LO1 - Game Analysis - Pokémon Pearl

Pokémon Pearl - Nintendo DS

Genre

Pokémon Pearl is a role-playing game in which you play as a trainer and collect, and battle with, creatures called Pokémon. We can tell it's an RPG (role-playing game) because you play as a central character and complete certain tasks to progress and become stronger in the game. 

Narrative

The story goes as does most of the main Pokémon games, the player working their way up from their home town and battling and gaining Pokémon to battle with. There's legendary Pokémon to catch, and the player battles foes like the Elite Four, and then the League champion. If the player beats the League champion, they have won the game. The people the player battles generally aren't enemies or villains as such, just opponents. The only villains are the evil Team Galactic.

Production process

The game was announced near the end of 2004 at a Nintendo press conference. It was released in Japan on September 28th 2006, North America on April 22nd 2007, Europe on July 27th 2007 and Australia on June 21st 2007. It was designed to utilise features like Nintendo Wi-Fi connection and also to be able to connect to the Game Boy Advance Pokémon games, so that the player is able to transfer Pokémon from game to game.

Characterisation

There are various important, and not-so-important, characters in Pearl. There are people who are companions, family and rivals, and others who are enemies and gym leaders and professors. There are lots of characters because it's an RPG universe, meaning that it's a whole world of its own which needs inhabiting by characters. The characters don't all need to be strong characters because there are far too many to go into detail with.

Gameplay

The challenge of the game is to battle opponents to gain strength and work your way up to the Elite Four and the League champion. The game keeps the player engaged because as they progress, more types of Pokémon are available for them to catch, and tougher opponents and more rewards. The fact that the player can connect to previous Pokémon games and can connect with other players through Wi-Fi probably attribute to the success of the game. The gameplay contributes to the narrative as some opponents the player has to battle are key elements to the story.

Target audience

The target audience of this game is previous fans of the Pokémon games, and children between 7 and 13. However, there are older people who haven't previously played any Pokémon games who enjoy playing the game. The game got slightly higher ratings in comparison to previous titles in the Pokémon franchise such as FireRed, LeafGreen, Ruby and Sapphire.

Platform

The platform used for this game is Nintendo DS. The main Pokémon games have always been for Nintendo's series of handheld consoles. The game makes use of the features of the Nintendo DS console.