Smoochum

Kiss Pokémon: the category isn't about affection; it refers to a sensory organ. Smoochum's lips are the most sensitive part of its body, and it uses them the way other species use their hands. It touches everything it finds with them, memorising what it likes and dislikes; if the object is dirty, it cleans it by licking it. It gives its own lips daily maintenance with tree sap so they don't become chapped.

The rest of its behaviour is that of a small baby. It runs everywhere and falls over just as often, and whenever it gets the chance it looks for a reflective surface to check that its face isn't dirty. If it is, it washes immediately with water. Dirt anywhere else on its body doesn't seem to bother it in the slightest.

It is a 40-centimetre, 6-kilogram humanoid figure, with a head disproportionate to its body and lips taking up half its face. It occupies the first of the two stages in its line: at level 30 it evolves into Jynx, and that's where the journey ends. The entire species is female, with not a single male recorded, something it inherits from its adult form.

The distribution of its 305 points leaves no room for interpretation: 85 Special Attack against 15 Defense, with 45 HP, 30 Attack, 65 Special Defense and 65 Speed. That 15 is the figure that governs everything else. Any neutral physical hit knocks it out, and since the Ice and Psychic types add weaknesses to Fire, Rock, Steel, Bug, Ghost and Dark, there are few battles where something useful for dealing with it won't show up.

Its two regular Abilities don't fix anything. Forewarn reveals the opponent's strongest move, useful information when deciding whether to switch but useless for surviving the turn; Oblivious only blocks infatuation and taunting. Hydration, its Hidden Ability, cures status conditions in rain, and requires setting up rain with a teammate or spending the turn on the Rain Dance TM.

Offensively, it does have the tools. Ice Beam by TM covers whatever the Ice type always covers, it gets Psychic at level 32 and Nasty Plot is among its TMs, doubling its Special Attack in one turn. The problem is that 85 is a baby Pokémon's number, not a sweeper's, and its 65 Speed leaves it slower than almost anything it might want to outspeed. Ice Punch, at level 28, is a physical move on a body with 30 Attack: it isn't used.

It has no place in standard play. Its niche is in formats that only allow unevolved species, where Eviolite offsets part of its fragility, and in a normal Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl playthrough as an early special attacker until it evolves.

It belongs to the Undiscovered Egg Group, so it cannot breed: it is a baby Pokémon, and the game treats it as such. Eggs hatch into the adult form, and since Jynx is also 100% female, the pairing has to be a Jynx with a Ditto or with a male from the Human-Like Egg Group. That produces four moves it cannot learn any other way: Fake Out, Copycat, Wish and Ice Punch, although the last one eventually becomes available on its own at level 28. Wish is the one worth the effort, because no other method gives it delayed healing.

The 25 incubation cycles amount to roughly 6630 steps, one of the longer stretches in the game for a 6-kilogram creature. When it hatches, it has 70 base friendship and awards 1 effort point in Special Attack; its base experience yield, 61, is low even for a baby.

The evolution has no trick to it: level it up to 30, with no item, time of day or friendship involved. It grows at a medium rate, so it reaches that level before most three-stage lines.

Its recorded habitat is Urban, a strange contrast for an Ice type. In the wild, it appears holding an Aspear Berry and has a catch rate of 45, the rate of a species that resists the standard Poké Ball.