Taillow

The official category, TinySwallow Pokémon, gives away the scale before anything else: 30 centimeters and 2.3 kilograms of a swallow fresh out of the nest. Pokédex entries always insist on the same contrast. On one hand, the nerve, which is the first thing you notice — it stands up to much stronger opponents and keeps acting defiant even after losing the battle, and when it gets angry it starts yelling with energy. On the other, the chick underneath it all: it has only just left the nest, often feels lonely and spends its time chirping. It eats the Wurmple it finds in the forest.

The rest of its behaviour is migration. It does not handle low temperatures well and, when the cold season arrives, travels almost 300 kilometres a day in search of warm areas. That sets it apart from the usual route bird, which defends a patch of land and stays put: this one abandons it as soon as the thermometer drops.

It occupies the first step of a two-stage line. At level 22 it evolves into Swellow, which keeps the Normal and Flying types and takes the same idea to the extreme, with more Speed and more Attack on top of the same paper-thin defences.

The spread is 270 points and deliberately unbalanced: 40 HP, 55 Attack, 30 Defense, 30 Special Attack, 30 Special Defense and 85 Speed. Only Speed is above normal for a basic-stage Pokémon. 55 Attack is not enough to punish anything, and with 30 in both defences, any neutral hit that connects knocks it out.

The ability that defines it is Guts, which raises its Attack when it suffers a status condition and also removes burn’s Attack penalty. It fits neatly with Facade, which it learns from a TM and which goes from 70 to 140 power if the user is poisoned, burned or paralyzed. With a Flame Orb on it, a Taillow with 55 Attack hits like something considerably more serious, and it still moves first.

On offense, the Normal and Flying pairing is comfortable but predictable: Wing Attack at level 13, Aerial Ace at 21 and Brave Bird at 41, the last one carrying recoil that its HP bar cannot afford to pay twice. On defense, it is a disaster. Rock hits it for quadruple damage, so Stealth Rock takes half its HP before it can do anything, while Electric and Ice break it just as easily. Its immunities to Ground and Ghost are the only consolation.

It is not a Pokémon for organised battling, and the reason is simple: it evolves at 22, and from then on Swellow does the same thing with better numbers. Where it does work is in a normal playthrough, during the first third: with 85 Speed, it outspeeds almost everything found on the early routes and finishes things off with Quick Attack, which it gets at level 9.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Flying, so it can breed with the other birds and little else. The gender ratio is even, 50% female, so two wild specimens are enough to get started without needing Ditto. Its 15 Egg Cycles amount to about 4080 steps, putting it among the shorter hatches.

Of its six Egg Moves, three are raw power it will not see in any other way: Sky Attack, with 140, Hurricane, with 110, and Brave Bird, with 120, which it learns by itself at level 41 anyway. Boomburst, with 140, is special, and with 30 Special Attack there is no point giving it to Taillow. Supersonic and Whirlwind round out the list and are useful for disruption, not damage.

Its evolution has no unusual conditions: reach level 22 and that is it. No item, no friendship, no time of day.

Its habitat is grassland and its catch rate, 200, puts it among the trivial catches — a regular Poké Ball at half health will usually do. In the wild, it may be holding a Charti Berry. It grows at a medium-slow rate and gives 54 base experience, a low figure even for a basic-stage Pokémon.