Treecko

It climbs a vertical wall without slowing down, held in place by the tiny hooks that grow from the soles of its feet. They are the same hooks that let it cross a ceiling upside down, and that is the first thing almost any Pokédex entry says about it. The second is its tail, which works as a hygrometer: it detects humidity in the air and uses it to predict the weather. In battle, that tail is also a weapon—a dry thump and little else.

Its personality is described with unusual precision for a starter. One entry portrays it as calm and highly self-controlled, unable to lose its composure in any situation; if a rival stares it down, it returns the stare without giving up an inch of territory. It does not run. It stays still and waits.

Underneath it all, it is a gecko, plain and simple. Fifty centimetres, five kilograms, green, forest habitat, and an official category that says it all: the Wood Gecko Pokémon. It is Hoenn’s Grass-type starter and number 252 in the National Pokédex, the one that opens Generation III. It heads a three-stage line that passes through Grovyle at level 16 and ends with Sceptile at 36.

310 base stat points distributed with a very clear priority: 70 Speed and 65 Special Attack at the top; 40 HP and 35 Defense at the bottom. Any reasonably serious physical hit takes it out. Its 45 Attack and 55 Special Defense complete the profile of an unevolved starter, which is exactly what it is.

Overgrow, its standard ability, only powers up Grass-type moves when its health is low, and with 40 HP that window usually coincides with the turn before it faints. Its hidden ability, Unburden, doubles its Speed as soon as it uses or loses the item it is holding: it is the only trick that puts those 70 ahead of anything that matters, and it depends on spending a consumable to get started.

As a pure Grass type, attacking lets it hit Water, Ground, and Rock, and it crashes into Steel, Fire, Flying, Bug, Poison, Dragon, and other Grass types. Defensively, it withstands four types and exposes five weaknesses.

Its best attacks arrive late: Energy Ball at level 30 and Leaf Storm at 39, by which point it should have evolved many levels ago. Before that, it works with Mega Drain at 9 and, above all, Giga Drain at 21, which restores part of the damage dealt and makes up for those defenses. Assurance at 18 is the only thing it has that hits Ghost and Psychic. Detect at 12 comes for free and avoids a turn.

Outside a normal run through Hoenn—where it opens the adventure and tears through Rustboro City’s Rock-type Gym with Absorb, learned at level 3—there is no reason to leave it unevolved.

Its Egg Groups are Monster and Dragon, and neither of them is Grass. The line shares breeding compatibility with dragons without being that type, which is where one of its Egg Moves comes from: Dragon Breath. The rest of the list gives it more to work with—Leech Seed and Worry Seed for wearing foes down, Synthesis to recover health depending on the weather, Night Slash and Slash for easy critical hits, and Double Kick, the only Fighting-type move it gets through inheritance.

Its gender ratio is the same as almost every starter’s: 12.5% female, seven males for each one. Without a female or a Ditto, there is no line of its own to breed, and getting one is the slow part.

Twenty incubation cycles come to about 5355 steps. It grows at a medium-slow rate, so the first levels cost more than they seem to and the last ones catch up.

It evolves with no unusual conditions: level 16 and level 36, with no item, no friendship, no time of day, and no alternative form to consider. Its catch rate is 45, that of a difficult Pokémon to catch, although it is almost a theoretical figure: the habitat assigned to it by the Pokédex is the forest, but it does not appear on Hoenn’s routes. Professor Birch gives it to you on Route 101, from the bag he has dropped while running away.