a normal playthrough, it works as the one that opens a hole: it comes in, takes something out and leaves, or does not leave. Against a team built around a defensive wall, Screech —level 24, two Defense stages off the opponent at once— turns any of its physical attacks into a death sentence.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Water 2, the one for elongated fish, which pairs it with Gyarados and much of the wildlife you can pull up with a fishing rod. The gender split is fifty-fifty, so breeding does not begin with hunting for the female.

The 20 incubation cycles equal about 5355 steps. It is not one of the fast eggs.

In Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl it has no Egg Moves, and no Tutor Moves either: everything it knows comes from levelling up or from TM. Breeding, therefore, is only useful for fine-tuning nature and stats.

The evolution condition leaves no room for nuance. Carvanha reaches level 30 and changes; no stones, held items, time windows or friendship involved. It grows on the Slow experience curve, so each level costs more experience than usual and reaching 30 takes longer than you expect when you start.

Its habitat is the sea, and the catch rate, 60, puts it in the uncomfortable range: above the 45 reserved for genuinely elusive Pokémon, far from the 255 of anything that drops into the first Poké Ball. In the wild, it may be holding a Deep Sea Tooth. Its base friendship is 35, among the lowest in the game.