Snubbull

Its lower fangs stick out beyond its lips and stay there, on display all the time, in a pink face with blue spots and a fur collar that looks like the ruffle on a dress. Underneath, there’s a bulldog: flat muzzle, excess jowls, short legs. It stands 60 centimetres tall and weighs 7.8 kilograms, the size of a dog that fits on a sofa.

The contrast between that face and what lies behind it is the subject of almost every Pokédex entry. Small Pokémon run away as soon as they see it, and it feels a bit sad when they do. It barks to unsettle its opponents and then spends half the day sleeping. One entry bluntly calls it a coward; others insist that plenty of people find its permanently grumpy face funny, and that it warms up quickly if someone gives it affection.

Its official category is the Fairy Pokémon, and it occupies the first place in a two-stage line: at level 23, it evolves into Granbull, which keeps the jaw and loses the puppy-like proportions. The habitat assigned to it by the Pokédex is urban, which fits a companion animal better than a wild one.

300 base stat points with only one usable figure: 80 Attack. Next come 60 HP, 50 Defense, 40 and 40 in the two special stats, and around 30 Speed, leaving it moving last against almost anything it runs into. It gives 1 effort point in Attack when it faints, consistent with how little it offers elsewhere.

What saves it from total irrelevance is Intimidate, which lowers the opponent’s Attack as soon as it enters the field. It’s an ability that doesn’t depend on its own stats, so it performs just as well in a bad body. The other two do much less: Run Away only helps it escape wild battles, and Rattled raises its Speed when it takes certain attacks.

As a Fairy type, it gets more out of defending than attacking: complete immunity to Dragon and resistances to Fighting, Bug and Dark, in exchange for taking double damage from Poison and Steel. Its serious attack is Play Rough, with 90 power, and it doesn’t get it until level 37. Until then, it relies on the three elemental fangs — Thunder Fang, Ice Fang and Fire Fang, 65 each and available from level 1 — which provide broad coverage without any nasty surprises. Last Resort, at 31, hits for 140, but requires having used all its other moves at least once beforehand.

None of this makes it competitive. With 50 Defense and 40 Special Defense, almost anything that gets in cleanly takes it down, and with 30 Speed, it doesn’t decide when it attacks. Its place is in a normal playthrough, coming in to lower the Attack of a physical opponent and hanging on just long enough for something else to finish the job.

It belongs to the Field and Fairy Egg Groups, a combination that opens up breeding with a good part of the Pokédex’s quadrupeds on one side and most Fairy types on the other. Its gender ratio goes against the usual pattern: 75% female compared with 25% male, a detail that fits those entries that keep repeating how popular it is with women.

The 20 Egg Cycles work out at around 5355 steps, an intermediate figure. Five moves can come from the Egg: Counter, Mimic, Snore, Present and Revenge. Present is the oddest one on the list, an attack with random power that sometimes heals the target instead of damaging it, and it remains there more because of its Generation II heritage than its usefulness.

The evolution has no strange conditions: reach level 23 and that’s it. No items, no time of day, no friendship. It helps that its experience curve is Fast, with 60 base experience, so it reaches that level sooner than a Pokémon with a Medium curve.

Its catch rate is 190, on the high side: an ordinary Poké Ball after a couple of hits is usually enough. Its base happiness is the standard 70.