Zigzagoon

Seventeen and a half kilos spread over forty centimetres in height. Zigzagoon weighs almost as much as a medium-sized dog and barely rises above the ground any higher than a boot, so much of that figure is coarse fur and the short legs of an animal that lives close to the ground. Its official category calls it the Raccoon Pokémon, and the design does nothing to hide it: a dark band over the eyes, a brown-and-cream striped back, and a raccoon or tanuki muzzle.

What the Pokédex entries repeat is not its appearance but its nature. “It spends all day going back and forth.” “It takes an interest in everything it finds along the way.” Its zigzagging is not a decorative tic: because it does not move in a straight line, it covers more ground, which is why it is good at finding hidden items in the grass and even buried ones. It also rubs the coarse fur on its back against trees to mark its territory, and in battle it plays dead to deceive its opponent.

It opens a line that ends in Linoone and that, in its Galarian form, continues one step further. The two versions do not share the same temperament: the Pokédex itself notes that the one from outside Galar “has a friendlier disposition.”

240 base stat points, with none standing out. 38 HP, 30 Attack, 30 Special Attack, 41 in each of the two defenses, and 60 Speed, the only stat above what you would expect from a first-stage Pokémon. Its EV yield sums it up: 1 Speed and nothing else.

Two of its three Abilities do not come into play in battle. Pickup finds items; Gluttony makes it consume the Berry it is holding sooner. Its Hidden Ability, Quick Feet, is the only one with an offensive angle, because it raises its Speed while it has a status problem, and that fits Facade, which doubles its power from 70 to 140 if it is burned, poisoned, or paralyzed.

The trick people always look for is Belly Drum, learned at level 33: it spends half its HP to maximise its Attack. With 38 base HP, half is a ridiculous margin, and what it maximises starts from 30. After that you could use Extreme Speed, an 80-power Egg Move with priority, or Double-Edge at level 36, a 120-power move with recoil on that same already-reduced HP. Any hit breaks the plan before the second turn arrives.

Where it does work is during the first hours of a game. 60 Speed is enough to move first against almost everything found on the early routes, and being pure Normal means a single weakness, Fighting, with not a single resistance in return. Against Ghost types, its moves do absolutely nothing.

A single Egg Group, Field, the most populated in the Pokédex, which lets it breed with almost any mammal on the list. The sex ratio is exactly even, 50% female, so there is no need to hunt for a female or resort to Ditto to start a breeding line.

Fifteen Egg cycles, around 4080 steps. Seven Egg Moves can come from the Egg, and only one justifies the work: Extreme Speed, with priority and 80 power, which it does not get by level or TM. The rest are niche. Trick swaps its item with the opponent, Simple Beam changes the opponent’s Ability to Simple, Helping Hand powers up its partner’s attack in Double Battles, and Charm, Tickle, and Mud-Slap are all about lowering the other side’s numbers.

It evolves into Linoone when it reaches level 20. No item, no time of day, no conditions. It grows at the Medium Fast rate, the most predictable of the six, and gives 56 base experience when defeated, a small amount even for how early it appears.

Its habitat is grassland, and its catch rate, 255, is the highest there is: an ordinary Poké Ball catches it almost every time, without wearing it down or putting it to sleep. What makes a wild specimen valuable is not the Pokémon itself, but what it may be holding — a Potion, Revive, or Oran Berry.