Wailmer

Hoenn was designed as a region of open sea, and in 2002 Ruby and Sapphire had to fill all those water routes with something. That is where this baleen whale comes from, shrunk down until it became a blue sphere with a pale underside, two short fins tipped with appendages that look like fingers, and baleen that reads as teeth from the outside.

The official category, Ball Whale Pokémon, sums up the trick. It swallows seawater until it swells up and then bounces across dry land, and the more it swallows, the higher it gets. Its blowholes are on top of its head, and the Pokédex entries keep returning to the same detail: it enjoys blasting jets of water from them to scare people. There is nothing dignified about the animal. It is a huge lump whose main occupation is giving people a fright.

A huge lump with some nuance, though. Two metres and 130 kilos is very little weight for a whale, less than an adult cow, and the figure only makes sense once the second half of the line appears: at level 40 it turns into Wailord, which is where the scale joke comes full circle.

It eats a tonne of food a day. In one of Alola's entries, that tonne has a name and a surname: Wishiwashi.

The 400 base stat points are distributed in a misleading way. The first thing you notice is 130 HP, a high figure for an unevolved species, and the second thing you should notice is the 35 Defense and 35 Special Defense that completely cancel it out. It can't take a hit. Both attacking stats stop at 70, and with 60 Speed it moves last against almost anything it might want to hit.

The abilities do not fix anything. Water Veil prevents burns, a status condition a pure Water-type rarely suffers; Oblivious blocks infatuation and taunt, situationally; Pressure, the Hidden Ability, drains the opponent's PP, and for that it has to remain on the field. The pure Water typing brings no surprises either: it hits Fire, Rock and Ground well, bounces off Water, Grass and Dragon, and takes Grass- and Electric-type attacks head-on.

The best thing it gets arrives late and contradicts itself. Water Spout, at level 48, is a 150-power special move whose strength depends on how much HP it has left; with 35 Defense, that HP does not last. Hydro Pump, at 45, hits for 110 with no conditions. Scald, from a TM, is the sensible attack in the set.

Outside organised battles, it does fill one very specific role in a normal Hoenn playthrough: it learns Surf, Dive, Waterfall and Strength, and carries all four for half the adventure. Splash, at level 1, still does absolutely nothing.

It shares the Field and Water 2 Egg Groups, a strange combination for a cetacean until you remember that the creature spends half the Pokédex bouncing across dry land. The sex ratio is exactly even, 50% female, so breeding your own line requires neither Ditto nor patience with the percentages.

The 40 Egg cycles amount to about 10 455 steps, among the longest stretches there are. The Egg moves include things it cannot learn any other way, and some are better than its usual repertoire: Fissure, an instant knockout that ignores the stats; Curse, which trades Speed for Attack and Defense; Defense Curl and Rollout, which chain together; Aqua Ring to recover health every turn; Zen Headbutt and Double-Edge to deal damage without relying on the Water type.

It evolves upon reaching level 40, with no items, schedules or unusual conditions. The problem is the pace: its experience growth rate is Fluctuating, which hands out levels generously at first and becomes stingy just in the high range, making the stretch from 30 to 40 more tedious than you expect.

It lives in the sea, and its catch rate is 125, an intermediate value. Neither the 45 of species that force you to spend half your bag nor the 255 of things that fall to the first ball: a few turns of wearing it down and a Great Ball are enough.