Wingull

The official label, Seagull Pokémon, promises nothing exotic, and delivers exactly what it says. White, with blue stripes near the tips of its wings, an orange beak edged in black and webbed feet. Those 9.5 kg spread over 60 centimetres come from hollow bones that the Pokédex entries mention without beating around the bush: it weighs so little because it is almost empty inside, and that is enough to let the wind carry it instead of flapping its wings.

The behaviour described by the games is that of a real seabird. It nests on cliffs, gains altitude by riding updrafts, folds its long wings when resting and emerges from the sea with the narrow beak it uses to fish. It flies over schools of fish Pokémon, and fishermen follow it precisely for that reason: where there is a seagull, there is a catch.

There is a less pleasant detail. It carries prey and valuable objects in its beak and distributes them among different hiding places, so as well as fishing, it steals and hoards.

In its evolutionary line, it occupies the role of the small, temporary animal. It glides well, moves quickly and can take almost nothing, and Pelipper will do all of that better from level 25 onwards, when the slender silhouette is replaced by an oversized beak and a body that can actually take a hit.

270 base stat points, and badly distributed. Speed, 85, is the only figure that is good for anything: it moves first against almost everything encountered on the coastal routes. There is nothing behind it to back it up. 55 Special Attack is too little to finish anything off, 30 Attack rules out half its physical TMs straight away, and with 40 HP and 30 in both defences, any neutral attack sends it flying.

Its abilities do not save it either. Rain Dish, its hidden ability, gradually restores HP while it is raining; Hydration clears status problems, also in rain; Keen Eye prevents its Accuracy from being lowered and in practice decides no battles. All three require a context that has to be built elsewhere.

On the attacking side, Water and Flying share the workload well, but it takes a long time to have anything with which to exploit them. Air Slash, 75 power, does not arrive until level 30, and Hurricane, 110, until 45. Until then it lives off Wing Attack at 15 and Water Pulse at 20, which are filler numbers. Defensively, the same pair of types gives it a quadruple weakness to Electric and another double weakness to Rock, and with those defences the difference between double and quadruple is purely decorative: it dies either way.

Its real niche is in the course of a normal playthrough. It appears early, covers water and air, levels up quickly and reaches 25 without any effort. It is winged transport until it stops being that.

It belongs to the Water 1 and Flying Egg Groups, which opens up pairings with half the coastal wildlife and almost every bird, so getting an Egg is nothing complicated. The gender split is 50%, without the shortage of females that makes breeding other lines more awkward.

Twenty incubation cycles, around 5355 steps: one of the shorter stretches. Of its eight Egg Moves, two justify the detour. Wide Guard protects the entire team from attacks that hit multiple targets, which is the currency of Double Battles. Aqua Ring is the only way it can recover HP on its own before learning Roost at level 40. Soak, which turns the opponent into a Water type, is more of a curiosity than a plan, while Gust and Twister, both with 40 power, offer nothing beyond the Water Gun it already has by default.

It evolves by reaching level 25. No item, no time of day, no friendship or extra condition: the simplest case there is.

Its habitat is the sea, it grows at an average rate and its catch rate is 190, close to the trivial end of the scale. A regular Poké Ball with the opponent at half health is usually enough. It sometimes holds a Pretty Feather.