Pokémon in Canada: Difference between revisions

===In English===

All Pokémon games that have been released in {{pmin|the United States}} have also been released in Canada, with the exception of the [[Pokémon mini]]. New games are always released on the same day that they are released in the United States. Pokémon games sold in Canada are direct imports of the American versions, so spelling variations such as ''color'' and ''center'' are not changed to ''colour'' and ''centre'' for the Canadian releases. As in the United States, most Pokémon species names are completely localized from Japanese into English, with some exceptions such as {{p|Pikachu}}. Despite this, some Canadian materials, such as game packaging/manuals and the official Canadian site for ''[[Pokémon Black and White Versions]]'', use Canadian spellings in addition to the metric system for Pokémon height and weight stats.  

Unlike with the U.S. releases, English Canadian games until [[Generation VI]] have featured bilingual (English/French) packaging and manuals, both to comply with federal regulations and in order to market both the English and French versions to Francophone Canadians. Unlike how French-language games and related material fully translate all terms and names using {{pmin|France}}'s localizations, French material related to English games localizes some terms but leaves all proper nouns the same, with France's equivalent provided in brackets for some lesser terms ("{{pkmn|Trainer}}" is translated as "Dresseur", but "{{p|Feraligatr}}" is used instead of "Aligatueur" and [[Castelia City]] is referred to as "la ville Castelia City"). A few games have trilingual packaging, with Spanish as a third language for {{pmin|Latin America}}.

===In French===

While Canadian law requires bilingual packaging and instruction manuals to be included with the sale of all video games in Canada, Pokémon games were available in English only until the release of {{game|HeartGold and SoulSilver|s}}, which received a French release for the province of {{wp|Quebec}} in addition to the regular English release. This was due to an agreement between Quebec's government and major video game publishers requiring any video games in Quebec to be offered in French if available in that language elsewhere in the world.  

{{game|HeartGold and SoulSilver|s}} and all [[Generation V]] games received separate French-language releases in Quebec, which can also be found somewhat rarely in other provinces. These releases contain exactly the same content as those from {{pmin|France}}, with the packaging slightly modified to include elements such as a "Play in French" logo (upper-left corner), although they retain their {{wp|PEGI}} ratings rather than changing them to those of the {{wp|ESRB}}. As they are from France, the games are incompatible with some North American features, such as [[Pal Park]] with North American [[Generation III]] games and [[Poké Transfer]] and [[Pokémon Dream Radar]] with North American copies of {{3v2|Diamond|Pearl|Platinum}}. Despite the content of the games being almost identical to that of the releases from France, the Canadian French versions of the games for Nintendo DS have their own country code in the serial numbers, CDF (instead of USA for English North America, or EUR for Europe, etc.). With some exceptions such as {{p|Pikachu}}, most of the Pokémon species, character and location names are completely localized into the French language. For more information on these translated names, see [[list of French Pokémon names]].

As {{g|X and Y}} feature multilingual support, the need for separate English and French Game Cards from [[Generation VI]] onward appears to have been eliminated, as players may choose their preferred language at the beginning of the game. Most spin-off games include multiple language options, including French and Spanish. ''[[Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U]]'' is a unique case, as its North American French translation is separate from that of France due to it being a Nintendo crossover game, although most Pokémon characters still use European French names and voices to reflect how the games' translations are imported from or identical to those of France.