Genre Pokémon is an RPG (Role-Playing Game) with elements of strategy added to it. The game play is simply a small character in the middle of the scre

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2 Genre Pokémon is an RPG (Role-Playing Game) with elements of strategy added to it. The game play is simply a small character in the middle of the screen which the camera follows around. There are no other camera angles to view the character or the scenes occurring. The character is always visible throughout the whole game which makes it easier to follow. In the battles, the camera angle shows the player/player Pokémon and the opposing/foe Pokémon. There are also 4 options for the player to take; Fight, Pokémon (also seen as PKMN with the letters on different heights), Item and Run. Fight allows you to attack the Pokémon to weaken or defeat it (When a Pokémon loses all its Hit Points or HP, they Faint ). PKMN allows you to choose another Pokémon from your party to fight with. Item allows you to use an item from your bag which can allow you to either throw a ball at the Pokémon to catch it or heal your own Pokémon. Run allows you to run from the battle.

3 Narrative The main story in each of the Pokémon games is that you are a Pokémon trainer trying to become the Champion. To do this you must overcome challenges and defeat trainers and the main villains of the game, each generation has its own villain team, for example, Team Rocket is the main villain of the first generation games. When you first start the games, you get asked your gender and your name. Once chosen you get sent into the World Of Pokémon. Once you set the time you get directed to somewhere to move onto the next event which leads up to you being given your first Pokémon, otherwise called the Starter Pokémon. The starter Pokémon are different in each generation, as with other elements of the game, which makes the game less repetitive.

4 Narrative To get to the Champion of the region the game is set in, you must defeat 8 Gyms each with its own special type Pokémon. Once all the Gyms are defeated, you then have to take on the Elite 4 which is a group of 4 consecutive leaders of different types in which you have to defeat after each victory so you get no chance to use a Pokémon healer to heal your Pokémon. Once the Elite 4 are defeated, you take on the Champion and must defeat him to complete the game. Once you beat the Champion you then get sent back home with the current Pokémon you have and get to carry on your adventure but don t have to go through the same process. You get to do what you want at this point which means you can carry on and try to Catch Em All.

5 Narrative In Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (And the remakes of these games; Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire), the main story is that you have moved recently to the region of Hoenn to a home in a small town called Littleroot, the only places in Littleroot town are your home, the home of the Hoenn Pokémon Professor; Professor Birch, and the Pokélab where Prof. Birch works at. The Professor has a daughter who is the same age as your character who is about to embark on her own journey as well as your character, the daughter, called May, is your main rival throughout the game and in each event of battling her, she gives you an item and a hint of what to do next. She is less of a rival and more of a competitive friend.

6 Narrative Another part of the main story is that Team Magma/Aqua (Depending on which game you play) is trying to awaken Groudon/Kyogre (Also depends on the game you play) and you must try to follow them and stop what they are doing. You battle Gym leaders and your Pokémon learn new attacks which can help you interact with the scenery. One of the Gym leaders is your Father who is proud of seeing his son/daughter starting their Pokémon journey, your Father also helps another young child, again, the same age as you to begin his journey and as with May, you battle with the child in different parts of the game. You must meet certain people to get to the next gym, however, they are hard to get to and require you to learn a certain skill to get to them.

7 Representation Gender: The game has a Binary Gender system which is having 2 main gender choices (Male and Female) Some Pokémon can have a gender or if not, they are genderless In terms of statistics of certain Pokémon, both genders can be as strong as the other All Pokémon and trainers are seen as heterosexual which is also shown in the animé of the Pokémon franchise, however, there are elements in the animé which makes one of the main characters appears either homosexual or trans-gender Although power can be similar with different genders of a Pokémon, the male is seen as the more dominant gender which shows an example of hegemonic masculinity There is also an element of some Pokémon types being aimed at different genres, for example, the grass element is targeted mainly at females as in the Grass Gym in the Pokémon games, the gym itself is filled with mostly female foes. The gym leaders are all different and it seems that there is equal the amount of male gym leaders to female ones, this includes the Elite 4 leaders, this could have been done to get more females to play the game as well as show younger girls that they can lead a group if they wanted to. This also challenges the idea of hegemonic masculinity.

8 Representation Race As with a lot of the Pokémon games, there is not much to say in terms of race representation. The game is based off an island which is itself, based off a part of Japan. One of the stereotypes of Japan is that it is a homogeneous society in that everyone in it follows the same route in religion, language, politics, etc. This includes race too so as the game is based off Japan, which reflects on the original Ruby and Sapphire games, as the game I am covering is a remake, it may or may not have more of a race diversity in it.

9 Global Implications. Pokémon is a global franchise The Pokémon series since March 31, 2014 has sold over 245 million copies One of the best-selling games in the gaming history Awarded 8 Guinness World Records including Most Successful RPG Games Of All Time in the GWR: Gamer s Edition

10 Distribution The release date for this game is similar in most continents. The first continents who get the game (On November 21 st ) are North America, Japan and Australia. A week later the game gets released in Europe. Pre-orders are available online. To combat the complaints from Europe, mostly England, the Nintendo company announced that if the game was pre-ordered on a certain website, the customer would get a Torchic Keyring (Torchic is one of the starters in the game). They also released a Steelbook case only available in the UK for pre-ordering which comes with a steel game case and an action figure of the Primal evolution of that game s Legendary.

11 Marketing Strategies Videos posted on YouTube to show sneak peaks of the game and new additions Marketing strategies the Pokémon company used to help market the product include; Releasing demo versions of the game, releasing bundles for the 2DS console with designs from the game, giving away certain accessories with specific sales and a few others. The company also may show its fan-base a new Mega-Evolution for a certain Pokémon which makes people excited about the game and who have a preference to that specific Pokémon which will make them want to buy the game so they can get it.

12 Audience The target audience for Pokémon is hard to place, the basic game of Pokémon without added features can be seen as targeting towards younger children; however, when other parts of the game are looked at in more detail, it seems to have a wider demographic range than just simply children. There are small jokes that children wouldn t understand but teenagers and adults would which suggests that the games can also be targeted towards a huge age range, for example, Many games don t have a huge target audience and is targeted towards one age group, like how war games like Call Of Duty is aimed at teenagers. The complexity of the game could also show that it needs a more knowledgeable

13 Audience Positioning The image to the left shows a poster advertising the game. It shows pictures of Pokémon from the game and some possibly new ones. It also shows screenshots of the game being played, at the bottom it says Launching November At the top it has the names of both games with the corresponding legendaries next to the names. Under the titles is a text saying New Mega-Evolved Pokémon! This poster can identify with the audience because it gives clues to what is being added and implicated into the game. When the audience views this, the preferred reading is that a new game is being released with all the images on the front getting Mega Evolutions with exceptions to the already mega evolved Pokémon and also with exception to the Primal revolutions of Groudon and Kyogre. Another reading which is preferred in this text is that the legendaries available are only available to the corresponding games, i.e. Kyogre to Alpha Sapphire and Groudon to Omega Ruby.

14 Debates There are many debates about Pokémon about different aspects and what they could represent. I will show you some examples of what some debates about Pokémon are about and why they think this is what the Pokémon franchise is doing. Animal Cruelty: There is a common debate about whether Pokémon promotes the idea of animal cruelty to young children who play the games. The main reason there are people who think this is because of the battling in the Pokémon franchise, you are forcibly ordering a Pokémon to obey you to fight others. There are some people who compare this to illegal dog baiting fights.

15 Debates: Promoting The Occult Some people debate about whether or not the Pokémon franchise occult thinking, reasons they give for this is what the Pokémon medias feature; designs of some of the creatures, how they live. One debate suggests that Pokémon promotes the occult through satanic symbols on designs such as with Kadabra, it is suggested that the star on its head is actually a pentagram which is seen as an occultist symbol, also on the subject of this creatures design, it is suggested that the 3 lines on its stomach are the unholy triple S symbols.

16 Responses The responses to the release of this game were phenomenal. Many people were extremely excited to see this remake of the 2003 original games (Ruby & Sapphire). This remake has got some people excited because many people played these games as their first Pokémon games so a remake of their favourite games would bring some nostalgia to those who played those original games.