Games - Swellow

	Games - Swellow

Swellow (オオスバメ Ohaubame in Japanese, Schwalboss in German and Heledelle in French) is a fictional character from the Pokémon Franchise.

Its name is derived from the words swallow and swell, which probably refers to its apparently swollen chest.

Biology

Swellow looks like a large, cunning bird with two prominant tail feathers (remnants from its pre-evolution, Taillow). It also has a largely white underbelly with a red top section and a geometric pattern on it. Other than this, it is almost totally dark blue.

Swellow flies elegantly, high above our heads, making graceful arcs in the sky. On spotting its prey, it dives deeply and holds the hapless prey tightly in its talons, preventing escape. It never misses its targets this way.

Swellow keeps pride in its glossy wings, and will always keep them nice and clean at all times. If its two tail feathers are standing at attention, it is proof of good health.

In the Anime

In the anime episode "That's Just Swellow", Ash's Taillow evolves into Swellow but the first time we saw it was when Vito Winstrate had one and secretly used it to protect his family in the episode "Candid Camerupt". After that, Winona had a Shiny Swellow and used it in battle against Ash's Grovyle and Swellow in "Who's Flying Now?".

Swellow later (and is currently) fulfilling the same duties as Pidgeotto and Noctowl (Ash's Stage 1 Flying-types before Swellow). However, unlike his former flying pokemon, Swellow has been given actual character development, rather than simply popping Team Rocket's ballons, for Ash has used Swellow in every Hoenn Gym Battle since its evolution, all his 6 vs 6 matches in the Hoenn League, and one of his Battle Frontier matches. Ash's Swellow is known for surviving attacks, especially electric attacks, that would have knocked it out.

In the video games

Swellow is available in the Pokémon Ruby, Pokémon Sapphire, and Pokémon Emerald games which can be obtained by raising Taillow until it evolves, or by capturing it on route 115. In Pokemon XD one could be snagged from Cipher Admin Aldos at Citadark Isle.

Swellow has very good speed. Its speed is in the top 2% of all Pokémon meaning it nearly always gets the first hit. Unfortunately, once you get past its speed, Swellow becomes mediocre very quickly. Like most Normal/Flying birds, Swellow's defense and specials are paltry. These low defenses and special attack constrict its options into physical attacking and although 85 base attack seems decent, it's rather mediocre (if not blatantly subpar) for a physical attacker. Its saving grace is probably its incredible speed and Guts trait.

Competetively speaking, Swellow is generally employed as a Choice Bander. Its rigid movepool hurts its versatility and constricting stats prevent it from doing much else. It has been known to use Endeavor on odd occasions.

In the card game

Swellow has a comparatively healthy showing in card format. It has made the following stage-1 Colorless appearances:

EX Ruby and Sapphire
EX Sandstorm
EX Deoxys
EX Emerald

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Swellow ]

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