Zapdos

It doesn’t evolve and doesn’t come from anything: its line starts and ends with it. It’s one of Kanto’s three Legendary birds, a template repeated three times — a Flying-type bird with a second elemental type, 580 base stat points split the same way between all three, and only one specimen per game. Articuno got Ice, Moltres got Fire, and this one got Electric.

Every Pokédex entry insists on the same thing: the thundercloud. It lives inside storm clouds, only appears when the sky darkens and lightning strikes without stopping, and the FireRed entry adds the detail that defines it: it grows stronger when struck by lightning. It doesn’t hurt it; it charges it up. It also rubs its wings together and makes lightning fall from the sky.

It stands 1.6 metres tall and weighs 52.6 kg, figures for a large bird rather than a colossus. Its official category, Electric Pokémon, is one of the driest in the first generation: neither “Flame” nor “Freezing”, just the type’s name. Its plumage is drawn as yellow spikes pointing outwards, and its recorded habitat is simply “Rare”, the label shared by almost all of Kanto’s Legendary Pokémon.

The spread is clear from the first figure: 125 Special Attack against 90 Attack. Everything else sits in the 85–100 range — 90 HP, 85 Defense, 90 Special Defense and 100 Speed — giving it a body that can take hits without being a wall, and that outspeeds half the format without being truly fast. The total, 580, is the Kanto Legendary standard.

Its regular ability is Pressure, which burns through the opponent’s PP and helps extend exchanges. The one used competitively is Static, its Hidden Ability, because it can paralyze on contact and punish anyone trying to take it down with physical attacks. Smogon has it listed in ninth-generation OU with two sets, one defensive with 248 HP and 252 Defense and another offensive with 252 in Special Attack and Speed, both carrying Heavy-Duty Boots.

The reason for the boots is its weakness to Rock: Stealth Rock removes a quarter of its HP every time it switches in. Ice also hits it for double damage. In return, it’s immune to Ground, takes Steel at a quarter of the damage, and resists Grass, Fighting and Bug.

The moves that support both versions are Hurricane, which can confuse and never misses in rain but misses three times out of ten under clear skies, Volt Switch to leave with momentum, and Roost (level 40) to recover half its HP. The defensive set adds Thunder Wave or Discharge (level 45); the offensive one runs Heat Wave for Steel-types it doesn’t want to hit with Electric moves. Thunder, at 55, and Zap Cannon, at 70, hit harder but neither is reliable.

It can’t breed. It belongs to the Undiscovered Egg Group, has no assigned sex and therefore produces no offspring with anything, including Ditto. The 80 Egg cycles listed in its data amount on paper to roughly 20 655 steps, but that figure never actually gets used: there’s no egg for it to hatch from. Its Egg Move list is empty, as is its Tutor Move list.

What does matter is the catch, and its rate is 3. It’s one of the lowest figures in the game — for comparison, 45 is already considered difficult and 255 is trivial. With a regular Poké Ball at full HP, you need to keep at it for a long time; the usual approach is to bring it down into the red, put it to sleep or paralyze it with something, and throw Ultra Balls without counting them.

The classic spot is Kanto’s Power Plant, where it waits motionless in Red, Blue and Yellow and in the third-generation remakes. After that, the method changed over time: it roams around Sinnoh in Platinum once you’ve obtained the National Pokédex, can be found in Ramanas Park in Shining Pearl, and appears as a final boss in Dynamax Adventures in The Crown Tundra.

It grows at the Slow rate, the most expensive curve of them all, so levelling it from the level at which it’s caught takes considerably more experience than it seems. It gives 3 Special Attack EVs and its base friendship is 35, typical of a Legendary Pokémon.