Spearow

The sparrow is the most ordinary bird there is, and that is where the design starts: tiny build, brown plumage, round head, wings that aren't good for much. The beak is what doesn't fit. It is curved and hooked at the tip, a shrike trait—the bird that impales insects and lizards on thorny bushes so it can tear them apart later. The result is a 30-centimeter, 2-kilogram animal with far more aggression than its size would suggest.

The Pokédex entries all insist on the same thing. It is reckless to the point of being territorial, and it has no qualms about taking on much larger rivals if it thinks they are invading its turf. Its short wings barely keep it up, so it beats them constantly to stay airborne, and much of the time it prefers to run through the grass pecking at Bug Pokémon. It eats a lot and eats often. On farms, they are raised precisely for that reason: to keep pests under control.

What sets it apart from the other birds of Kanto is its screech. It can be heard from a kilometer away, and when another Spearow answers, it sounds like an echo: it is not a song, but an alarm network spread across the territory.

It is classified as the Tiny Bird Pokémon and occupies the first half of a two-stage line that ends in Fearow at level 20.

262 points, and none where they are needed. The highest figure is 70 Speed, followed by 60 Attack, and everything falls off from there: 40 HP, 30 Defense, and 31 and 31 on the special side. Any neutral physical hit knocks it out in one go.

Keen Eye, its standard Ability, prevents its Accuracy from being lowered and not much else. The one that matters is Sniper, its Hidden Ability: critical hits stop multiplying by 1.5 and instead go to 2.25. And it has the tools to set that up, because it learns Focus Energy at level 29, raising its critical-hit chance by two stages. The problem is arithmetic: spending a turn setting up with 40 HP and 30 Defense rarely pays off.

On offense, Normal and Flying provide little coverage. Almost everything is neutral and nothing is hit especially well, while Rock, Steel, and Electric resist both halves. Defensively, immunity to Ground is the only useful thing going for it, and Electric, Ice, and Rock hit it for double damage.

Three things stand out from its movepool. Drill Peck, which it gets at level 36 with 80 power and is its strongest signature move. Take Down, 90 at level 22, with recoil that hurts more than usual on this body. And the U-turn TM: hit and switch out, the only role where those 70 points of Speed mean anything.

It has never learned Brave Bird, and without that move it falls behind almost every Normal/Flying type. Smogon places it in E rank in Little Cup, below Taillow, which is faster, and Rufflet, which hits harder. In a regular playthrough, it does what any early-game bird does: cover Fighting and Bug types during the first few Gyms and provide Fly outside battle.

A single Egg Group, Flying, the same one shared by almost every bird in the series, so pairing it is trivial. The gender ratio is 50/50, without the imbalance that complicates breeding other lines.

Fifteen hatching cycles, around 4080 steps, among the shortest stretches you could ask for. It can hatch with Sky Attack, 140 power and a charge turn, a figure it will not see anywhere else in its movepool. It can also have Quick Attack, which makes use of the one good thing it has, and Tri Attack, an 80-power special move that is useless with 31 Special Attack but passes well to other lines. Feather Dance, Uproar, Scary Face, Whirlwind, and Astonish complete the set.

It evolves upon reaching level 20. No stones, no items, no friendship or time of day: twenty levels and that's it. It grows at an average rate and gives 52 base experience, so it reaches that point quickly and without effort.

Its habitat is rough terrain. The catch rate, 255, is the top of the scale: a regular Poké Ball on a half-health specimen is almost always enough. Wild ones sometimes hold a Sharp Beak, and each one defeated gives 1 Effort Point in Speed.