Pokemon Plus: Nobunaga no Yabou

[Doppleganger]

I hope Rance is in it.

http://i41.tinypic.com/be9e35.jpg

Oh, I guess it was reported here (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-12-16/pokemon+nobunaga-ambition-game-revealed) too.

[deoxys]

So, I've never actually heard of the Nobunga games before this, and I don't know much about them, but this crossover looks fucking incredible.

Pokemon? In feudal Japan? Yes, please.

[DaveTheFishGuy]

Someone needs to explain what the hell this all is.

[Doppleganger]

The game seems projected as a feudal Japanese t-RPG with a Pokemon presence, I'm not even confident if the Pokemon will be a serious battle mechanic like the normal games, or if this'll be story driven.

Whatever the case, it's a step toward Pokemon becoming more "mature" and that means the audience will grow up with it. Even if it's just a cool gimmick game, it'll be cool to see made.

[Jerichi]

The game that it's crossing over with, if anyone was interested. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobunaga's_Ambition)

Also, I think a better transliteration is probably Pokemon + Nobunga no Yabou. But that's just me.

[seakittenyfool]

Funny, the region it takes place in is called Ranse.

[empoleon dynamite]

A video!

hxi4rdnOUbQ

This brings a lot of hope to a fan who's getting bored of the same repetative Pokémon games and spinoffs.

[PikaGod]

So this is for the DS? Dear god that is awesome, hopefully it will get localised because, personally, I have been wishing for a pokemon SRPG for a while now.

[Jerichi]

omgggg the official trailer makes this look ridiculously awesome I want it nowwwwww

omg it's like FF Tactics + Pokemon so perfect fuuuuck release this immediately

[Talon87]

Why are you all so excited? Why am I the only one so far who thinks this sounds like a terrible idea? :?

Everybody else: because your opinions suck. =P

Forgive me, but frrustratingly "Right back at ya." :?

I dunno. This could be cute, I guess? But this is about as stupid as having Dynasty Warriors x Pokemon. I love Dynasty Warriors. I love Pokemon. But I wouldn't want the two crossed together. That would just be stupid.

Why, GameFreak? Why must you deny the fanbase a Pokemon MMO? Why must you deny the fanbase a main console main series title? Why must you deny us a good 3D game? And yet why do you waste our time on crap like this? :?

Well, at least everybody else is excited. I guess that bodes well for whoever proposed this crossover at the board meeting.

[Poke_Hunter]

Meh. Might buy this, in no real rush though.

[DaveTheFishGuy]

Why, GameFreak? Why must you deny the fanbase a Pokemon MMO? Why must you deny the fanbase a main console main series title? Why must you deny us a good 3D game? And yet why do you waste our time on crap like this? :?

Holy shit someone that agrees with me. A friend and I at uni came up with a really good idea for the Gold/Silver remakes to be a Wii-based MMO (this was thought up in '08), but obviously that never happend.

>FF/Kingdom Hearts comparisons

Oh. Ew.

[Jerichi]

>Why are you all so excited? Why am I the only one so far who thinks this sounds like a terrible idea?

I really don't care about the crossover shit and frankly I think it sounds a little stupid. I'm more excited about the strategy element. The storyline will probably be kinda shitty anyways - I just want to play a TRPG with Pokemon.

[deoxys]

Why are you all so excited? Why am I the only one so far who thinks this sounds like a terrible idea? :?

Everybody else: because your opinions suck. =P

Forgive me, but frrustratingly "Right back at ya." :?

I dunno. This could be cute, I guess? But this is about as stupid as having Dynasty Warriors x Pokemon. I love Dynasty Warriors. I love Pokemon. But I wouldn't want the two crossed together. That would just be stupid.

Why, GameFreak? Why must you deny the fanbase a Pokemon MMO? Why must you deny the fanbase a main console main series title? Why must you deny us a good 3D game? And yet why do you waste our time on crap like this? :?

Well, at least everybody else is excited. I guess that bodes well for whoever proposed this crossover at the board meeting.

I agree, but I don't think GameFreak is working on this title? I believe they're doing something else in secret, probably Gray or RSE remakes. I am personally excited for this game because it looks unique and different, and I would love the strategy element a la Fire Emblem and FFT

[Doppleganger]

Why are you all so excited? Why am I the only one so far who thinks this sounds like a terrible idea? :?

I wouldn't say terrible, especially when this game's existence will likely increases the chances of the games you want to be made by a non-zero value. However small it may be.

But I'm not overly enthusiastic about it, because it looks gimmicky - a t-RPG with a Pokemon presence, rather than, say, the Pokemon universe 500 years earlier.

The art is nice. It'll be likewise nice to see Pokemon in another setting. Yet it's nothing but a step, it's a far cry from a Pokemon game for fans who've already grown up.

[PikaGod]

I really don't care too much really about the story and that, personally these types of games I pretty much play for the gameplay rather than the story, and I want to play me some tactical pokemon.

[Kindrindra]

I think I just wet my pants.


EDIT: And Eevee is one step closer to replacing Pikachu as pokemon's mascot.


EDIT 2: >People complaining about how it's not the things they've been hoping for.
*Facepalm*
Goddammit, people. It's pokemon expanding it's horizons. Remember, this is a spin-off game- is this really not on par with PMD and Ranger?

But Kin, those games are bad anyways! We want our adult pokemon games!

Get over yourselves! Pokemon is a series aimed at the most profitable demographic group for video games- the kids. We should be happy there are elements for older players in the first place. If you want all this random different shit, go play a different game! That's why there are so many video games- so there's something for everyone!

[Raptor Jesus]

Baby need a diaper?

[Blastoise]

Why are you all so excited? Why am I the only one so far who thinks this sounds like a terrible idea? :?

I'm pretty sure "Pokemon Strategy RPG" is a pretty awesome idea. Not exactly how I would have expected them to execute on it, but hey.

Why, GameFreak? Why must you deny the fanbase a Pokemon MMO?

I think the collective Pokemon fanbase has been over this ad nauseum, but let me break it down for all the "POGEMAN MMO WOULD BE TEH COOLIES" folks:

1. MMOs are expensive to create and maintain, and we live in a world where many of them must increasingly turn to F2P/microtransctions to be relevant, much less survive. Pokemon is a series that is relatively cheap to produce (IIRC, a "AAA" DS game only costs around a few million dollars to make) and its mainline incarnations are almost guaranteed to sell 10+ million copies sight unseen. If you're Nintendo (a notoriously financially conservative company), what seems like the better business decision?

2. The base mechanics of a Pokemon game do not lend themselves well to an MMO. I think if more people actually put some thought into what Pokemon would have to be mechanically to be a functional MMO, a lot of them would be a lot less gung-ho about the idea.

3. With online play/trading, you basically already have all the social interaction you'd actually want out of a Pokemon MMO. Admittedly you don't get the "OMG ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE IN THIS WORLD WITH ME" feeling, but I think all of us who played WoW can attest that at a certain point other players in an MMO become either levers you exploit to help you get AWESUM POWAH or pains in the ass when you're just trying to get 10 bear asses in peace. I exaggerate, but not by much.

4. It's easier to convince Mom to buy a DS game that will shut her hellspawn up on car trips than it is to convince her to go in for a $15/month subscription.

Why must you deny the fanbase a main console main series title?

Because:

1. Much of Pokemon's appeal is predicated on personal interaction?

2. There's really not much in Pokemon's base mechanics that would be vastly improved on a home console?

Why must you deny us a good 3D game? And yet why do you waste our time on crap like this? :?

The same reason you must now go left, and then up to reach the daycare: it's because they hate you.

[Doppleganger]

I'm pretty sure "Pokemon Strategy RPG" is a pretty awesome idea.

It does sound cool, but I think we're getting "Strategy RPG with Pokemon". With hot feudal babes old enough to be my ancient Japanese ancestors. =3=

[Kindrindra]

It does sound cool, but I think we're getting "Strategy RPG with Pokemon". With hot feudal babes old enough to be my ancient Japanese ancestors. =3=

Well, that's what I would of assumed too. But the battle scenes in the trailer seem to imply all-pokemon battles.

[Talon87]

Well, that's what I would of assumed too. But the battle scenes in the trailer
lol, what? :lol: We are talking about this trailer that emp posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxi4rdnOUbQ), yes? In which case there were zero battle scenes in the trailer. :lol: :?

[PikaGod]

Nope, they mean this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u34bzH5Eo04&feature=player_embedded)

[Talon87]

The good news for you guys: looks like it'll be Pokemon tactics then after all and not simply "Nobunaga but with Pokemon tacked on"
The bad news for you guys: just look at those in-battle graphics. :|

The cutscene animations look really nice though. Reminds me of Capcom's artwork in the Phoenix Wright series. But those battle graphics ... yeesh, I've seen better tactical game graphics on the GameBoy Advance for fuck's sake (Sample 1 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEiPIBxcf2c#t=0m28s), Sample 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmZuOHycIJE)), never mind the Nintendo DS (Sample 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAS8r-DA3Ig)).

Well, there's one last bit of goodness embedded in those poor graphics, I guess: and that is that this will be a regular DS release and not a 3DS release, meaning you can all pick it up and play it this spring (Jpns release) or else whenever (if ever) it comes out in the USA and Europe. No need to rush out and buy a 3DS for this one.

[Lindz]

This seems like an extremely random crossover with a low likelyhood of being released outside of Japan sadly enough. I dun care for SRPGs cause they're slowwww and I always end up needing a guide to get through 'em so I can't say I got much interest in this one. This game could end up being the DS's Earthbound 2. Never localized cause its coming out way to late in the systems life.

Why, GameFreak? Why must you deny the fanbase a Pokemon MMO? Why must you deny the fanbase a main console main series title? Why must you deny us a good 3D game? And yet why do you waste our time on crap like this? :?

Why bring up GameFreak as if they have anything ta do with this project x.x? Cry out against TPC or Nintendo! It wouldn't be surprising if this was a political move to secure more support from Koei in the future. This is something they've done before with other characters and companies ya know.

[Kindrindra]

There is a character in Black Ace I would like to quote right now. Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what they say.

But the gist of it is, quite frankly, Graphics and Sound don't mean a damn. Gameplay is all that's important. Past actually being able to see what's going on, graphics and sound are really just bells and whistles.

[Talon87]

There is a character in Black Ace I would like to quote right now. Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what they say.

But the gist of it is, quite frankly, Graphics and Sound don't mean a damn. Gameplay is all that's important. Past actually being able to see what's going on, graphics and sound are really just bells and whistles.
Before I respond to this, let me be absolutely certain of one thing:

Are you saying this about this particular game? Or is this a declaration about video games in general?

[Kindrindra]

Before I respond to this, let me be absolutely certain of one thing:

Are you saying this about this particular game? Or is this a declaration about video games in general?

Well, I guess more the genre. I mean, obviously there are games this most certainly doesn't apply to, such as Myst (I think that's it's name). But those are kinda less games and more... multimedia? I mean, as much as I love Fire Emblem's epic cut-scenes, they aren't really essential to the game. Just a bonus- so, bells and whistles.

[Lindz]

The release date was been announced earlier today during the JP Nintendo Direct conference~

March 17th for Japan which is just 3 1/2 weeks away.


This thread was made 12/16? So like 3 months from unveiling to release. Wow o.o Still think its unlikely it'll come out anywhere in the west but never give up the fight. OP Pokéfall is on (j/k)!

[Talon87]

The release date was been announced earlier today during the JP Nintendo Direct conference~
Odd. I read about this yesterday. Decided not to post about it because why bump a thread for a Japanese release date that's still a month away?, I thought. But yeah, let me find the thread ... yep, here's the article (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2012-02-17/pokemon+nobunaga-ambition-figures-unveiled). I read it last night, but it looks like it was published back on February 17, five days ago.

[Lindz]

Odd. I read about this yesterday. Decided not to post about it because why bump a thread for a Japanese release date that's still a month away?, I thought. But yeah, let me find the thread ... yep, here's the article (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2012-02-17/pokemon+nobunaga-ambition-figures-unveiled). I read it last night, but it looks like it was published back on February 17, five days ago.

News is news! A release dates a good enough reason for a bump if ya ask me. o.o Who knows maybe one of us here plans to import it...!

[Talon87]

Oh ho! Well, I look forward to seeing a photograph of your personal copy of the game. Just because that would be more nifty than you saying "I got it! ^-^" :)

[Lindz]

Oh ho! Well, I look forward to seeing a photograph of your personal copy of the game. Just because that would be more nifty than you saying "I got it! ^-^" :)

Me?? I dun got that kinda money! Even if it does ever get cheaper... no way. Not understanding it would be one thing, but I need guides to beat strategy games! What'd be the point of having something I can't enjoy one way or another? >.<

[Kindrindra]

Well, it might be a little easier than most strategie games, since it doesn't have FE's whole 'If you die in battle, you die in real life!!' thing.

[Talon87]

So, I decided to take this out for a test spin.

Thoughts:
It's a cute little game. Only 2 hours in and I'm already in possession of four of the seventeen cities, so I don't see this game lasting very long ^_^;, but it's a cute little game nonetheless. If you've ever played a tactical RPG (Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, etc etc), you'll probably find this game to be ridiculously easy. It's basically Baby's First Tactics RPG™. They give you a companion right from the get-go who, without even burning her free move or attack for the turn to do this, can once per battle heal every single ally's HP. At the beginning of the game, this more or less maximum heals you; even later on, it's still a colossal boon. So far, enemy squads have been limited to four or fewer Pokemon; and it looks like the maximum possible is 6v6. Another example of this game's simplicity is the fact that you only really get one attack and (at least in the early stages of the game) one special. For Eevee, for example, his attack is Quick Attack and his special is an agility-boosting move that lasts for one turn only. When you gain experience, occasionally you'll be told that the power of your move has gone up ("わざがポワーアップ"). This is as close as it gets, it seems, to learning new moves. I'm hoping to be proven wrong eventually -- it'd be nice to learn a new move, especially since Eevee's AOE is only one square and it has to be immediately adjacent to him :| -- but for now it seems like I'm stuck with Quick Attack.

Another example of the game really holding your hand is that it explains everything when you first encounter it. So like ...
at first, I was wondering why I wasn't able to recruit new Pokemon. Should I not be KOing them? :?: But I don't see any option for recruiting them during battle ... :? But then on Year 1 Month 3 (Turn 3 of the game) Oichi explained to me that I needed to fight other Bushou (trainers) with Pokemon and to recruit them
The game explains to you how you should use specials and not just spam regular attacks over and over
during a fight in a particular castle, they explain to you each and every last one of its secrets ("these columns will eventually go down and permit us to pass," "if you stand in the hot spring you'll recover", etc.). In another castle, there are a series of portals ... and the game more or less teaches you about their existence and how to use them by innocuously having its Pokemon go and use each kind of portal first, as sort of a demonstration.
the first time you go to any new location, they explain that location's purpose. Shop? Yes. Ponigiri shop? Yes. Gold mine? Yes. Everything is always carefully explained to you should you so choose to listen.
In fact, if you idle too long in the first castle town, two of the locals will lose their patience with you and tell you to git yer ass out the door and go and fight the first enemy castle town boss. :lol: This happens after only two turns (i.e. at the start of Turn 3).

All in all, it's a cute game. However, if you can't understand the story, then your enjoyment will be pretty limited. As a game without the story, it's very simple. Like I said, it's Baby's First Tactics RPG™. So it'll probably be boring if you can't enjoy the simplistic gameplay alongside the charming story.

Spoiler Thoughts/Plot Summary (includes historical explanations that may spoil later game surprises for Western players):
At the start of the game, you're asked whether you want to play as a boy or as a girl. I chose a boy. No idea what happens if you choose to play as a girl, so just throwing that out there.

You're the young lord of Hajime (Beginning), a small castle town in the south-center of the land of Rance. One day out of the blue, you run into a beautiful girl with a Jigglypuff. She introduces herself as Oichi (Ichi), who historically was ...

the younger sister of Oda Nobunaga, the wife of Azai Nagamasa, and later the wife of Shibata Katsuie. She was lusted after by Toyotomi Hideyoshi but she refused to marry him.
Anyway, Ichi is very cute and she seems to like you and want to support you. Before you know it, Hajime is invaded by some of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's troops. Ichi teams up with you and together you easily send Hideyoshi's thugs back to Kaen (Fire), the fire castle town. Ichi asks if you're familiar with the legend of the legendary Pokemon who is said to manifest itself before the warlord who can conquer all seventeen castles in the realm. She explains that Hajime will continue to be assaulted by rival warlords so, for the betterment of everybody, it's up to you to take up the sword and conquer the realm yourself. So you do. Because you totally are already whipped by this beauty. ;-) :lol:

I decided to train with Ichi before staging my assault on Kaen. Ichi explained various aspects of battle and castle town exploration to me over the course of two months (two game turns). At the start of the third month, however, two of the locals from Hajime were like, "Dude!? Quit dillydallying! :evil:" and the game more or less forced me to challenge Hideyoshi to a fight. :lol:

Hideyoshi's stage was fairly easy thanks to some probable luck on my part. I was able to secure one of the two closest hot springs before he was. Then when the rock slide happened, it crushed two of his three guys while sparing both of mine. Sure, it was a bitch that he could fight on lava while I could not, but whatever, we saw the same exact strategy employed by fire Pokemon in the Mystery Dungeon series so I already knew to expect it. I felt bad for the Bidoof guy during this fight. :lol: At one point he remarks that since Bidoof isn't a fire-type and can't cross lava it's pretty worthless. Oichi, with tears in her pouty eyes, says "That's so cruel! :(" lolol Gotta love the fan service on both fronts (everyone hates Bidoof, everyone loves cute Oichi).

After you drive Hideyoshi out of Kaen, Oichi explains to you that there are two neighboring castle towns for you to conquer. The first, Aoba ("blue leaf"), is the Grass-type town. The second, (I forget its name), is the Water-type town. Logically, you do this:
Stay behind in Kaen to recruit some Fire-type bushou.
Press on to Aoba and kick their asses with Eevee, Jigglypuff, and your Fire-types.
Stay behind in Aoba to recruit some Grass-type bushou.
Press on to (the water town) and kick their asses with Eevee, Jigglypuff, and your Grass-types.
The first part of this plan went off without a hitch. I was able to recruit a Charmander (I think everybody gets him, he appears to be a token recruit from when Oichi teaches you about how to recruit people) and a Tepig. I then went to Aoba, conquered the flag in the center, and then proceeded to roast the three guys to the northeast while leaving Eevee to solo the one Kurumiru who had gone to protect the southwest post. It took a little while thanks to his constantly healing at the flag post, but eventually I was able to KO everybody and take all the flags. The second part of the plan was a little shakier. While I did manage to conquer the water castle town too, I encountered some hiccups along the way. First, I recruited two different Kurumiru from Aoba. When I then saw a Cottonee, I decided I needed to get it. Why? Because Problem #1: Kurumiru's attack is Bug Bite. And while this is great for killing off his fellow Grass-type Pokemon, it's not any better than using Eevee or Jigglypuff against the Water-type trainers. So I recruited Cottonee's trainer ... only to encounter Problem #2. Since I had failed to deploy anybody to castle towns -- instead, I had everybody following me around at all times -- and since I'd just gotten Team Member #7, the game prompted me to let somebody go. So I had to release one of the two Kurumiru trainers. It was for the best though since Cottonee's attack is Absorb and that was very useful against the Water-type guy.

Most of the peons you recruit are either peons from this historical time period or else are make-believe characters, I have no way of knowing which. However, the generals are all based on historical warlords from the time period. With the exception of Hideyoshi, the ones I'm knocking out now were the smaller fries who exited the war early. But I imagine it's just a moment of time before I run into the likes of Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin, Akechi Mitsuhide, and of course the big man himself, Oda Nobunaga.

Which brings us to the cutscene you get after you beat the water castle town's warlord. Oichi asks you once again if you're familiar with that legend about the legendary Pokemon who will show itself before the man who is able to conquer all seventeen castle towns. She explains that there is a warlord to the far north, a man named Oda Nobunaga, who wishes to get this Pokemon so that he may use it ...

... "to destroy the land of Rance."

Uh, what? :lol: So, Oda Nobunaga in this game (1) is clearly the primary villain and (2) is nothing at all like his historical counterpart. But whatever, we'll roll with it. It makes me wonder what he's the warlord of. If I had to guess, probably Dragon-types.

So yeah. We need to get the legendary Pokemon on our side before Nobunaga does, otherwise Nobunaga will use the creature to destroy the land of Rance.

Anyway, I put the game down after here, but the next few cities that have popped up appear to be the Electric, Fighting, and Bug-type cities. Oichi explains that the Fighting-type city will be especially difficult for our team since both Eevee and Jigglypuff are weak to Fighting-type attacks. My plan of attack is:

Put my fire-type guys back onto the squad, leave Cottonee there for good measure, and go to defeat the Bug-type warlord. This is because four of his Pokemon are Bugs and one of his Pokemon is Water. The Fire-types should make mincemeat out of the bugs while Cottonee should be able to beat the Water-type before it beats them.
Go do the Electric-type city second. I don't really have anybody who will be super-effective against them but I don't have anyone who should be weak either. It'll just be like the time I fought Hideyoshi: a contest of raw power.
Go do the Fighting-type city third. Hopefully I'll have leveled up enough by then. Even better, maybe I can get a Flying-type in either the Bug or Electric cities and maybe the move it knows'll be a Flying-type one instead of the other type.
So, what do I think of all this?

It's cute. :) It's not Shakespeare. And it's certainly not faithful to history. :lol: But it's cute. Do I want to see ten Pokemon+Nobunaga titles over the next ten years? No. Was this a fun little gift from GameFreak for fans? Sure. Any time we get a story-driven Pokemon game, we fans appreciate it. So it's nice to see that while the RPG side of things here is very basic, at least there's a cute story to go along with it.
Do I think this game is worth localizing? That's a really, really tough call. If I had to pick, I'd say no. :( And here's why: quite simply, the game works best as the crossover that it is, which is a crossover of Pokemon and Sengoku period history. Take out the Sengoku bit for a Western audience and what you're left with is a shell of a game that could probably be beaten, if I maintain this pace, in under 10 hours. But that stated, if they were to keep the Sengoku bits intact, and if they were to localize it and bring it over, do I think it'd be worth your time to check out? Absolutely. Do I think it'd be worth your money? That depends on you. If you don't care for tactical RPGs, the story is not good enough (yet?) to warrant a purchase. And if you don't give a shit about the story, the tactical RPG side of things is much too weak to get you to buy this either. Only if you both like tactical RPGs and cute expanded universe stories should you buy this game. But if you do, and if they did bring it over, then yeah, I'd say it's worth your $35-40.

[Lindz]

I like the sound of the whole "babys first tactics game" thing. Makes me think I wouldn't completely fail at it. But then later on it turns out I'd fail anyway... ;.; Hopefully not. idk. I'd like for it to be localized just cause there's little reason not to. Not releasing a good fun solid game because of culture or w/e we'd not have Yakuza and tons of other very japanese set games. Its not like NOA/NOE would pull a Capcom and change the setting (then again there was EBA...).

Also:
http://www.siliconera.com/2012/03/14/first-look-at-the-link-and-zero-suit-samus-costumes-in-dynasty-warriors-vs/
Koei gets more Nintendo goodness. Possibly as part of the partnership this game brought around?

btw:
[NDS] 01. Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition(Pokemon Co., 12.03.17): 172,027 (NEW)

Nice start.

edit! Apparently most (all?) other Nobunaga games have debuted below 50k. I think this spinoff won't be a one-off!

[Amras.MG]

I have to say, as soon as I saw the whole "your Pokemon only gets one special attack" thing, I instantly disregarded this game. That seems like a major flaw to me. I'm not interested in shelling out $35 for a game I'll play for 10-15 hours, especially when I could just play FFTA, FFT, or FFTA2 instead.

Won't be buying it.

[Talon87]

I've played a bit more. I don't want to go into all the details I did earlier -- if you want details, then read what I wrote above! =P :) -- but I will update you on some new important things.

The first thing is that you are able to recruit wild Pokémon after all. The game just doesn't allow you to do it until you've beaten the Electric castle town. It then walks you through the process of how to catch them, holding your hand like it has for every other game feature explored so far. :lol:

The second thing is that all bushou (trainers) have a natural affinity for certain elements and creatures. The creatures they have when you recruit them won't always match their natural affinity. Once you can recruit wild Pokemon, you learn from Keiji (a recurring character) that you don't have to use Eevee if you don't want: you can use whatever Pokemon you've managed to develop a link (リンク) with.

Oichi isn't happy to hear what Keiji has to say. But ultimately it's up to the player whether they respect Oichi's wishes or not. You can totally make her not use Jigglypuff if you want. ^_^;
My feelings are pretty split on this. Pro: You can use whatever Pokemon you personally like best. There's no reason to feel like you're stuck using Eevee. Con: It really shits on the narrative side of things. Our hero met Eevee when he was just a boy and they've been lifelong friends ever since. It's pretty ridiculous to even imagine him dumping Eevee for some random Joltik or Pansage he finds on the side of the road. ^_^;

Obviously, this feature has the added benefit of allowing you to get past particularly difficult stages for Normal-types since both you and Oichi have Normal-type Pokémon for your defaults.

When you attempt to link with wild Pokémon, you'll see a bronze, silver, or gold medal above their heads. The better the medal, the better their compatibility with you. So far I've only seen bronze (skipped) and silver (procured) wild Pokémon. I imagine gold is something that (1) will be rare and (2) will lol-obviously be what ties in with the legendary Pokémon you end up teaming up with.

[Talon87]

Okay, so I'm a little pissed at the game right now but I guess this is one of those "better late than never" scenarios ...

Early, early on in the game, when I tried to recruit people, I was told "You can't have more than six people! You're gonna have to let someone go!" So I did, and from that moment on, I figured:

1. You better bring only 4-5 people to every castle challenge. Otherwise, you won't have a spare slot or two for recruiting people.

2. If you've only got one open slot and there are two possible recruits, or if you've only got two open slots and there are three or more possible recruits, you need to send the inferior one or ones on their way.

Well, it turns out that after you do this epic midgame fight, you have your very first opportunity to recruit a fellow warlord. And he's a big deal (both historically and in the game), so I was stoked to have him on board. The only problem was, his entire clan wanted to come along. And I only had one open slot available. And each of them were so good.

Biting the bullet, I said, "Fuck it: I know I've been working real hard on some of these other guys, but I've got to have at least two of these new guys. And since I only have one slot, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go ahead and tell the game 'I want all five of them. =P' And I'll let the game tell me what I have to do from there." I have no idea why I thought to even do this, but I did, and ...

"You have too many bushou in your team right now. So ... where would you like to deposit them? :) Pick a castle town for each of them to go to."

...

...

... are you fucking serious? :| I've been letting half the goddamn game's cast go after winning each battle, and now you're telling me that I could have kept them all? :doh:

Putting things in context: Thankfully, I'm not that into the game. ^_^; If I was, (1) I'd be fucking irate right now and (2) you can bet I'd erase my save file and start all over again -- after first scouring the Internet to double-check about the possibility of re-recruiting people you let go. The other thing is, like I said, this was the very first warlord I've been eligible to recruit. All the others have run away, leaving me only with one or two peons of theirs to recruit. So to make the Pokemon comparison, it's not like I released my Articuno and KO'd my Zapdos on Pokemon Red: it's more like I released my Farfetch'd and KO'd one of the game's two Snorlaxes. Still a bitch for a completionist, but not the end of the world. So I will play on with this damaged save file. ^_^; And from now on, I will attempt to recruit EVERYBODY.

_____________________________

In other news, I'm at the halfway point already? I think I've logged 4½ hours of gameplay. I've conquered 7 cities and have 2 ally cities for a total of 9 out of 17. For those who want plot details, here's catch-up:

Electric, Bug, and Fighting castle towns didn't have too important of warlords.

I took too long to conquer all three (I was trying to max everyone's tension bars) so what actually happened was that the Fighting castle town launched an invasion of Kaen, the Fire castle town, and I had to take it back. It was really easy though.

The next two castle towns were revealed to be the Psychic and Ground ones. The Psychic town is the home of the Uesugi clan led by Uesugi Kenshin, whose partner in-game is a Gallade. The Ground town is where Takeda Shingen has settled; his partner is a Rhyperior.

When you conquer the Fighting town, Oichi congratulates you on getting your seventh city. You've established quite the hegemony! But Mitsunari, cynical as ever, informs you that Oda Nobunaga has already conquered eight other castle towns. The only two remaining are Kenshin's Psychic and Shingen's Ground towns. He points out to you that if Nobunaga can recruit Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen to his cause, he will be unstoppable and it will only be a matter of time before all of Rance falls to him. Therefore it is imperative that you take out Shingen and Kenshin first, before they have a chance to strike up an alliance with Oda.

I staged an invasion of the Psychic town since it seemed like it'd be the easier of the two to conquer. (My team: Eevee, Staravia, Charmeleon, Pignite, and Kirlia.) But I'm turned away at the gate by none other than the famous Sengoku samurai Naoe Kanetsugu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoe_Kanetsugu). As I head back home to the Bug castle town ... Kenshin's older sister, Aya Gozen, has staged a surprise invasion of her own! 8O I got pwned by some ridiculous hax in this match (I triggered three different cage traps while they triggered none, two of my mons got paralyzed and one got frozen while only one of hers incurred any status inflictions, a burn) and yet I still managed to handily win, losing only Pignite to some ridiculous psychic attacks from her Kirlia.

After we repelled Aya Gozen, I decided "Let's do it :D" and staged an immediate invasion of Kenshin's castle town. And ... it was surprisingly easy. 8O :doh: Probably the most anti-climactic fight of the game by far. Here he was, the Uesugi Kenshin, and yet ... of his five dudes, three came like lambs to the slaughter to my own ambush, one was a desperate Abra that could do nothing other than guard a flag post, and as for Gallade ... all he did was guard the flag post! :lol: Sure, his slicing attack (didn't note the name) did a ton of damage when it hit, but still: thanks to a pretty retarded A.I. I managed to win this fight with zero casualties.

After you beat Kenshin, Takeda Shingen shows up, revealing that he had been watching our fight the entire time from a hiding spot. Impressed by my team's prowess, he decides to team up with his rival Uesugi Kenshin and to temporarily join up with me to take down Oda Nobunaga. Oichi sees this as cause for celebration and offers to cook us up a feast. Cue the picture of us all having a feast outdoors at sunset. :)

Soon after, Oda Nobunaga shows up in the flesh, escorted by his partner, Zekrom. Oichi lets the cat out of the bag finally -- "Onii-sama! 8O" -- and Nobunaga asks her why she's tagging along with me. When she explains that she believes I have what it takes to stop him from destroying Rance, he offers a "well, let's see" and leaves. Oichi apologizes for not telling me sooner that she's Nobunaga's little sister. However, she points out that this is all the more reason I should believe her claims about Nobunaga's plans -- who better to know him than his own flesh and blood? -- and that we have to stop him at all costs.

I went ahead and recruited the entire Uesugi clan. I temporarily stationed them around the map and right now I'm trying to boost their tension gauges before I use them. But I'm looking forward to using Kenshin, Kanetsugu, and one of their lackeys who looks like she's got a good Pokemon. Sadly, I don't think I was eligible to get Aya Gozen :( , but oh well.
Also, I forget when it happened, but there was a very humorous and interesting development in the story. :) It ties in to the game mechanics.

This is the first game where the human trainer evolves too! XD

I'm not joking. :lol: After one of the fights -- I think it was after I repelled Aya Gozen's invasion of the Bug castle town -- the hero evolves. He gets new armor, his stats improve, and I think he even gets a new ability. (I'd have to check.) But yeah. You totally evolve. Oichi comments that she's heard about samurai evolving in Rance before and makes a one-sentence offhand comment about how it only happens here, or something, to excuse why we don't see it in the main series games. XD But still! This was pretty amusing. I definitely was not expecting it when it happened.
To address Amras's concern from before ... yes, it looks like you only learn one move and one special still. When your Pokemon evolve, the move often times changes. (E.g. Charmander's Ember became Charmeleon's Fire Fang.) But per creature, it looks like you've only got the one move to work with. This is kind of a shame. :| Maybe it'll change as I get farther along in the game, who knows, but I doubt it. Consequently, this means that there's little offensive benefit in dual types. So dual types that are defensively poor but offensively good will be just plain poor in this game. Vice-versa, dual types that are defensively strong but offensively weak, you won't really care about anyway since you'll only have one or the other of the two types to attack with anyway. My guess would be that (if they show up) the legendaries' attacks will be their signature moves. Thus, Zekrom is effectively an Electric-type (his volt move), Lugia a Flying-type (Aeroblast), Ho-oh a Fire-type (Sacred Fire), and so on. That'd be my guess, anyway.

[Amras.MG]

The game does take type advantages into play though? What about Pokemon attacks used on human characters?

[Talon87]

The bushou are just like human trainers in any other Pokemon game: they're not on the field and can't be the target of enemy Pokémon attacks. What the bushou do do is lend their Pokémon a second ability. For instance, I found out that it was Oichi, not Jigglypuff, who was doing the "I can heal every single ally on the field once per battle" thing. Sure, Jigglypuff executes it, but the ability is brought to the table by Oichi. Similarly, my hero was the one giving Eevee his movement boost ability, not Eevee Eevee's self. (Eevee's native ability, in my case, is the one which says that if it scores a kill on a hit it does, it gets to move and attack once again.)

Some more info to report for fellow fans playing the game:

I was optimistic that when my Charmeleon trainer's link % denominator read "70%" that this was because his affiliation, which lies with Flying and Fire, didn't match Charmeleon's completely -- but that once Charmeleon evolved into Charizard, who is Fire/Flying, the denominator would change from 70% to 100%. Well, I'm sorry to inform you that this is not the case. Charmeleon just evolved and he's now sitting at 51%/70%. This is unfortunate. :| There's little point in investing effort into Pokemon that don't have the capacity for 100% linkage because, as I discovered with a maxed out 42%/42% Kirlia, once you hit the max percent, they quit growing. No more attack increases, no more HP increases, nothing. Which really, really sucks. It's all the more reason to recruit enemy generals (since most of them come with Pokemon w/ 100% link potential) and all the more reason to dump any bushou-Pokémon pairing with a denominator that's 70% or less. That stated? I'll hold onto the 'Zard for now. Going to try him out. Charmeleon's been my team's #1 damage dealer and I don't expect that trend to change now that he's gotten even more powerful. It's just a shame that he won't be worth all the effort I put into raising him come end game. To draw a comparison with the real world games, this is like saying that I have a Charizard who can only grow as large as Level 70. Sure, that's good enough for Story Mode, but would you be happy to waste your time training a Charizard who's capped at Level 70? :|

This game (1) sorely needed more beta testing and/or input from Pokemon fans and (2) sorely wants a sequel that addresses a lot of the design problems we've already noticed. But oh well. :) It's still a cute, fun game. And I'd still recommend it as a purchase for anyone who likes Pokemon, tactical RPGs, and cute fanfic-ish stories.

[Talon87]

A wandering peddler showed up and offered me a chance to purchase some very expensive items. Most were nice but not worth the cost (5000 coins for an item that prevents enemy critical hits, 10000 coins for an item I probably can't use until post-game, 5000 coins for a one-time-use Full Restore, etc), but I did go ahead and purchase a Moon Stone for 5000 coins, just in case I go back to using Jigglypuff any time soon and just in case Jigglypuff doesn't evolve on its own in this game. (I would normally assume not, but someone in Serebii's discussion thread suggested that his Jigglypuff did in fact auto-evolve at 55% linkage. He may just be mistaken though and didn't realize that he'd given Jigglypuff a Moon Stone to hold before that battle.) I tested a stone-induced evolution on the marshmallow and was not pleased with the results. :| Sure, it learns Hyper Voice, a more powerful attack and one which hits each of the eight squares immediately adjacent to the user -- but it still only has a movement speed of 3 squares. :| Jigglypuff's slowness is precisely the reason I boxed it in favor of the lol-epic-mobility Starly/Staravia. I think I'd rather have a 90% max link Staraptor anyway than a 100% max link Wigglytuff.

I've noticed some of the old enemy generals showing up when I do random battles. (I've most often seen the Pineco guy with the painted face, but I've also seen the Fighting-type guy once.) However, even if I beat them at the speed of light, I'm not able to recruit any of them. Makes me wonder if you can't recruit them until after Story Mode. *shrug*

I'm pretty torn on what to evolve my Eevee into once I eventually decide to do that. Vaporeon seems to strictly speaking be the best choice if what you're after is pure power -- nothing the other Eeveelutions have can compete with Hydro Pump -- but I'm partial both to Espeon for its ability Sympathy and its attack and to Leafeon for its artwork and flavor (shameless, I know :oops:). Glaceon also looks pretty good. Man, I want them all! ;_; :lol: I guess I'll just have to hope that if I continue to play the game past Story Mode that the hero will be able to encounter and befriend more Eevees.

Still frustrated that my dude who says he is Flying/Fire doesn't have 100% link affinity with Charizard. Hopeful it simply means that he's meant to either draft Moltres or Ho-Oh, the only other two Fire/Flying Pokémon in existence.

[Jerichi]

>Still frustrated that my dude who says he is Flying/Fire doesn't have 100% link affinity with Charizard. Hopeful it simply means that he's meant to either draft Moltres or Ho-Oh, the only other two Fire/Flying Pokémon in existence.

Serebii says he does, so.

[Talon87]

Well then there you go. I guess I'll keep using Charizard with him for now but I look forward to when he gets Moltres or Ho-oh.

Staravia finally evolved into Staraptor. I really like what the team did to balance him out and to make Brave Bird fit a tactical RPG like this. What happens is, Pros: the move is very powerful and it affects three different squares in a letter T shape with you at the intersection of the T; however, Cons: your defense lowers after you use it and your movement is restricted all the way down to only one adjacent square. Also, you need room to use the move (i.e. you can't just stay put and keep spamming it), so it's entirely possible for the enemies to lock you in and, thanks to your lack of mobility on the next turn, prevent you from escaping for at least two turns' worth of free damage. You might think this makes Staraptor crappy, but oh no! :D Because (1) if they fail to lock you in, then you can just keep backing up one square and spamming the attack over and over :D and (2) as compensation for your vulnerability and lowered defense the move does a HELL of a lot of damage. I was doing 60-odd damage (which for me is very very good and equivalent to what I'm getting off of most STABbed attacks) on a Larvitar who duh is 2x resistant to Flying. It was very nice. :D

I've conquered 9 castle towns and have two ally castle towns for a total of 11/17.

I trained for a ton, so my time is now ~8 hours in-game. I did this because I kept losing either the hero's Pokemon or Oichi's Pokemon when I would do castle sieges and, perfectionist that I am, I decided I needed to train up so that this wouldn't happen. Now that I have, I should probably (hopefully!) breeze through the next two castle towns as well.

I'm leveling up that 100% linkage Scraggy bit by bit. Looking forward to when he finally evolves. Fighting is a much more useful offensive type in this game than Dark is, and I could really use the boost in stats too.

[Talon87]

Cheating-looking quickly through the list of Pokémon on Serebii because I was curious to confirm if certain things made it into the game or not, I've noticed something puzzling:

There are no Grass-type Pokémon which evolve by way of a Leaf Stone in this game ... and yet there are Leaf Stones. I'm wondering if this is how you evolve Eevee into a Leafeon in this game. Though I don't recall seeing any sort of ice stones so that would beg the question of how you get Glaceon. :lol: But yeah, am I wrong? :? 'Cause I don't see Gloom, Weepinbell, or Exeggcute listed. Am I forgetting anybody else who evolves via Leaf Stone?
Progress update: Only four castle towns to go! They are:

Steel, Ghost, Ice, and Dragon.
The episode at the Poison castle town was pretty funny. (Spoilers?)

I enjoyed the interplay between Nene and Hideyoshi. (For those who don't know, Nene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nene_%28aristocrat%29) was Toyotomi Hideyoshi's first wife.) I felt bad for Hideyoshi during the fight though -- he got himself poisoned on Turn 1b and I Brave Birded him into oblivion on Turn 2a. ^_^; His woman was not far behind, losing her Golbat circa Turn 4 or Turn 5. For my team, the most frightening foe was Spiritomb (who neither Eevee nor Gardevoir could hit and who was chasing Gardevoir around the place in efforts to deal her colossal damage).
Akechi Mitsuhide's debut was pretty cool. I was worried that he was going to challenge us to a fight right then and there, given his little speech, but thankfully he retreated to his castle stronghold. (Historical spoiler follows.)

Given how much Tokugawa Ieyasu made a show of his loyalty to Nobunaga and was like "I'd NEVER betray him!" when I challenged the Steel castle town, it's obvious that they're setting things up for Akechi Mitsuhide's betrayal of Oda Nobunaga. What I wonder, though, is how they're going to portray his betrayal. Will he be the hero who joins our cause and helps us to stop the crazy Nobunaga? Or will he be a dark traitor who we join forces with Nobunaga to put down? It'll also be interesting to see how Hideyoshi reacts if Mitsuhide should betray Nobunaga.
One fun distraction in the game that I've been putting quite some time towards is trying to find people's 100% link partners. I've been looking at people's affinities and sending them, along with an off-type escort, to the corresponding cities. I've then had them go fight the local wild Pokemon and have looked for gold medals. I've been pretty successful in this and have already gotten at least 5-10 or so different random lackeys their 100% link partners. One of them even got Pichu which, I have to confess, if I wasn't about to challenge four castle towns that either resist or are neutral to electricity, I'd be much more excited about since Raichu's artwork looks absolutely awesome. :)

EDIT: I have noticed one thing that kinda bothers me. Gardevoir is clearly Naoe Kanetsugu's link partner, and yet mine only has 90% max linkage in the denominator. Is this an error? :? Did I mess up or something? Can the denominators eventually be increased? Because it's pretttttty obvious that he's meant to have Gardevoir. And yet ... dat 90% staring at me. :|

[Doppleganger]

All this talk of Rance and conquering and sengoku is making me wonder when the Oichi H-scene is going to pop up.

That said, why does the PP Oichi look like the one from Dynasty Warriors?

[Talon87]

All this talk of Rance and conquering and sengoku is making me wonder when the Oichi H-scene is going to pop up.

That said, why does the PP Oichi look like the one from Dynasty Warriors?
Because this is a game made in part by Koei-Tecmo. :lol: :) In fact, that's why all the characters are so handsome (men) / beautiful (women). Why their costumes are pretty elaborate. Yeah, the whole Nobunaga's Ambition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobunaga%27s_Ambition) series of games are Koei's child, the same as Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors.

And now that I've finally finished writing this thread (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showthread.php?t=4028) like I was asked to, I can go ahead and hit "Submit" on this post, killing two birds with one stone: replying to you and at the same time linking that thread here in this one since (duh) it's kinda appropriate since I think a lot of people here are probably interested in playing the game but, never mind just the language barrier, there's also the cultural barrier.

[Talon87]

Beat two more castle towns. Since these are near the end of the game, I'll spoiler tag them.

Ghost and Steel
I had already beaten one of these (the second one) but since I lost one of my six dudes and it was Oichi's Staraptor, I opted to reset. Went and fought the other castle town first, beat it (though I lost the hero's Eevee this time around! :lol: :roll:) and then re-did the second one, absolutely destroying it. The second of the two listed is an interesting dungeon but it's rather tedious since the enemy A.I. doesn't know how to use its own traps to the best of its ability while, for us, the traps are little more than turn-delaying nuisances. The first of the two listed I really, really enjoyed the look and feel of. I think it's an absolute shame that castles aren't where you fight when you go back to a castle town to fight random bushou or Pokemon because I would love to fight in that castle again.

Speaking of that first castle town, HOLY SHIT is Nou-hime (spoiler?) (http://pokejungle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Nob-ex-Nouhime.jpg) hot. 8O I mean, we've seen some beautiful girls before -- Oichi and Kai-hime come to mind -- but holy steakburger is Nou-hime gorgeous. Then again, she's also wearing the most lol-brazen outfit in the entire game. :lol: I decided to look her up to read up on her and was surprised to discover ...

... that her design is 100% lifted from Samurai Warriors (http://www.cosplayisland.co.uk/files/costumes/1968/17483/a-nouhime.jpg). I had thought that most of these character designs were redesigns made especially for Pokémon. Now I'm interested to see just how many of them are lifted from either then Samurai Warriors games or the Nobunaga's Ambition games. But yeah: feast your eyes on your ________-type leader (http://images.wikia.com/dynastywarriors/images/6/64/Nohime-sw3-art.jpg). :D

All I've got left now are the final two castle towns. Unless of course the game springs a surprise on me. Which, sure, it could totally do. But I've been using my game turns judiciously. Rather than merely press the advance with the hero's squadron of six, I've been recruiting, training, and match-making in every single castle town at every single opportunity. I think I have 15-20 bushou now who have a 100% link partner. Some (Larvitar) are more promising than others (Munna), but all in all it looks good. Someone explain this to me though =P: how is it that of the two bushou I have who claim to have a special affinity for both Ghost and Fire neither of them was capable of a 100% link with wild Litwick? :lol: Both bushou saw silver medals above the Litwicks' heads. Pretty frustrating since I was totally hoping to add a badass Chandelure to the team.

[Talon87]

Oh wow, this is pretty cool. :) Kudos to the team for tying a sweet mechanics development into the overall plot. Very nice.

(Spoiler about your starter and its evolution possibilities)

So, I just beat Akechi Mitsuhide and his Ice-type cronies. The battlefield was a slip-and-slide iced over body of water. I lost Staraptor pretty early on (stupid Lapras, Beartic, and Munna all ganging up on it at once -_-;) but other than that it was a 5-0 sweep thanks mostly Charizard but with some assistance from the other four. Well anyway, after the battle ends ...

... the hero notices that Eevee's looking a little funny. (Note: he's saying the same thing every bushou says when their Pokémon is about to evolve.) So I opted to let it evolve and, whaddya know, it evolved into an adorable Glaceon! 8O :) I wasn't sure if I wanted Glaceon at first -- it's one of my flavor faves but its attack in this game just doesn't seem to be on the same level as some of the other guys' -- but I closed the GameBoy, headed out to run some errands, and by the time I came back (now) I decided I think I'll keep the guy. And here's why:

Glaceon is the programmer's secret reward for your patience. For the longest time now -- ever since circa Castle Town 5 or 6 -- Eevee's been kind of a runt on the team. ^_^; His attack is very weak and nothing is weak to him (duh), meaning he can never really be counted upon to do great damage. Around the time you beat your eighth or ninth castle town, Keiji shows up and gifts you a Water Stone, a Thunder Stone, and a Fire Stone. He explains that you can use these to evolve Eevee, much like you evolved just recently. Given how weak Eevee can be, and given how good some of the evolutions are (especially Vaporeon), there's a very strong incentive to evolve right away. But I chose not to. Partly because I wanted to see what would happen if I did not ("Will Eevee evolve into Espeon or Umbreon eventually?"), partly because I wanted to beat the story with Eevee, and partly because I still hadn't made my mind up as to which Eeveelution I wanted. But anyway, here's the thing: reward now, penalty later if you evolve your Eevee. And why is that? Because the final castle town is the Dragon type. And as we all know, dragons are resistant to fire, electricity, water, and grass. (And neutral to psychic and dark, sure, but never mind that.) The only thing dragons are weak to, besides fellow Dragon-type attacks, is Ice. And which Eeveelution is the Ice-type? Glaceon.

Now, it gets better. Why did Eevee evolve into a Glaceon now? :? Because I used it in a battle (and won) when fighting Akechi Mitsuhide atop a frozen lake. Eevee being used in the Ice-type arena, which is the second-to-last area of the game, resulted in its becoming a Glaceon. This is clearly deliberate on the part of the programmers. They're basically saying, "Hey, we noticed you still hadn't evolved your Eevee. So here's a little gift from us to you for your patience: the Eeveelution best suited to taking Nobunaga down. Enjoy. :)"

Oh, I will, Koei-Tecmo. I will! :)
I kinda feel bad that Oichi's Jigglypuff is still sitting at only 42%/100% linkage while Staraptor is currently at like 62%/90%. ^_^; But Staraptor is so, so much better than Wigglytuff, you can't even compare the two. Much better range of motion, a more directionally-focused attack (meaning you don't have to worry about collateral damage as much), etc.

Rumor has it on the Serebii forums that once you decide to press on to the bonus episodes (downloadable via Nintendo WiFi) you're not able to go back and continue your original game. If this is true, it seems like a very poor programming decision on Koei-Tecmo's part. :| This'd be like saying "You opted to do this special episode from Romance of the Three Kingdoms so now you can never go back and play the rest of Dynasty Warriors 7 again. If you want to, then you'll have to create a brand-new save file." Or it'd be like saying "You opted to go to the Battle Frontier in HGSS so now you can never go back to the rest of Johto or Kanto. You're stuck in the Battle Frontier forever." Why would they DO this!? :doh: Seems ridiculously retarded. Then again, I haven't beaten this game yet, so who knows. Maybe the game has a weak post-Story Mode. Maybe it doesn't even have a proper post-Story Mode outside of these WiFi episodes. Either way, here's hoping (1) they fix this before bringing the game overseas (if they even do, which I very, very much doubt they will but who knows) or (2) they fix this in the sequel if they ever do a sequel.

[Talon87]

Double post. But I forgot to mention what little I've seen now of Akechi Mitsuhide's personality/agenda in this game. So I should go into that for those who are curious. Historical spoilers follow!

Kind of like the historical Mitsuhide, the Mitsuhide in this game is pretty loyal to Nobunaga. What surprised me though is that there doesn't seem to even be a hint of deception in his words. (Recall: the historical Akechi Mitsuhide betrayed Oda Nobunaga and forced him into a situation where he had to commit seppuku.) After you beat him, Oichi asks Mitsuhide if he might possibly know what her brother meant when he said he was seeking the destruction of Ranse. Mitsuhide questions Oichi's loyalty to her older brother and stresses that he will return to Nobunaga's side now and says something along the lines of "I only live to stand by my master, Lord Nobunaga." We're talking yaoi fanservice material like you wouldn't believe. So ... he could obviously still betray him in this game, but if it happens now I'm going to be surprised now that they've persuaded me to believe that this iteration of Mitsuhide is fiercely loyal to his lord. Also, Hideyoshi hasn't shown up again since the fight at the Poison castle town, so for the servant who was famously the most loyal of all of Nobunaga's retainers, it's surprising that he's being outshone in loyalty in this game by the traitorous Mitsuhide. :lol:

[uhhhhh]

Talon, the Leaf Stone evolves Pansage. :P

Anywhoo, I'm playing the special episodes now and all I have to say is that it gets harder here. They weren't kidding when they said that some of these were just as long as (heck, maybe even longer) the main story.

Final battle in the main story:
Your party (with you using Arceus) will be up against Nobunaga's Rayquaza, Ranmaru's Lucario, Hideyoshi's Infernape, Mitsuhide's Lapras, Ieyasu's Aggron, and Nouhime's Mismagius

As for the special leaders, (Ginchiyo, Muneshige, Yoshimoto, etc.) a fellow special leader has to deal the final blow to them in addition to the other requirements already. You can't recruit anyone from Nobunaga's side though so you're stuck with:
MC, Oichi, Ginchiyo, Muneshige, Yoshimoto, Yoshihiro, Kenshin, Ayagozen, Kanetsugu, Shingen, Yukimura, Kunoichi, Motonari and Motochika (the latter two needing Wi-fi to be recruitable in the main story)

As for the special episodes, they're pretty hard as the enemy attacks you more often now and you have to defend this time. They get stronger as you do as well. I was honestly surprised that in some of the episodes, one of the enemy leaders you have to face is
The MC him/herselfthough I guess that is to be expected in a game like this.

[Talon87]

If the Leaf Stone is for Pansage (didn't realize the Gen 5 monkeys were stone evolution guys ... goes to show you how much I care about them! :lol:), then I wonder how you get Leafeon. Speculation informed by how I appear to have gotten Glaceon:

With sufficiently high linkage, do you merely need to complete a battle in Aoba with Eevee on the party? Indeed, I don't think the hero has returned to Aoba in my game since ... well, maybe forever. :lol: Similarly, do you get Espeon and Umbreon by battling in the Psychic and Dark castle towns with a sufficiently happy Eevee? Hmm ...
I was wanting to beat the game tonight but I got distracted by all manner of things (P-O, Yu-Gi-Oh, phone calls, Skype), and now it's late. I did already kick Nobunaga's ass but at the very, very last second, Mori Ranmaru's Pokémon KO'd Naoe Kanetsugu's Gardevoir. Not liking that (perfectionist! ^_^; ), I turned off the DS. So I'll have to handle them again later. But yeah. Glaceon was a beast. :D I think she did over 600 damage to the enemy Garchomp. She OHKO'd every single thing except Ranmaru's Pokémon -- and even that was only because of her attack being lowered the previous turn.

lol @ self and how my Eevee's gender has changed in my mind. When it was an Eevee, it was a boy; but now that it's a Glaceon, it's totally a girl. ^_^; Oh, biases.

Let me ask you this since you're farther ahead than I am and have already started on the special episodes: is there any reason to hold back? When people have said, "Once you activate them, you can't go back and play the old game again," are they right? And if correct, is it a big bad thing or does it not really matter all that much? You say that some of the episodes are longer than the main game itself. Given that what looked to be an 8 hour game has blossomed into a 16-hour one, I'm curious if what you're really saying is that these episodes are indeed 10-20 hours long a piece. If so, that's pretty crazy that they would make them accessible only if you get the event download code (and some of those are only available for a limited time, too! :evil: :?) instead of just making them as permanently accessible as the rest of the game. I'm really not understanding the 21st century's obsession with DLC. Call me old-fashioned and stubborn, but I really hate it and I really hate to learn that 80%+ of this game is not accessible out of the box but has to be activated via WiFi. For kids whose parents either don't own or else refuse to change the settings on their WiFi routers, this means that they're getting screwed.

[uhhhhh]

Leafeon's evolution method is correct. I assume that Espeon and Umbreon works the same method too.

And you're right about that. No reason to hold back because honestly, I feel that that's where the game really starts and the main story was just a glorified tutorial. You can't go back to the main story once you've finished it though the game makes up for it by having the Pokemon you already have into the special episodes (meaning that your MC will keep his Glaceon into the subsequent episodes, etc.) but the link rate will reset as to not make it too overpowered. :P

And only 3 out of 37 episodes are Wi-fi anyway. You only start out with eight at first though but you'll get the other 25 by beating the episodes. I'm currently playing Kiyomasa's story and the enemy leaders aren't so bad... if it weren't for the fact that one of them has a Scizor at the start. And you start at the Grass area. With Larvitar. And a guy with a Pansage. And this is a ONE-STAR difficulty episode. I don't know if I'm just having a really horrible luck here or that I'm a horrible player but I'm having a hard time with this one. orz

[Talon87]

I'm sure Serebii will do this eventually on the main site @ 100% completion, but for now he's keeping it relegated to the forum and is relying on random contributions from users. So ... as a courtesy to my fellow players here on UPN, I'll go ahead and list off all the 100% linkage pairings I've found. Names are provided in Japanese in Japanese alphabetical order.

=Major Bushou=
[your name] Eevee/Eeveelutions
オイチ Jigglypuff/Wigglytuff
カネツグ Gardevoir <-- mine still isn't showing 100% though =\
ケンシン Gallade
シンゲン Rhyperior

=Minor Bushou=
アキザネ Pichu
ウジチカ Sewaddle
カゲカツ Ralts/Kirlia
カツヨリ Larvitar
サダミツ Munna
ジョウウン Mareep/Flaafy
セイクロウ Skorupi
ソウウン Larvitar
タダツネ Machop
テルモト Petilil
トモノブ Ralts
ヒサアキ Scraggy/Scrafty
マサトシ Machop
ムネトキ Rufflet
ヤストモ Joltik
If people want to submit their own lists of 100% linkages, be my guest. I may even edit this post and we can compile a proper list for UPN users. Not too much point in doing it probably, though, because I'm sure a proper GameFAQs FAQ or Serebii table will show up eventually.

[uhhhhh]

Kanetsugu's Best Link is a Kadabra, not a Gardevoir.

Also, Serebii has already posted the best links of the major Bushous and most of the generics too.


Didn't want to double post but did want to ask you this. Feel free to quote-reply to me and put it in the thread if you like.

You mentioned that everyone's Pokemon are still available in the special episodes but that the linkages are reset to 0. Does this mean that if I am really close to getting a hard-to-evolve character to evolve -- say, for example, Oichi's Jigglypuff -- that I should hold off on progressing to the next adventure before I get her to evolve?

Another question I have is, are the bushou reset? In other words, since it's a new episode and I assume that some of them take place before our story began, does this mean that there isn't much merit in trying to collect all of the bushou during Story Mode? And does it mean that, once you start a new campaign, you lose all of your old allies? I'm not talking major ones like Takeda Shingen or Uesugi Kenshin -- obviously those guys are going to go -- but instead the smaller fries.

Yeah, I suppose that you should hold off on that.

The bushous reset but they also get to keep their Pokemon as well. They leave too.

[Talon87]

Kanetsugu's Best Link is a Kadabra, not a Gardevoir.

Also, Serebii has already posted the best links of the major Bushous and most of the generics too.
Last I checked, he didn't have the links up for any of the minor characters. And that was yesterday. Let me go check again then ... *goes to check* Ah, I see that he did it just today. Well speak of the devil. :) That's awfully convenient. Disregard that last post then. XD

As for Kanetsugu's true link being Alakazam ... WHAT!? :| 8O :| 8O :| How does that even begin to fit with:
the theme of his famous helmet?
the theme of his famous loyalty to the Uesugi clan when Uesugi Kenshin's very own best link Pokemon happens to be a Gallade?
Color me shocked. I totally thought that his best link was Gardevoir. I blame Pixiv fanart for leading me astray. XD That and fanboy expectations. :oops: *sigh*

[uhhhhh]

Yup, some of them have TOTALLY different Pokemon that they have Best Links with. Some of them actually fit better with them than their original Pokemon though. (Ayagozen with Froslass for example)

[Talon87]

After business this morning and afternoon and a hell of a lot of random bushou hunting and Best Link finding last night and this evening, I went ahead just now and proceeded on into the Infinity Tower and subsequently beat the game. Spoiler thoughts:

On the one hand, I was surprised that Mitsuhide didn't betray Nobunaga in the end. On the other hand, like I wrote yesterday, the game made it abundantly clear in the ice stage that Mitsuhide in this alternate universe is fiercely loyal to Nobunaga.

I kept trying to attack Arceus for one and a quarter solid turns -- "How the hell am I supposed to beat an enemy I can't touch? :cry:" -- before I noticed, on Glaceon's second go-around, the little silver Link badge above Arceus's head. ^_^; "Well this is easy! :D"

Then the generals show up. Pretty expected. Mori Ranmaru talking about how he won't allow us to lay one finger on Nobunaga-sama, Nou-hime mentioning how since we showed her such a wonderful style of war she'll make sure to not prolong our suffering (how kind of you ^^; ), Hideyoshi talking smack like usual, it was a true Who's Who of Nobunaga's top supporters. And that black Rayquaza. Nice! :D

The battle went okay. For details, see outside the spoiler box below. Then come back to here.

Okay, back up to here now. Nobunaga's Rayquaza was coincidentally the last to fall which made for a nice picturesque finish to things. Then Oichi demands to know why Nobunaga is so hellbent on destroying Rance and Arceus and we finally get to find out. Basically, Nobunaga was disgusted with how the bushou of Rance were using Pokémon to fight bloody wars all in vain attempts to win Arceus for themselves. So Nobunaga orchestrated (lol what!? :lol:) for us to get all 17 castles such that we might summon Arceus such that he might destroy Arceus ... and thus take away the people's reason for waging war. An interesting twist that definitely preserves Nobunaga's role as villain in the story while at the same time giving him a platform we can sympathize with ... but it's still a bit too silly to be believed. ^^; :lol: Oh well, kudos to Koei-Tecmo for at least trying.

I lol'd at the part when Arceus is like, "[your name], you are still young. When you grow into a form befitting of me, I will show myself before you again." :lol: A cute little allusion to the fact that you've still got one bushou evolution left in you, but it made me laugh all the same. Arceus is all, "Okay, Nobunaga, I'll grant your wish and leave this land and leave humans completely in charge ... but once the hero becomes a man, I'm coming back. :3" Is God crushin' on the hero or something? XD

That was surprising to see that the hero reinstated each of the sixteen other regional warlords in charge of their castle towns. I had figured he'd just unite the entire country under one peaceful banner and do away with the whole "lol castle towns" concept. And can you really even trust some of these generals? :? ^^; Oh well. At least Shingen was amused.

lol + awww :oops: :) at the bit where Oichi is like, "All your other friends may have gone back to their castle town homes, but I hope you'll let me stay by your side forever." <3 hahaha

Ending credits ... and then post-game comments, which I'll also put outside this spoiler box.
General Thoughts: The final boss battle went pretty okay. Without going into details about the enemy, I'll say this: for the final fight, I was definitely overleveled -- that or the game, like I've been saying since Day One, is truly Baby's First Tactics RPG™ and they designed it so that it's very very difficult to lose here -- but I'll admit that right when I thought I had it in the bag for a 6-0 victory, the boss pulled off some moves that robbed me of Oichi's Jigglypuff (who I'd shamelessly brought along hoping for linkage points ^_^; ) and Kenshin's Gallade in one turn. A few turns later, I lost Scrafty, but not before I'd more or less finished the match off. The boss battle ended with my three favorite team members -- the hero's Glaceon, Naoe's Gardevoir, and First Recruit's Charizard -- being the three still standing. Ordinarily I'd go back and try to 6-0 it but since this was the final fight of the game I said "Forgeddabout it :)" and contented myself with my 3-0 win.

After the post-battle story wrapped up and the credits finished rolling, I was greeted by the Koei-Tecmo start-up screen ... only for it to be immediately interrupted by Oichi breaking through the 4th wall to congratulate me on beating the game and telling me all about how my adventure had only just begun. Just as uhhhh and others have mentioned, the game rather unceremoniously corrals you away from the first story. Once you beat the game, you are given the option to save; and if you do, you can kiss the old story goodbye. Now granted, you just beat it, and like uhhhh and Oichi pointed out, the real game starts now, it would seem. So I'm not too bent out of shape about it. Still, I would think it'd have been smart to allow players who wanted to re-experience the first episode but without losing their precious save file data to do so by way of making the first episode ... well, the first clickable episode in the post-Story Mode list of episodes. This would have been really easy to do, I think, and the fact that it doesn't appear to be an option is disappointing. It doesn't screw ROM users over too much since all you have to do is load up save files specific to certain progress points, but if you physically own this game, it would seem like you're screwed, no? :? Anyway ...

I went ahead and clicked on the first episode, Hideyoshi's. But after I have some fun with it, I will probably connect to the Nintendo WiFi Connection and download all the WiFi episodes they have just so I can be sure not to miss any of them since at least one of them (Keiji's) is only available for 2½ more weeks.

[uhhhhh]

You won't miss much when you get the Wi-fi episodes anyway. There's 3 of them (one of which hasn't been revealed yet and I was the one who found (http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthread.php?554292-Pokemon-X-Nobunaga-Ambition-Discussion&p=14332100#post14332100) it first (http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthread.php?554292-Pokemon-X-Nobunaga-Ambition-Discussion&p=14332317#post14332317) and posted about it =P) and the Reshiram event. XD

Interesting tidbit: Mitsuhide was supposed to have been linked with Moltres instead of Articuno.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3981393/Translation/pokcross/g2dr.PNG

[Talon87]

Okay, so ... after playing for a couple of hours, I'm pretty bummed out by the first post-story episode. Two things are really getting me down, one which is unavoidable and is mostly my own problem but one which was totally avoidable.

The first problem I'm having is, this episode is a carbon copy repeat of Story Mode except less amusing. :| Instead of playing as the hero, you play as Hideyoshi. Instead of trying to get the legendary Pokémon of Rance so that you can stop Nobunaga from destroying the land, you're trying to get the legendary Pokémon so that it'll grant your wish to put a smile on everyone's face and up human-Pokémon relations. (Cute, I guess, but a lot less epic. :|) There's much less story this go-around since the game naturally assumes you already know who all the rival warlords are. Awkwardly, this results in me just invading enemy castle towns and them not saying a single word until we meet in battle -- and even there the only thing they really have to say is "You dare to invade my town? Prepare to die!" kind of crap. Nothing that's really narrative-building. Every once in a while, a random bushou on your side will comment that he's having so much fun battling alongside his Pokémon partner. This is as close as the episode gets to building the story up for Hideyoshi's mission. It's lackluster and it pales in comparison with the episode I just completed. The fact that, other than these trivial differences, the game is exactly the same, it's like I'm playing the original game all over again but an inferior copy. It's bad, is what it is. :| Now, this is the problem which I'm saying is mostly my own. And why is that? Well, one reason is because this is largely a perceptual issue. If you don't see things the way I do, then you may love this episode. A second reason is the fact that I've chosen to play this episode immediately after beating the original game. Nobody forced me to do this. Nobody held a gun to my head and said "Play." So it's not like I'm under any obligation to keep playing. Which is why it's kind of my own problem if I'm complaining that I'm bored to be playing the exact same game for a second run-through already. Still, I feel like this complaint is at least somewhat legitimate even in the eyes of my harshest critics because what I'm basically saying is, "I didn't want a 100% repeat. When they promised new episodes, I wanted something that felt ... well, y'know, new!"

My second complaint though is one which they could have easily avoided. And that's the fact that they reset your link percentages (in the numerator) while keeping your evolutions and partnerships from the last game intact. In other words, Oichi still has Staraptor ... but his linkage now reads 21%/90% instead of 61%/90%. Now for Staraptor that isn't really a problem: there's little point in maxing a Pokémon's linkage if it isn't capable of 100% linkage. But for some of these Pokémon, I am pissed. Like Ginchiyo's Luxio, who had been at 55% but is now back down to around 23%. Or like Oichi's worthless Jigglypuff, who had been at 48% (not great, but hey, at least I was making some progress) but who is now also back down to 21% like its feathery friend. What the hell. :| Why did they do this? I understand the argument as I have heard it already -- "If your link was high to start with, the episodes would be too easy to beat" -- but the problem is that this could have been avoided during development. You see, in this game, your link with your Pokémon doubles as your Pokémon's level. So they felt that they needed to reset the link in order to prevent your carry-over Pokémon from being too powerful. That much makes sense. That much I can understand. But what I would have done if I had been in charge during development would have been to tell the team, "Hey guys. We need to separate linkage from level. Because we don't want to reset players' links when they get to the new episodes but we do want to reset their levels." Resetting the link is a jerk move to players. Before I beat the game, I took note of how fast or slow my levels were growing. Without any status boosting items, my hero would only gain ~1% per battle with five enemy creatures in which he did most of the work. Other characters were consistently gaining as little as 0.2% linkage and that was with them holding onto the mysterious koto. For those characters, it would have taken me 250 battles (they needed ~50% points still) x 5 min/battle = ~21 hours to get them to max linkage. So ... my only hope is that these bonus episodes, which have reset my link levels back down to like 20-30%, will provide some means for quick and easy link gains. I'm hoping that the answer rests with upgrading animal dens to Level 3. I don't have the cash for that right now but once I do I'll definitely test it out to see if it works. In the meantime, I'm just really, really disappointed that so much of my hard work in my last 20-hour adventure has been reset. Like I said, I don't care about being deleveled insofar as that means I lost my power and HP and such. I only care because of the loss of linkage and how that means it's going to be that much more difficult to get the legendary bushou to 100% linkage.

[Talon87]

Disappointed in the first bonus episode and in the loss of my link levels (and how hard it is to get link back, at least for now if not forever, anyway), I decided to just plow through the first bonus episode by building a true army up with multiple squadrons as I went and just storming the enemy. To give you an example of what I mean, the previous turn saw me take down three enemy castle towns all in the same turn (Dark, Poison, and Steel) and the turn before that saw me take down two (Poison and Flying). This turn I've already taken out Ice and Ghost and now the only castle town left is Dragon -- and I could totally take it now if I wanted to (I've even got the squadron lined up and ready in one of the neighboring towns) but because I'd prefer to beat the episode with this episode's star, I think I'll use this turn instead to just randomly use every single bushou I own in crap battles so that they register properly in the bushou collection database.

Despite being excited about it at first, I've never once used the upgrade system because:
To date, I have made only 11,500 in spare cash.
3,500 of that has been stripped of me by Noumin who, from what I can tell, did not give me back shit for my donations to her.
Every time I go to upgrade something and pay the full 2,000 yen you're allowed per turn, the EXP bar for the building increases by as much as only 20% or by as little as indiscernible. It's pretty pathetic. :| At least go up by half, for fuck's sake. At least only be so cruel as to say, "Yeah, you're going to have to burn 8,000 plus four turns if you want to get this one solitary building up to Level 3."
So all my buildings in this path are still at Level 1 and I've just said "Fuck it" and figure I don't care anyway because nothing seems to carry over between episodes. I'll put this episode behind me, move on to the next one, and hope that it's at least more fresh, fun, and interesting than this lame-o episode has been.

EDIT 2: Okay, so, I went ahead and tested out shop upgrades again. It seems that it's not as bad as I said but it's still pretty bad. Devoting an entire team of six with their scores ranging from 70 to 90, I was able to promote a Level 1 building to Level 2. One single building (in this case an animal den) in one single castle town. Took all six guys and 2000 of my (then) 11,500 purse. Just isn't worth it to me to do right now. Not when minor bushou are incapable of bushou evolution. Not when the game threatens to keep resetting my links. Did I mention that I finally got Naoe Kanetsugu? (He ran away from me at the battle in the psychic town this time, so I had to wait for him to resurface.) Guess what link level his Gardevoir (formerly 63%) and Kadabra (formerly 61%) were at? 11 fucking percent. I said "Fuck it -.-" and boxed him. I'll have to work on getting him to 100% whenever I do an episode in which he is either the main star or else an early appearance.

EDIT 1: Oh yeah: Hideyoshi not being capable of a 100% link with Infernape is bullshit. I am so glad that I did not save after I beat the Poison castle for the first time and let this guy evolve. Thankfully I knew about this shit courtesy of Serebii -- it's the same reason I keep telling Ginchiyo's Luxio not to evolve -- but seriously, this is ridiculous. Infernape looks so good utility-wise while Monferno is pretty blah. (Though he's still an obvious upgrade over Chimchar.) I wish I could be using Infernape right now instead but I can't because this game is fucking retarded with 100% link crap.

[Doppleganger]

I don't understand how the bonus episodes tie into the plot of the original game. If we're to assume some kind of parallel with history, if the first chapter = Sengoku Japan, is the first bonus episode supposed to be analogous to Hideyoshi and Ieyasu's power struggle after Nobunaga's death?

[Talon87]

I don't understand how the bonus episodes tie into the plot of the original game. If we're to assume some kind of parallel with history, if the first chapter = Sengoku Japan, is the first bonus episode supposed to be analogous to Hideyoshi and Ieyasu's power struggle after Nobunaga's death?
It's just like how they tell the stories from Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the Dynasty Warriors games. What happens is, you play out alternate versions of history when you're playing as each character. So like, you can think of the original story mode episode as "the true path" if you like, but when you play the first unlockable episode, you're now suddenly playing as one of the rival warlords who was one of your early neighbors. And similar things happen with the other characters.

To go into some more details ...

The game is not set in Japan. It's set in the make-believe land of Rance. And unlike the Rance from the games you're familiar with ;-), this Rance has little direct tie-in with Japan. Sure, they have some Japanese food items (Pokémon + onigiri --> Ponigiri). And sure, a lot of the menswear is samurai-inspired. And sure, everyone has their historical names. (Well, their historical given names, anyway. Family names are absent for the most part.) But that's kind of it. The country itself is not Japan. The geography is different, the territories occupied by the various warlords are different, and many of the warlords were IRL either vassals (like Akechi Mitsuhide or, during the Azuchi period, Hachiba Hideyoshi) or domecile wives (like Nene). There are also some peculiar absences from the warlord roster, like Azai Nagamasa, who they likely omitted because of how his historical relationship with Oichi would have impacted the plot. And quite a few of Nobunaga's vassals appear to be missing. Maybe I missed them, but I didn't spot any Katsuie or Toshiie while playing. And then, as with Dynasty Warriors, some characters have been altered to suit Koei's Samurai Warriors universe's canon at the expense of real history. So like, Date Masamune (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_Masamune) in real life was (a) an adult and (b) missing an eye, but in this game -- and, I assume, in the Samurai Warriors series of games -- he's a young healthy looking boy. He's basically to this series, it seems, what Lu Xun is to Dynasty Warriors. ("Let's take a grown man and make him a boy because by golly this game needs some boys!")

But don't get the wrong impression. The game still has plenty of fanservice for fans of this historical time period. Mori Ranmaru's relationship with Nobunaga is translated into this game as having Ranmaru become Nobunaga's most loyal page who tells the protagonist, "I won't allow you to lay even one finger on Lord Nobunaga!" Hideyoshi's eventual succession of his former boss is symbolically alluded to by having one of Nobunaga's animal partners be Zekrom while having one of Hideyoshi's be Reshiram. The Matsudaira (Tokugawa) clan emblem can be see in Pokémon-ified form on Tokugawa Ieyasu's armor. And so on and so on and so forth. There's a lot to be enjoyed here if you're both a fan of Pokémon and of Sengoku period Japan. And since you are, you should definitely at least check the game out once it becomes available in English.

[Talon87]

Question: while I was playing Hideyoshi's campaign, a yellow exclamation mark appeared over Ieyasu's Steel province. I clicked through it hurriedly at the time because that very same turn I intended to invade Ieyasu's territory. (It had not yet been conquered by my forces.) Reading about it on Serebii now, it seems that that was a legendary Pokémon encounter opportunity -- and according to Serebii, you don't want to miss it because once you do you may never get a second opportunity to see that legendary again. My question is:

1a) Is this true? :? and
1b) If true, how can this possibly be true?

Because, like I said, I've been blazing through Hideyoshi's story mode (zero training, employing three different armies simultaneously to conquer castle towns, etc), playing way faster than I think most people would, and I hadn't yet made it to the steel castle town when this exclamation mark appeared over said town. It seems ridiculous for them to make a once-in-a-lifetime legendary encounter appear in a town you've not yet conquered, wouldn't you agree? :?

Here's the page (http://www.serebii.net/nobunaga/legends.shtml) where Serebii talks about it. Quoting it in case he changes the text later:

Sometimes, as you start a new day on the overworld during the Special Episodes, some characters will come up and tell you that a mysterious Pokémon has been seen around the specific nation and that a new area has appeared holding this Pokémon. This nation, like when a swarm comes, gets marked with an exclamation mark for the turn.

Enter the nation and a new area shall appear. This area will just have this legendary Pokémon within it and will allow you to enter the battle.

Once you're in the battle, you will face only the Pokémon. This may be your only time to befriend the Pokémon so be sure to bring the best Bushou who fits the Best Link for it. Simply go into the battle with the Pokémon and Link up. This will allow the Pokémon to be yours once and for all

Just be careful not to let this slip past as the chance may not repeat itself.
I don't have any new area in the steel nation despite successfully conquering them on my first attempt the moment I entered their city (which was incidentally the same turn that exclamation mark showed up). From the look of the page, Registeel is the one who shows up there since he's the only Steel legendary listed and his best pairing is with that province's leader, Ieyasu. But since his best bushou is (understandably) Ieyasu, there's just no way I could have gotten him that turn. :| Because I had yet to even conquer his city, much less recruit him. So why would the game make Registeel available like this on me? :? It's just very frustrating. Here's hoping I do end up getting another chance to get whatever legendary I apparently missed out on: though if it's Registeel, I can say that I'm not too bummed out. ^_^; Not a big fan of either Ieyasu or the Regis.

[uhhhhh]

Actually, I think that's not a legendary Pokemon but more of a swarm of rare Pokemon? I'm not too sure. :s

[Talon87]

I don't know what it was, but my first swarm came later on: a group of Croagunks in the Poison castle town.

I ended up beating Hideyoshi's first episode. Just like with the hero's, I began to milk things towards the end -- every single city had Level 3 animal areas x2, Level 3 mines (when applicable), and I was starting to get to work on the shops and ponigiri stands -- but just like with the hero's I was getting restless, worried that my stuff would not carry over. So I backed up the saves, went ahead and beat the game, started a new episode (Kanbei's, which I had hoped would be a short one ... nope -.-, it's another "unite the whole land" one according to the preview text. Great. Fucking great. -.-; ), and was dismayed but not surprised to see that, sure enough, all of my urban developments had been reset to Level 1. *sigh*

I think I'm going to go ahead and test something out. I'm going to forfeit Kanbei's mission, re-select Hideyoshi's from the main menu, and see if I don't at least get my urban developments back. Something. Anything. If the answer is "No," then I probably won't play this game much longer. It's too disheartening (SUCH A WASTE OF TIME! X_X) to put 10-20 hours into a path only to then be told "lol when you beat the game it all gets erased." Super Mario World doesn't do that to you. Dead or Alive 2 doesn't do that to you. Hell, even Dynasty Warriors doesn't do that to you! Because even Dynasty Warriors has the decency to say, "Okay, when you play as a new character, it's a clean slate; but if you ever decide to go back to your old character, all of the skills you unlocked on his skill tree and all of his experience points will still be there for you." But if this game says "No =P" to me and just laughs at my feeble attempts to try and get bushous to 100% linkage, then I'm just going to say "forget it -.-" and quit playing. If, on the other hand, it turns out that you do retain your urban developments per character -- so like, all of Kanbei's buildings are at Level 1 but if I decide to play Hideyoshi's first episode from scratch again I'll still have all my old urban developments -- then that's cool. Hell, if that turns out to be the case, I'll probably even opt to play Hideyoshi's path again -- specifically so that I can not make the same mistake I made this last time (getting greedy and trying to get too many people to 100% at the same time) and try and get Hideyoshi and Oichi to Level 100 100% link.

One thing before I forget: if you want a really good way to grind ...

(spoiler boxed because long)
I would recommend beating every single castle town on the map except one. (In my case, I had to settle for Nobunaga, which was kind of a bitch because of how overpowered his Gabite and Mori Ranmaru's Dragonair are, as well as Ranmaru's bushou ability that heals everybody for like 100 HP. But he also awarded great experience linkage points, so his difficulty may have something to do with that.) What happens when you do that is, the enemy keeps invading one of your towns that is directly adjacent. At first, they do it once every three or four turns. Then it becomes once every two turns. And then it pretty much becomes once every 1.5 turns (i.e. sometimes there are two back-to-back and other times there's one, a one-turn respite, and then the next one). The A.I. seems to be programmed to just furiously assault you. But the funny thing is, because the warlord battles award much better linkage points than the random battles you do out in the field with scrub bushou, you can actually level up decently fast. On my Hideyoshi file pre-beating the game, I had/have ...
Hideyoshi at 66% with Infernape and bushou evolved
Motochika (the water guy) at 65+% with Dewott but still not bushou evolved =\ (FRUSTRATING! Serebii says they should evolve by 65% linkage! =\)
Ieyasu @ 63% with Aggron but not bushou evolved (probably close to it though)
Oichi at 45% and thus of course not bushou evolved
Nouhime at a surprisingly high 40-odd% courtesy of the tons of fights she's done alongside Ieyasu (surprising because you gain her so late in the game at around like 19% or so)
What would happen is, towards the end of my run, Nobunaga just kept invading the steel city over and over and over again. But the thing is, it's very easy to troll Nobunaga's team on that stage in the following ways and for the following reasons:
Bring Ieyasu's Lairon/Aggron and Nouhime's Misdreavus.
If you've beaten Nobunaga enough previously, he should only have three Pokemon that he brings on invasions: his Gabite, Ranmaru's Dragonair, and a random recruit's Starly/Staravia/Staraptor. (It evolved the more we fought. This was actually part of the reason for why I ended the game. Didn't want Nobunaga getting a Garchomp or Ranmaru getting a Dragonite. ^_^; )
Because the A.I. is stupid and because the enemy is few in numbers, it's very easy on the steel stage to just keep avoiding them. Nouhime's Misdreavus is able to float between adjacent platforms with the greatest of ease but the enemy dragons cannot jump the gap. (The bird can, so you need to protect Misdreavus by having her run away until the bird has been taken out.)
Because the enemy only knows Flying and Dragon-type attacks, the Steel/Rock Lairon/Aggron takes them like a champ. Mine was usually taking ~10 damage points from either Ranmaru's Dragon Tail or Nobunaga's Dragon Claw. Brave Bird from the Staraptor did similar damage.
Because you're the defender, you automatically win if the match times out.
So all you need to do is run away from the enemy constantly, flipping gate switches at strategic moments to fork the enemy over, deliberately getting caught by the camera-pulley security system when the enemy is closing in on you too fast, and so on. Misdreavus has an even easier time -- all she needs to do is juggle between platforms that have a gap separating them. The dragons won't be able to do a thing.
It's a bit tedious, but if you do this, expect to get 4 to 5% linkage on your bushou characters. It was winding down a bit towards the end for my Ieyasu (I think the last time I did it he only gained 0.67% linkage despite actually killing two of the three enemy Pokemon and thus ending the match before time was called), but Nouhime's Misdreavus was consistently gaining 5 percentage points every time. If I end up loading my Hideyoshi save file back up, I will probably take Oichi to that castle town, allow Nobunaga to attack a couple times more, and see if I can't get her to evolve.
Will I load my old save up and grind to get bushou generals to level up? Will I instead press onward with Kanbei? Will I abandon the game entirely? I guess I'll find out here in a moment once I test out whether or not my urban developments are still Level 2+ when I opt to do the Hideyoshi stage for a second time.

[uhhhhh]

Well in some episodes, you start out with the buildings leveled up already so... :s

[Talon87]

Still haven't done it for myself yet so I'll have to just go off of your quick (thanks! :)) reply. But it looks like you're saying ... that the buildings are definitely gone too. ^^; Even if I opt to do Hideyoshi's "I just want to make the world laugh" mission again. *sigh*

Here's a question for you: do I need to allow Motochika's Dewott to evolve (producing a 90% link denominator Samurott) in order for Motochika himself to evolve (producing a 100% link denominator for that same Samurott)? I noticed that on Serebii's page there's no mention of the name Dewott in the right-hand column for Motochika. Could just be an error on his part (his Pokenaga pages are riddled with them as yesterday's facts about this game become today's bunk), but maybe that's why my Motochika hasn't evolved yet despite hitting 65%. I plan to investigate this.

Here's another question for you: is there an ideal episode for trying to get bushous maxed out? Like, am I "doing it wrong" to be trying to pull this off in Hideyoshi's stage? Am I supposed to be doing this sort of thing in some other episode instead? And if so, then which one?

Here's one more question for you: is there even any point in getting the creatures to 100% anymore? :? I mean, sure, getting them to 100% in their own story means that they're going to be at maximum power, sure, I get it, but that's overkill for a game like this where you're usually wrapping up the story while most things on your B and C teams are looking at linkages between 35% and 45% and even your A team is looking at linkages between 45% and 65%. Originally, my motivation for trying to get these guys to 100% was because Serebii had (erroneously =P -.-) reported that you needed to get Pokemon to 100% linkage to get certain bushous to evolve. But the more people are playing the game, the more this is looking to be completely wrong. Most bushou evolutions seem to occur in a "sweet spot" between 55% and 65%. Given this, and given the fact that linkages are all reset once you start new episodes, is there any point anymore in shooting for 100%? I don't want to waste my time. If there's no meaning to it, then I'm going to abandon this play style and I'll just breeze through the game with my four or five favorite characters (who I will try to get into their evolved forms). But if there is still some legitimate reason for getting Pokemon to 100%, then let me know what it is and I guess I'll have to keep at it in my Hideyoshi save file.

[uhhhhh]

Here's a question for you: do I need to allow Motochika's Dewott to evolve (producing a 90% link denominator Samurott) in order for Motochika himself to evolve (producing a 100% link denominator for that same Samurott)? I noticed that on Serebii's page there's no mention of the name Dewott in the right-hand column for Motochika. Could just be an error on his part (his Pokenaga pages are riddled with them as yesterday's facts about this game become today's bunk), but maybe that's why my Motochika hasn't evolved yet despite hitting 65%. I plan to investigate this.

Not sure about Motochika. Haven't played him yet sorry.

Here's another question for you: is there an ideal episode for trying to get bushous maxed out? Like, am I "doing it wrong" to be trying to pull this off in Hideyoshi's stage? Am I supposed to be doing this sort of thing in some other episode instead? And if so, then which one?

Well, I've looked around all the episodes and so far at first glance I think your best bet is that you might want to try it out in the MC's episode.

Here's one more question for you: is there even any point in getting the creatures to 100% anymore? :? I mean, sure, getting them to 100% in their own story means that they're going to be at maximum power, sure, I get it, but that's overkill for a game like this where you're usually wrapping up the story while most things on your B and C teams are looking at linkages between 35% and 45% and even your A team is looking at linkages between 45% and 65%. Originally, my motivation for trying to get these guys to 100% was because Serebii had (erroneously =P -.-) reported that you needed to get Pokemon to 100% linkage to get certain bushous to evolve. But the more people are playing the game, the more this is looking to be completely wrong. Most bushou evolutions seem to occur in a "sweet spot" between 55% and 65%. Given this, and given the fact that linkages are all reset once you start new episodes, is there any point anymore in shooting for 100%? I don't want to waste my time. If there's no meaning to it, then I'm going to abandon this play style and I'll just breeze through the game with my four or five favorite characters (who I will try to get into their evolved forms). But if there is still some legitimate reason for getting Pokemon to 100%, then let me know what it is and I guess I'll have to keep at it in my Hideyoshi save file.

I'm not too sure about this. I haven't reached 100% in any of the episodes I've played. Sorry if I'm not much help this time. ^_^;

[Talon87]

No problem, thanks for trying. Also, regarding Motonori (Grass) and Motochika (Water) ... I noticed you said "Sorry, I haven't played his episode yet," and Serebii too seems to be mistakenly reporting that you can only get these guys once you do their WiFi episode (he lists Motonari's and Motochika's basic forms as being obtainable when you "Complete WiFi Event Special Episode" and nothing else :|), but I want to let you know that Serebii is wrong about this. I got both Motonari and Motochika in my first ever post-you beat the game-episode (the one I just beat, Hideyoshi's), and I still haven't connected to the Nintendo WiFi Connection to download any of the WiFi episodes. So ... just thought you might like to know that. They can be recruited in Hideyoshi's episode. (Can provide NDS save file as an upload if you'd like to see it for yourself.)

[uhhhhh]

Yeah, I know that The Wi-fi thing about them is about them being playable in the main story anyway which is already pointless now. XD

[Talon87]

Loaded back up my old save. Trying to get Motochika and Ieyasu to evolve. (Motochika's at 63.9%, Ieyasu's at 67+%, so both are nearing their Serebii-reported evolution points of 65% and 70%, respectively.) Nobunaga finally invaded the ice city (he'd never done it before) and it turns out that the guys I had stationed there were in no way cut out to defeat him. I ended up trying to evade him all match by having a Pichu and a Servine skate back and forth across the ice and walk real fast across the snow, but unfortunately the A.I. got clever this time (goddammit) and did a three-way pincer on Servine first followed by a three-way pincer on Pichu, ending things with only 7 turns to go before I'd have been given the win by default. But every cloud has a silver lining and this was no exception: Nobunaga was now entrenched in the ice city, and it only faces two other cities: Ryuu, his capital, and then the steel city, where I am more than happy to face him. Sick and tired of fighting him in the ghost city, I said "LET'S GO, BOYS! :D" and conquered Ryuu (which was being guarded by only three Minccinos. ^^; ) So now Nobunaga's holed up in the ice city and if he wants to fight me then he'll have to either do it in Ryuu or in the steel city. I like those odds. :)

The bad news is, his Gabite evolved after the fight into a Garchomp. ^^; So now I'll have to be much more careful. But with my A team stationed in Ryuu and my B team stationed in the steel city, things should be good.

Pixiv fanart wasn't too numerous when last I checked it, but over the course of the past few days, a steady stream has been pouring in. One of the comics I enjoyed reading was this one here (http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=26094816) that pokes fun at a strategy I'm sure we're all too familiar with and how it can horribly backfire. :lol: (Poor Muneshige. :lol:) I like this one because the art style directly parodies famous manga like Saint Seiya and Astro Boy and the execution (speech bubbles, pacing, people's expressions and behavior) is all well done. You'll probably need a Pixiv account to be able to check out the comic, but if you don't have one yet, now's as good a time as any to go make an account! =P :)

[Talon87]

Progress update: Nobunaga's a restless bitch. ^_^; He keeps invading more or less every turn now. But in any event, I have gotten Motochika to evolve (w007 w007) and Ieyasu is currently sitting at 69.90% linkage :lol: so he ought to evolve next time I take him into a fight. Oichi is worthless stubborn and is still sitting at only 53% or so. She only seems to gain around 0.2% every time I use her in battle, most likely because she can't kill shit. Even when I let her steal all the kills by weakening 'mons for her first and then letting her get the finishing blow in, she still only gets 0.2% link points at the end of the fight. I'm thinking that the linkage you gain is at least in part to do with the damage you dealt during the fight and not necessarily whether it was a killing blow or not; and so, given how pathetically weak her Jigglypuff is, this could explain why she isn't getting much of anything. *sigh* But I will keep trying! Because 55% is so close! @_@

I went ahead and made a back-up save file in case Nobunaga starts to get too strong. This is because even if his evolutions are mostly done now -- his usual trio is all maxed out now as a Garchomp, Dragonair, and Staraptor -- there are two things which concern me. The first is that his linkage is still going up and at an alarming rate, much faster than I've proven capable of. I'd say he gains ~2-3% link each turn. This means that before long he'll be at 100% while my guys are all still going to be at around 60-70% link. Not good! But right now he's only at 72% linkage and, having just staged an invasion of his stronghold and having been able to take him down with relative ease, I know that I can beat him the way he is now. My second concern is that he's starting to recruit more than just Minccino users. He's got a new recruit with a Dratini. This scares me. However, when I chose to end the turn early (just to test things out, I'd already saved before doing this), the Dratini user vanished from his ranks, thankfully. However, in this guy's place came a guy with a Scyther. I'm not convinced that that's much of an upgrade given Scizor's ridiculous weakness to fire and the fact that I'm raising a Hideyoshi (A Team), Kai-hime (B Team), and Okuni (B Team) all at the same time ^^;, but whatever. The point is, he's clearly trying to upgrade and get good Pokémon. So ... I can't let him do that. I can't let him get a team of Zekrom, Garchomp, Dragonair, Scizor, Gyarados, and Metagross or some such. So again, just as a preventative measure against this, I decided to back up my save file as it is right now so that I can always fall back on it later should I need to.

[Talon87]

Status update: Nobunaga fiiiiiiiinally took the bait and invaded his old home town where I had two losers planted. I went ahead and auto-forfeited that match and released the bushous into the wild (SUCKER! =P) and then proceeded to invade what he had left behind: my precious Fubuki along with all five of his other comrades. Took 'em out and got myself a brand-new Oichi and Kai-hime. :D I was also finally able to let Kai's Darumakka evolve into Hihidaruma, so I look forward to using him in battle and seeing what he's capable of. (His attack is insanely huge. Hopefully he doesn't have the same poor accuracy that a lot of the other heavy hitters do. -.-; )

Now, however, my defenses are stretched a little thin between the steel and ghost cities. I went ahead and put most of my best men in the ghost city, which is where I'd rather not fight Nobunaga, to try and scare him off into challenging the steel city instead. Even though his W:L record there is now something like 0-5. :lol: ^^; Anxious, I went ahead and saved (>.< wish me luck!) and then decided to just experiment and see what'd happen if I pressed X to go on to the next turn. Sure enough, he invades the steel city (phew!). However, as I've seen in the past, Nobunaga's actions can change depending on how you spend your turn. So ... I'm not quite out of the woods yet. Not to mention ... I sent Ieyasu on the invasion mission (stupid, stupid, stupid! >.<) so now I don't really have anyone beefy to hold down the steel fort. Which means I'm just going to have to make Mori and Oda play cat-and-mouse with my Starlies and Pichus or something. =\ But if/once I do that and win ... it'll be smooth sailing from here. :D Nobunaga'll be holed up in Ryuu once again, I'll have all the other cities, I'll have a growing army of powerful evolved bushous (current standings: Hideyoshi, Motochika, Ieyasu, Oichi, Kai), and I should be better able to spend time grinding the rest of the crew (Nouhime, Okuni, Ginchiyo, and Motonari) up. As for all the other awesome generals? Probably not this time. ^^; I'm eager to try out a new mission (grinding sucks! :cry:) and most of the other bushou warlords are sitting at ridiculously low levels like 20% to 30% linkage. I should note that if Articuno should show up now that I've got Fubuki back, I might shoot for Mitsuhide's difficult evolution. (He's currently "only" at 58% but since he doesn't evolve until 70% ... ugh, what a grind that'd be. ^^; )

[Talon87]

Status update: First, a list of all my bushous.

-Evolved-
1. Hideyoshi
2. Oichi
3. Motonari
4. Motochika
5. Kaihime
6. Ieyasu

-Really Soon to Evolve-
7. Nouhime (64.8%)
8. Okuni (63%)

-Soon to Evolve-
9. Ginchiyo (56%)
10. Muneshige (55%)
11. Hanbei (55% @ Pikachu)
12. Kanbei (54%)

-Not Really Going to Evolve Soon but still ...-
13. the Charmeleon/Charizard guy of Shingen's (54%)
14. Shingen (54%)
15. Mitsuhide (57% with no Articuno)
16. Kenshin (57% but we haven't completed his episode yet so ... -.-)
17. many others
Now, some words. :lol:

First, I have no idea what triggers the bushous to evolve and apparently neither does Serebii. I say this because he's been wrong on at least two counts that have affected my gameplay, one for the better and one for the worse. He claimed that Kaihime's critical point was at 58% linkage. However, I found this not to be the case. My Kaihime evolved perfectly fine as she passed the 55% mark, going from 54.x% to 55.x% after a mission success. (I took a cell phone photo in case it comes down to arguing this point but I doubt that'll happen. :lol:) On the other hand, my Nouhime simply refuses to evolve no matter what I try. Right now, she's at 64.8%. What I went ahead and did, just as a test, was to save the game and then ...

1. Give her Misdreavus a Dusk Stone to hold.
2. Let the Misdreavus evolve.
3a. See if Nouhime evolved once she hit 65%.
3b. See if Nouhime evolved once she completed her first fight with Mismagius.

So I did exactly that. Battle 1, Misdreavus @ 64.8% Nouhime. Misdreavus evolved at the end of the fight. Nouhime went up to 64.9x%. I was pretty livid, especially since she's holding a goddamn mysterious drum. :lol: In any event, nothing happened. Battle 2, I fought alongside Mismagius and pushed Nouhime up past 65%. Nothing. Neither as a result of passing 65% nor as a result of battling alongside Mismagius and being above Serebii's reported figure of 60%. So ... I have no idea. My Nouhime is way beyond what Serebii is claiming her requirements for evolution are and yet she still won't evolve. I'm thinking I may want to try transferring her back to the ghost castle town and have her fight there. Perhaps it will have some special effect on her, who knows. I'm going to be pissed if it turns out that Nouhime's evolution, like Mitsuhide's (Articuno), Kenshin's (beat his stage first), or the Charizard guy's (win with Shingen in the same arena), is one of those. She's been battling alongside her darling Okuni this entire time, so the only other logical choice for someone to battle alongside her would be Nobunaga himself. And he isn't exactly an option right now. :| >_< So yeah. I'm still hopeful she'll evolve soon, but ... if she hits 70% and still hasn't evolved, I'll probably give up on her.

For now, I turned off the DS, so I'm right back where I saved. (See the list in the spoiler box above.) But before I did this, I did temporarily get to enjoy having an evolved Okuni with a Volcarona :), so at least I know that that character's grind won't have been for nothing.

Nobunaga's growth has slowed down. He's currently at around 79.x% linkage. So is Mori Ranmaru. I'm hopeful that he may stay put there for a while. Maybe the game does that on purpose given the significance of the 80% mark for that particular character. We'll see.

I've had so much money that I currently own one of every single evolution item in the game (and in some cases two or more), I have twelve different mysterious drums :lol:, I've got at least 20 of the potions that heal you for 200 HP, and I even splurged (just because I could =P) and bought a max revive and also bought that one $10,000 item that says that if you're the last man standing on your team then all of your stats get boosted. For the most part, my guys in training are all holding drums while my guys who are done evolving are holding the 200 HP potions. Aggron's defense is so huge now -- my Ieyasu is at 77+% linkage and is my highest leveled dude ^_^; -- that he doesn't even have to use the potion to survive: he can take on both Dragonite and Garchomp at the same time while the other Pokemon hug the battlefield perimeter and even with Ranmaru's cheap heal move and Aggron's terrible accuracy against the dragons he still is able to KO both of them before either one can KO him. So, barring Nobunaga getting Zekrom (!!!) or some other dragon who doesn't use a Dragon-type attack, I think I should be good to wall Nobunaga indefinitely so long as the battlefield is the steel-type city.

Unfortunately, the law of diminishing returns is really starting to kick in. Even with all of these taiko drums equipped, I'm usually only gaining ~1% (give or take 0.5%) per failed invasion of his. I'm not even sure if I want to stick around to wait for Shingen and his kohai to evolve. I think I'd much rather wrap things up once Nou, Ginchiyo, Muneshige, Hanbei, and Kanbei evolve. (I'd get Mitsuhide too, of course, but not one single legendary has ever shown up, never mind Articuno. I'm starting to think that they'll only show up in the episodes specific to the players they go with.)

[Talon87]

I found an excellent Japanese-language resource for figuring out these bushou evolutions. wiki.grovyle.net (http://wiki.grovyle.net/ranse/?%E3%83%96%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A7%E3%83%BC%2F%E3%83%A6% E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF) appears to be a Japanese wiki site and they have an extensive selection of articles on this game. As you can see from the link provided, they've listed off all the bushou stages of evolution as well as their community's theories regarding what it takes to get the bushous to evolve. And it's a hell of a lot more informative than Serebii's page. =P ^_^; When they're not sure about a requirement, they honestly report with a question mark beside it. But when there's no question mark, it seems to indicate that they're preeeetty confident they've got it right. So, here's what they had to say for Nouhime:
1.コレクションのポケモンで、「ゴーストタイプ」を全て埋める(登録も必須)
2.ムウマかムウマージのリンク値を60%以上にする
Well, I fulfilled requirement #2 a while back. My Nouhime is currently sitting at 66.92% linkage with her Misdreavus. ^_^; So what about requirement #1? Their community is suggesting that I need to get every single Ghost-type Pokemon registered and accounted for in my Pokemon inventory. Well shit. ^_^; Having never seen a Dusknoir or Chandelure before, it's no wonder my Nouhime isn't evolving! I was hoping to let Kanbei's Lampent remain a Lampent until after he evolved, but if it's going to be necessary to have a Chandelure to get Nouhime to evolve, then I guess Lampent's going to be made to hold a Dusk Stone pretty soon. :lol: As for Dusknoir, I have two spare Reaper Cloths (hooray being filthy rich! :lol:), so I should be able to go and find some chump Dusclops, have a compatible bushou befriend it, and evolve that sucker ASAP.

Some other important differences from Serebii you should note!

Kenshin and Shingen: Serebii isn't reporting anything special for Shingen while for Kenshin he's reporting that you need to have completed his (Kenshin's) episode first in order for him to evolve. Well, these Grovyle guys disagree. They seem to indicate that the two rivals play off of one another, that if you want Shingen to evolve you need to have completed his rival Kenshin's episode first and vice versa. So don't waste your time on either of these two dudes until you've beaten BOTH of their episodes!

Ginchiyo and Muneshige: This one's one of the most frequently asked about on Serebii's forums, it seems, and if the Japanese fans' report is to be believed, I can see why! Serebii thought he'd figured it out when he told people that you need to have these two in the same city in order for them to evolve. Well, according to the Japanese, that's wrong. ^^; Serebii's right that Muneshige and Ginchiyo play off of one another, but he's missing an important detail: "自軍の地続きになっていない城にムネシゲがいる（同じ城は不可）", write the Grovyle fan wiki editors. In other words, you need to have Muneshige and Ginchiyo in separate castles (NOT THE SAME CASTLE!) and furthermore there's the stipulation that the castles not be ones adjoining their own army. Now whether "their own army" means my army (in which case I don't even see how that'd be right, seeing as you can't station allied generals in enemy castle towns :lol:) or whether it means Ginchiyo's thunder nation, I don't know, but I'll be sure to test it out shortly. I'll place Ginchiyo in the steel city and I'll place Muneshige in the dark city. They don't touch one another and they don't touch the two's home kingdom. Hopefully this'll fulfill the requirements.

Masamune: Glad I didn't bother with this one yet. ^^; According to the wiki, "マサムネのエピソードである". Translation? You gotta be playing Masamune's episode in order to get him to evolve. So don't even bother trying to level this guy up in any of the other episodes!

Anyway, there lots of others for you guys to check out for yourselves, but I just thought I'd draw your attention to some of the trickiest ones.

[Holy Emperor]

Talon want to write a guide for me to put on UPN?

[Talon87]

Status update time. But first ...

Talon want to write a guide for me to put on UPN?
Sounds like a lot of work that I'm not cut out for. I mean, I'm willing to help out, I guess, if you want to spearhead it, but no, I'm not going to go out of my way to do this or solo it. ^_^; Seems pretty pointless to me when, in just a matter of 2 to 3 weeks, Serebii is going to have made corrections to all of his embarrassingly wrong claims and from then on his site will be just as reliable for folks playing this game as any of his other pages are for the other games. If you mean a guide like a "How to optimize your Pokenaga experience" advice column, then sure, I could do that. I could definitely help people to avoid the mistakes I made and to really get the most mileage out of their hours invested.

Okay, now for the status update ...

Bushou list:
-Evolved-
1. Hideyoshi
2. Oichi
3. Motonari
4. Motochika
5. Ginchiyo
6. Muneshige
7. Kaihime
8. Ieyasu
9. Okuni

-Soonish to Evolve-
10. Nouhime (just need to fulfil the ghost requirements)
11. Hanbei (59.91% :lol:)
12. Kanbei (59.44%)
13. Yukimura (61%)
14. Hattori Hanzou (55.48%)

-Not Really Going to Evolve Soon but still ...-
15. Shingen (haven't done Kenshin's episode yet so ...)
16. Kenshin (haven't done Shingen's episode yet so ...)
17. Mitsuhide
18. Aya Gozen
19. many others
The folks over at the Grovyle Japanese wiki definitely know their stuff. Or at least, my success with getting Muneshige and Ginchiyo to evolve on the first try after following their advice leads me to believe this. :) So I'm taking their claim about Nou's evolution to heart -- and that means it's grind, grind, grind time once again. -.- Only this time I'm not grinding for bushou evolutions: this time it's all about getting the Pokémon themselves to evolve so that I can fill up my collection list with every single ghost-type in the game. Current status:

-Acquired-
1. Litwick, Lampent
2. Duskull, Dusclops
3. ---
4. Gastly / Haunter
5. Drifloon
6. Misdreavus
7. Spiritomb

-Going To Get Soon-
1. Chandelure (once Kanbei evolves and fights at least once with his Lampent)
2. Dusknoir (I thought I'd met the requirements here but I guess not :|)
3. Froslass (once I'm sure I've got the best possible Snorunt for Aya Gozen, I'll evolve it)
4. Gengar
5. Drifblim
6. Mismagius (will get after Nou evolves if all you need is to have seen things; otherwise will get last in order to make her evolve)
Some of these are going to be really easy to get. Chandelure I'll get before the night's over, for certain. Others of these will take varying degrees of effort. Dusknoir should be easy now that I know what I have to do: you have to not only put the Reaper Cloth on him, you've also got to have him defeat a wild bushou in battle and (if I'm not mistaken) you have to recruit that bushou afterwards. Froslass I could theoretically do right this very minute but I'm scouting for the best possible Snorunt for Aya Gozen first. (The one I got for her ages ago, currently at 45% linkage, has the exact same stats as some of the wild ones I've been finding at 55% linkage, so I guess that may be a sign that I got godly lucky with my original catch. :lol: ^^; ) Gengar has the same sort of problem as Dusknoir minus the evolution hold item. And then there's Drifblim. Ohhhhhh Driflblim. This guy is going to be hard if only because I only have one chump bushou who has a Drifloon right now and I'm not sure his linkage ceiling is high enough to facilitate the creature's evolution. If it is too low, then I may be screwed: no Drifloons are showing up in the wild for me, so it's either this guy or bust. (When I go to the collection page for Drifloon and look at the world map, zero regions light up, indicating that, at least in Hideyoshi's episode, there are zero Drifloons in the wild. ^_^; )

[Talon87]

Status update:

This is probably my last big push before I finally finish off Hideyoshi's episode once and for all. I've gotten more bushous to evolve than I ever dreamed of doing in this first pass and I've so thoroughly broken the game ^_^; that Nobunaga is whimpering in the corner, refusing to invade any of my cities unless I lower the score to 400+ points beneath his. I have over 390,000 gold and am wondering when the traveling merchant will show up again so that I can abuse the system :lol: and purchase a shitton more of evolution items to carry over into other save files where I can easily sell them for cash when necessary.

Here's my current bushou roster (with percentages, though those won't carry over, of course):

-Evolved-
1. Hideyoshi (78.57%)
2. Hanbei (66.05%)
3. Kanbei (64.10%)
4. Oichi (65.53%)
5. Motonari (67.51%)
6. Motochika (72.75%)
7. Ginchiyo (68.93%)
8. Muneshige (64.67%)
9. Aya Gozen (62.30%)
10. Yukimura (66.66%)
11. Kaihime (65.87%)
12. Hanzou (69.92%)
13. Okuni (68.47%)
14. Ieyasu (81.00%)

-Will Evolve Soon-
Nouhime (75.27%)

-Working On Getting To Evolve (Supplemental)-
Nene (57.23%)
Kanetsugu (54.10%)

-Can't Evolve This Time Around-
Kenshin (63.41%) - haven't done Shingen's episode
Shingen (62.60%) - haven't done Kenshin's episode
Mitsuhide (77.86%) - haven't done his episode yet

-Not Going To Bother With This Time Around ...?-
Gracia (40.76%)
Ujiyasu (52.67%)
quite a few others (can't be bothered to list them all)
As you can see, that's quite a lot of bushous. In fact, there are only what? 34 or so special bushou characters in the game? So that's roughly half of the entire pool that I've already managed to get to evolve. ^_^; (In fact, it will become exactly half once I get Nou, Nene, and Kanetsugu to evolve.)

Now, how about my collection lists? Well, as you probably already know if you're playing this game, the collection list can be kinda inaccurate because it only reports you as owning a Pokemon if you've used that Pokemon in at least one battle. But I tend to be pretty good about making bushous with new creatures fight in a battle for precisely that reason, so I think this number should be fairly accurate. For Pokémon, I've got 159/199 registering as seen and 128/199 Pokémon registering as owned. Getting Crobat for Nene and Alakazam for Kanetsugu ought to push the seen count up by two; and getting them plus Nou's Mismagius should push the owned count up by three. A lot of the things I don't own or haven't seen, discounting the six Eeveelutions, Wigglytuff (I still need to make Jigglypuff evolve! ^_^; ), and the numerous legendaries in the game, are the members of the Fighting, Rock, Ground, and Dark families. I have a lot of their basic stages seen and owned but there's a good number of their evolutions that are neither seen nor owned yet since I don't really use any of those types much on my teams. Other than that though, my Dex looks pretty darn filled out.

The Japanese wiki I mentioned before, wiki.grovyle.net (http://wiki.grovyle.net/ranse/?%E3%83%88%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E3%83%9A%E3%83%BC%E3% 82%B8), has been immensely helpful. It hasn't steered me wrong yet. It seems that the Serebii crowd are finally discovering its secrets for themselves so I would expect corrections from Serebii Joe in the next few days. Sadly, even the Grovyle folks aren't 100% certain about what it takes to evolve Mitsuhide. I can tell you this much: linkage percentage with his Lapras is not enough. ^_^; (If it was, you'd think 77.86% linkage would have been good enough. :lol: Although I guess he could always be crazy like Nobunaga and actually require 80% linkage ... :wall:) They're reporting that they think (1) you have to have beaten his episode first and (2) you need to get him to 70% with either Lapras or Articuno. This is probably correct. I guess I'll find out after I complete his episode, though I've no intention of grinding him to 70% linkage any time soon. Not unless the game unveils some magical item that's like, "Hey, dude! You can now gain 10% linkage per turn! :D" In which case I will cry at all the hours I've wasted. ^^;

Not sure which episode I'll play next. Hanbei's? Nene's? Mitsuhide's? Somebody else's? I guess it'll depend on what the requirements are for beating it. I'm not enthusiastic about doing another "conquer the entire realm" mission again -.-, so I'll probably pick one of the shorter missions. Mitsuhide's sounds like it could be fun. Although ... LMFAO, I just discovered this one on the Wiki and it sounds hysterical just from the title and the list of main characters alone:
ランセ一の美女

クリア条件：中原7ヶ国統一
主人公：オイチ、ギンチヨ、アヤゴゼン、ノウヒメ、イナヒメ、カイヒメ、ランマル
"The Most Beautiful Woman of Rance"
Clear conditions: unify the seven kingdoms of the central plains
Main characters: Oichi, Ginchiyo, Aya Gozen, Nou-hime, Ina-hime, Kai-hime, and ... l o fucking l ... Mori Ranmaru. XD

Sounds like it'll be hysterical. And since I'll have every last one of those characters evolved except Ina and Ranmaru, too, it should be fun to see the fruits of my labors paying off. :) Especially if I get to battle as Oichi, who not only should have a Wigglytuff (I should really say goodbye to the worthless Jiggly and just evolve it already ^_^; ) but who should also have a Dragonite if this darn Dragonair would just evolve! @_@ Which reminds me, I need to figure out how you get Dragonairs to evolve. Because I totally did it effortlessly just now with this chump bushou who had a 63% link Dratini --> 64% link Dragonair --> 65% link Dragonite, so I've no idea why Oichi's Dragonair, who is above the 65% mark, hasn't evolved yet. :?

[Talon87]

Status update:

The traveling merchant has refused to show his face. -.- As such, I've ended up training quite a few more bushous than I had originally intended on. I also have over 900,000 gold right now. (Reminder: the most expensive item in the game costs 10,000 gold.) The moment he shows up, I'll pretty much have enough cash to buy 10-20 of every single evolution item. :lol: Furthermore, that means that my assets carrying over into the next episode will be valued at approximately 450,000 gold -- I'm pretty much set for life so long as I don't blow the cash all in one go on worthless things.

Here's the list of bushous. This time it's pretty exhaustive, with me listing off every single major recruitable character in the game as well as my percent linkages with each of them:

-Evolved-
1. Hideyoshi (79.79%)
2. Hanbei (73.99%)
3. Kanbei (65.37%)
4. Oichi (67.50% on Dragonair, 59.08% on Wigglytuff)
5. Motonari (69.19%)
6. Motochika (73.57%)
7. Ginchiyo (71.85%)
8. Muneshige (65.67%)
9. Yoshimoto (56.10%)
10. Kanetsugu (63.82%)
11. Aya Gozen (76.20%)
12. Yukimura (70.66%)
13. Ujiyasu (63.08%)
14. Kaihime (67.08%)
15. Nene (68.48%)
16. Hanzou (71.75%)
17. Ieyasu (82.07%)
18. Nouhime (76.51%)
19. Okuni (69.61%)
20. Gracia (61.92%)

-Soon to Evolve-
none

-Not Really Going to Evolve Soon But Still ...-
21. Yoshihiro (44.64%) - meh ^_^;
22. Shingen (63.40%) - haven't done Kenshin's episode yet
23. Kunoichi (43.12%) - can't get Sneasel in this episode
24. Kenshin (64.15%) - haven't done Shingen's episode yet
25. Kotarou (48.50%) - meh ^_^; , also haven't had luck with finding Zorua
26. Masamune (36.35%) - haven't done his episode yet
27. Magoichi (37.17%) - meh ^_^;
28. Tadakatsu (62.47%) - can't get Beldum in this episode
29. Inahime (39.27%) - meh ^_^;
30. Mitsuhide (87.33%) - haven't done his episode yet

-Haven't Unlocked Yet Period-
31. Mitsunari
32. Kiyomasa
33. Masanori
34. Keiji

-Previously Unlocked But Not Featured In This Episode-
00. The Hero
Every single one of my evolved bushous has got their best link partner in their fully-evolved form, too, so this is really the maxed-out deal. In fact, with the exception of only four remaining bushous (Yoshihiro, Kotarou, Magoichi, and Inahime), I've gotten every single bushou to evolve that you can possibly get to evolve within Hideyoshi's episode. ^_^; At 21 of 35 (counting the hero) possible bushous, that's roughly two-thirds of the entire roster. Which means that from now on, whenever I recruit major characters in other episodes, I have a roughly 2-in-3 chance of getting an awesome character who's already fully upgraded and has their best possible Pokémon partner in its fully-evolved state. :) :oops:

It's too bad that the hero's name can't be changed once you create the file. If it could, I'd certainly change it and offer to share my save file with others so that they don't have to endure the same grind that I did.

It's also too bad that all of these link percentages will be reset the moment I beat the episode. :lol: *sigh* But at least I get to keep the evolutions. That's what this has all been about in the first place.

So yeah. I'm just skipping turns now, waiting for that peddler to show his face again so I can buy $900,000+ worth of evolution items from him and then go kick Nobunaga's sorry butt. Then I can finally download the DLC episodes, and then I can decide which episode to play next. Probably that humorous one I mentioned last night provided I can access it.

[Talon87]

So, I learned something interesting from this that I doubt most players have had a chance to discover yet ...

If you neglect a worthless bushou for too long, he'll get emo and pout. This is something I didn't have happen until around Year 5 in this file. (Keep in mind, I originally beat it Year 2 Month 6 but then opted to grind grind grind for bushou evolutions, so by Year 5 I'd grown quite tired of having everybody do something every turn. I'd started to just neglect entire cities.) Well, I discovered that if you engage them in at least one battle, they usually quit moping -- at least for a little while. It turns out, as I just discovered now when I skipped like 20 turns in a row to make that damn peddler show up :lol:, that they will desert you if you don't shower them with some attention. And their negativity tends to spread to other bushous in that same city. What's worse, the major bushous can also get emo like this, not just the crappy ones. So like, Magoichi (who I'd never really done too much with) got all emo and deserted. And once he left, Kunoichi (who had been in the same city) also got angry and threatened to desert. (The peddler showed up and I beat the game before she could, but still! :lol:) Anyway, this is actually a kinda useful feature for those of you who find yourselves wishing that there was a way to delete crappy bushous so that you can have a city with just three excellent Pokemon in it and nobody else to drive up that senryoku score. (And believe me, if you're going to box Nobunaga in like I did, you will have occasions like this!) What I found more effective was to just dump a bunch of sacrificial lambs in a city, let Nobunaga take it, tell them they're all fired, and then take the city back myself with my good guys. But if you don't like the tedium of battling in a city like, say, Fukushi (the steel city), then the neglect-and-desert approach may be precisely what you want.

Also, I ended up bringing Oichi along for the final battle and, whaddya know, her Dragonair finally evolved. :lol: No idea why now, but hey, at least it evolved. So from now on if I ever get Oichi again, I have my choice of Wigglytuff (bleh) or Dragonite (sweet). And speaking of Wigglytuff ... good lord is that thing terrible. D: I'd never used it before but I decided to give it a whirl in battle so it'd register as owned and, well, ... Hyper Voice has to be one of the most annoying-sounding things in this entire game. Absolutely awful.

Okay, now to get those wifi episodes ...

[Talon87]

Blowing through these other episodes. :lol: I've gone and beaten three of the 1-star difficulty stages (the three with the boys Mitsunari, Kiyomasa, and Masanori) as well as one of the 2-star difficulty stages (Kenshin's) and have been pretty ruthless. Kenshin's game was over in three turns. The most cities you can invade on Turn 1 is two. I invaded two. I defeated two. The most cities you can invade on Turn 2, given a maximum successful Turn 1, is two. I invaded two. I defeated two. Turn 3 comes, I invade any city of my choice, I win, and I beat the episode. :lol: Mitsunari's was pretty ridiculous too. That was another Turn 3 victory with Aoba, Hajime, and Izumi falling to me in turn. (It's pretty broken to give a guy a Scizor and a Charizard for his opening duo. :lol:) Kiyomasa's struck me as being at least as difficult as Kenshin's, though, so I question its 1-star rating; and Masanori's was actually pretty tough; even though I managed to beat it on Turn 5, I think it deserves to be rated three stars, at the very least two!

Now I'm on to Mitsuhide's. This looks like an interesting challenge. Basically you have 36 turns in which to win. This ought to be plenty considering that I originally beat Hideyoshi's episode on Turn 18 and it had a similar premise; but then again, people have reported finding it challenging, so who knows. Then again, there were kids saying they couldn't beat Takeda Shingen during Story Mode which leads me to think that some of the people playing this game are the evolutionary equivalent of the dog who gets his head stuck inside a cereal box and can't figure out how to get it back out.

Surprised to see that discussion of the game has stalled over on Serebii. I came out pretty critically against this game myself but even I'm still playing. Has everyone else already gotten bored with it? :? ^^;

[Talon87]

Now that I'm done trying to break the game :lol:, I am reminded how very much this game is what I said it was when playing Story Mode. "Baby's First Tactics RPG" is a good way to describe the leniency this game demonstrates. I'm playing Mitsuhide's mission right now, it's the top of Turn 7 (i.e. I've completed six turns), and ...
I already own five cities (ice [default], dragon, ghost, steel, flying)
I am running an offensive Army of One -- Akechi Mitsuhide and his Lapras, who is already at 40% linkage and is just an absolute beast. Nobunaga's Hydreigon does only 9 damage to me, and I have over 130 HP right now, whenever he does his Dragon Pulse. I on the other hand do 60 to 70 HP damage to him with one Ice Beam, netting a 2HKO that is just barely not a OHKO. Even accounting for his 2x weakness, I'm still doing over three times as much damage as he is.
I have already twice upgraded one of the Pokemon territories back in Fubuki (the ice city) where I have my defensive squadron of five holed up. The intent is to summon Articuno ASAP.
Every single other city I own (Ryuu, Fukushi, and Mitama) are ghost towns.
Despite this, the enemy is completely unable or unwilling to punish my audacity. It doesn't gang up 6-against-1 on my Lapras. It doesn't invade any of the sitting duck ghost towns I've got. It's just doopee-doopee-doo letting me invade one city after another and kicking everyone's ass with one Rambo of a Lapras. :lol: Which ... makes for a pretty cool mental image, I guess -- fanart of Rambo Mitsuhide with Rambo Lapras incoming? :lol: -- but it's something that most tactical RPGs would never allow me to get away with. Why end your turn doing nothing when you could at the very least invade a ghost town, claim it for your own, and even if you get kicked out the next turn it comes at no real cost to you? Why indeed. And yet the enemy A.I. has done it four turns in a row now.

That stated, "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." I am one-sixth of the way done with the time allotted to me to complete this mission. And who knows what tricks await me as I delve deeper into the enemy's territory. The one really neat thing about this mission, but what an adversity it is!, is that nobody joins you. I have yet to get one single recruit out of any of these military skirmishes. The ONLY recruits I have are ones I spent a turn of my own, sitting out of combat, to go and fetch from the Pokemon hunting grounds. This is pretty much why I only have me, my daughter, and four random scrubs: because none of Nobunaga's defeated generals are defecting. This is night-and-day different from what happened in Hideyoshi's episode (where everyone was recruitable, even the boss's wife for Christ's sake) and it's pretty different even from what you came to expect after the Hero's episode, a.k.a. Story Mode or Episode 00, where you were at least able to recruit generals from the middle kingdoms. There's a real sense of loneliness here in this campaign and it's very befitting for Akechi Mitsuhide.

Not too pleased with Gothitelle. Pretty glad that the entire package (least favorite Pokemon, loliest character, one of the crappiest stat distros amongst any special bushou in the game) was all rolled into one like this since it means that in most any other episode I can just ignore Gracia and not have to worry about her fugly partner or her terrible performance. But here where she's my only general besides Akechi himself, I have to use her. And, wouldn't you know it, Gothitelle happens to be the only Psychic Pokemon I've come across all game whose move is Future Sight. Fucking A. :| :doh: This move can be strategically wonderful in the real games, yes, but in a tactics RPG, you almost never benefit from keeping the enemy alive one extra turn.

[Talon87]

This A.I. is really too generous. It pretty much let me walk all over it and so Rambo Lapras, who ended up weighing in at 82% linkage @ zero grinding on my part 8O, put Nobunaga to rest once and for all on the eighth turn of Year 2, just a little bit past the halfway point for total time allotted to you to complete this mission. :lol: Articuno never did show up, so I took a second look at the Japanese wiki, wondering if, in my bad habit of not reading things fully, I had not noticed the column header for the episodes mentioning something about "cleared."

It mentioned something about "cleared." -.- :lol:

Specifically, it says "Episode You Have To Have Cleared" and then names the episode. So ... yeah. :lol: You know what this means? Mitsuhide Episode Run #2. 8)

It's Year 1 Month 10 and conquest-wise I'm going a lot slower this time as I've only four kingdoms under my control (Fubuki, Ryuu, Fukushi, and Tsubasa) having just lost the only other kingdom, Mitama, I'd conquered so far this game. However, that's because I spent most of my turns trying to acquire new bushous who had cleverness scores greater than the abysmal 45s and 48s I found in my first few catches. -.- Once I had some decently good bushous, I sold off 10,000 gold worth of evolution stones :lol: and ...

... spent four turns upgrading the Pokemon areas in Fubuki. Never-before-seen mountain shows up, I send in Mitsuhide all alone, and lo and behold there's Articuno. :) To my surprise, he was only capable of a silver link with it. Upon catching it, I discovered that sure enough its max linkage is being reported as 70%. :| So I've gotta ask: if getting Mitsuhide to 87% with Lapras didn't evolve him :lol:, and if Articuno's max evolution possible is 70%, what's gonna happen if/when I level this bird up to 70% and Mitsuhide doesn't evolve? He'd better evolve. :evil: :lol: I'll be pissed if he doesn't. lol
Lapras has been a reliable friend with her bulk and powerful, far-reaching Ice Beam, but Articuno is a noticeable upgrade. Despite being a few percentage points lower right now than Lapras in acquired linkage, all three of her stats (attack, defense, speed) are higher than Lapras's. Some only just barely, but still. I think her HP might actually be slightly lower than Lapras's right now but that'd be the only one. In addition, the ability of flight in a tactical RPG like this is a godsend. Then there's her attack: Blizzard. While it doesn't hit anyone immediately in front of you (Ice Beam does), it hits up to six squares (Ice Beam can only hit three) and it still has that same wonderful Row 2 + Row 3 reach that Ice Beam does.

[Talon87]

This morning, I woke up thinking, "Y'know, I think I'm done playing this game. Nobody's replying on UPN. I've already had my fill of the game. I think I'll report in and tell them I'm done."

Groggy, I load up Serebii from my phone to see if anyone's posted in that thread recently. And ... son of a bitch. :wall: :lol: Lindsay was right:

The game's coming to the United States after all. (http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokemon-conquest/)

There goes several days' worth of gaming that I'll never get back. :| ^^; Great news for everyone else though, I'm sure.

From what little we can see of the translation, it looks like this could be either a localization hit or a miss and that we won't know until it comes out. Pluses include the fact that they kept the Japanese proper names intact and have spelled them correctly. (Shingen did not become Singen, for example, the way that Shin'ou became Sinnoh nor did it become Jerry the way that Isshu became Unova.) I'm Not Sure How to Reacts include the fact that they translated ランセ as Ransei, an allusion to the fact that the original name is a pun off of 乱世, ransei, which means "troubled times," a term you could very well apply to this period in Japanese history. That's a clever nod and all but ... it's name wasn't Ransei. :| ^^; It was Ranse. (Which I've been writing as "Rance" as a nod to Doppel and one of his favorite PC games.) So I dunno. And then we have the title change ... :lol: They took us from "Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition" to Pokémon Conquest! Yes, the title is descriptive and short. No, the title isn't doing Koei-Tecmo any favors. It makes it seem like this game is 100% Nintendo's when in reality it's a Nobunaga's Ambition series title for kiddies that has Pokémon cleverly thrown in. The name change all but guarantees that casual video gamers in their 30s and 40s who remember playing Nobunaga's Ambition as children will not be picking this game up when they see it on store shelves. It all but reduces the casual buyer market to those people who would be willing to drop money on a Pokémon spinoff title. But, as we all know, this wasn't the sort of game that casuals were likely to buy in the first place. ^_^; This is the very sort of title that only the most diehard Pokémon fans are likely to buy. (And the same thing goes for our brothers on the other side of the fence, the hardcore Nobunaga's Ambition fans.)

With an English release confirmed for June 18, it looks like a helpful guide is more in demand now than ever. That way you guys can avoid losing hours the same way I did.

[Tuner89]

I'm not so sure. I'm EXTREMELY excited this is coming to US(which is why I'm now interested in this thread, but am not going to read the previous posts in fear of spoilers D=)

As for my comment, like I said, I'm not sure that the only people who will buy it are 'hardcore pokemon fans'

I have several friends who I have mentioned this game to, and described it as 'fire emblem, but with pokemon' since I've never heard of, nor played a 'nobunaga's ambition' game before this, and I assume my friends have not either. In fact, I could be totally wrong on my assumption, but the point stands that to consumers like me, that's what the game looks like. Several of my friends, none of which I would even classify as 'casual pokemon fans' are really excited about this game as well, because they feel like pokemon as a fire emblem style game would be incredibly enjoyable, and solve a lot of the problems they have with main pokemon rpgs.

I feel like my friends are not isolated in their opinions and, with good marketing, nintendo could easily gain the purchases of people looking for something like that. The biggest issue will be the fact that, after a year, the title is not a 3DS game.(honestly this still confounds me, and might be a reason even I, some one who is REALLY looking forward to the title, might pass it up)

[Talon87]

If you've told your friends that this is Fire Emblem but with Pokémon, you've more or less correctly described the genre to them but you've done them a huge disservice come Launch Day when they drop $40 on a title they take home expecting to have the sort of difficulty curve that Fire Emblem titles tend to have only to discover that this one has the mechanical depth of a puddle after a light spring rain. :| Kuno asked me to write a guide, and now that I know the game is coming out in the U.S. I might do it (NO PROMISES =P), but I can tell you one thing that'll show up if I do end up writing something for the site: a compare-and-contrast between this game and other SRPGs like Tactics Ogre, FFT, Luminous Arc, Disgaea, and so on and so forth. Just to give you some sneak peek examples ...

Note: NOT SPOILERS. Spoiler tagging just because it's lengthy. You should DEFINITELY read this and point these things out to your friends so that they can make the most informed decision before purchasing this game. Especially if you want them to take your suggestions seriously in the future. =P ^^;
Most SRPGs: You get a movement step and a combat step. You can take the two in any order you like. So you can move and then attack, or you can attack and then move.
This Game: You get a movement step and a combat step. They come in that order. Period. You always, always, always have to move first.

Most SRPGs: You can place your team at the start of combat in any formation you like within a predetermined grid of indicated squares.
This Game: Your team is automatically placed for you based on the order in which they show up in your city and pre-determined grid spaces corresponding to each of those six slots. And no, you can't rearrange the order during city management. The game does it for you.

Most SRPGs: You get at least two attacks, usually at least either one physical and one magical or one general and one special/combo. A great many SRPGs allow you to use four or more different attacks per character.
This Game: You get one attack. Period.

Most SRPGs: For characters with atrociously poor movements (e.g. movements of only 2 squares), there are items later on in the game which boost their movement by 1 square. This is usually offered as a courtesy to the player, suggesting that what he loses in other potential buffs he now gains in mobility, allowing him to play with a favorite heavy character who would have otherwise been unplayable.
This Game: No such item exists. This renders almost every single Pokémon with a movement of 2 squares completely worthless. I say "almost" because there are a few exceptions who, depending on the stage, are simply too good to pass up. (For example, when playing defense in the steel city, Fukushi, Aggron starts off in the very middle of the stage and never has to move more than 2 squares per turn anyway. He's a really fantastic choice for that stage that should not be overlooked.) But in general, especially when you're doing offense as opposed to defense, the Pokemon with movement speeds of 2 are broken. And I don't mean "broken = fucking awesome" either. :| I mean that they don't work. They are dysfunctional.

Most SRPGs: There is a disincentive for allowing a character to die. These disincentives can range from the extreme (like in the Fire Emblem series where you famously lose the character for good) to the superficial (like a marginal loss of experience points gained from the fight).
This Game: There's no significant or discernible disincentive for allowing any one character to die. Your hero can die, your sidekick can die, any of your recruits can die -- so long as you end up winning the fight, even if it's just with one man left standing, they'll all still gain experience points as they normally would have. I've had characters die on me who, thanks to their prowess in battle, still gained more experience points than the guy who managed to stay alive. The only "disincentive" I think I have spotted, maybe, is that a Pokémon who otherwise would have evolved that turn will not evolve should it get KO'd in that battle. But that's a laughably small penalty, even smaller than the loss of experience points.
And so on and so on and so forth. I'll try and better organize these in an eventual guide (if I write a guide), but I hope this appetizer gives you some idea for how this game, as I've said a million times prior, is Baby's First Tactics RPG™. It simplifies everything. The only real choice a player has in this game is "Do I want to move? If so, where to? Do I want to attack? If so, who?" That's it. It's a very, very simple affair and it will likely not amuse hardcore fans of SRPGs unless they were also in this for the flavor (be it the Pokemon flavor, the Sengoku period flavor, or ideally both).

[Tuner89]

This seems like I described, and honestly makes me more excited for the game. Both me and my friends have only ever lightly touched Fire Emblem, so none of us have really appreciated the depth. What you described is mostly the extent we've come to appreciate the game Dx

Thanks for the additional info though, I'll pass that along!

[Talon87]

I may have oversimplified (but not by much!) in neglecting to mention the two other things you can opt to do in any given turn (besides forfeit! :lol:). These are, in addition to (1) movement and (2) attacking, (3) you can choose to use your Bushou's held item and (4) you can choose to use your Bushou's special power. The problem is, even these pale in comparison with other SRPGs. To explain ...

(Again, 100% safe to click and you SHOULD click.)

Most SRPGs: If you choose to use an item, it takes up your combat action for that turn. However, you are free to use items once per turn as many turns as you like during the battle. You find items in your Item satchel. It's a community resource that's accessible to everyone in your party.
This Game: The good news is that when you use an item on your Pokémon it doesn't suck up your Combat step for the turn. So that's cool, I guess. The bad news, though, is pretty much everything else.:lol: First of all, your Pokémon can only use the item its bushou is holding onto. So if your bushou is holding onto this game's equivalent of Choice Band and suddenly your Pokémon gets paralyzed, too bad: you can't fetch one of the seventy-two Paralyze Heals you have in your satchel. Second of all, your Pokémon is limited to the use of one item per battle. So say you have your bushou hold onto a Potion (heals 20 HP) and say you use it in battle. That's great. Now you have no item. Say you get damaged again and you want to heal up. Too damn bad: you already used your one item for this battle.

This policy makes it so that most of the items in this game are worthless. There were a few very special circumstances in which I opted to hold onto status heal items or potions instead of my usual, but 99% of the time I played this game, I would put a Mysterious Flute (lowest level), Koto (mid), or Drum (highest level) onto my bushou. These items increase the linkage your bushou and his partner Pokemon gain. (Think of it like a Lucky Egg from the main series games, then.) And this is pretty much, imo, the best item to have in the game. (More on why in an eventual guide if I make one.) There's rarely an incentive to take a Super Potion (50 HP) or Hyper Potion (200 HP) over the Mysterious Musical Instruments because, more often than not, if you can win a battle with a potion, you can win it without one; and if you can't win a battle without a potion, then you can't win it with one unless you get lucky. Case in point, by the time I was able to equip a Hyper Potion for the very first time, I replaced Aggron's Mysterious Drum with one and ... it was also the first battle in which Aggron managed to kill the enemy invaders rather than stalling them for a Time Out victory. In other words, the turn I was first able to buy Hyper Potion was the turn I officially quit needing potions. :lol: I put the drum back on him immediately following the end of that battle.

Okay, now let's talk about the next point.

Most SRPGs: Your special/combo is your most powerful move. Some games limit you to one use per battle. Others limit you to one use every so often. Regardless, your special is usually something that you will want to use to fell multiple enemies all in one go.
This Game: Like other SRPGs, Pokémon Conquest also has a special. They call it your Bushou Power. The problem is, even the very best of these specials pale in comparison with the specials you'd find in other games. Here are some examples:
Increase your movement by one one square for one turn.
Increase your attack by one level for one turn.
Increase your and your neighboring' allies defense for three turns.
Increase your attack, your chance for critical hits, and your ability to scale walls for three turns.
The examples got progressively better, right? Well, the last couple are ones you won't be seeing until late game (example 3) or post-game (example 4). What you're mostly going to see, even in the post-game but especially during the initial game, are powers like the first two I listed. And you wanna know something? Yeah, you probably already guessed it, but ... you're limited to using these bushou powers once per battle. So that's right: you get a special in this game just like you would in any other SRPG ... but the specials typically suck ("boost your attack for one turn! :D") and they can only be used once per battle.
So yeah. Sorry for neglecting to mention these. But these are really all you can do. You can (in the order you have to do them) ...
Choose to use your item. (One selection per battle.)
Choose to use your Bushou Power. (One selection per battle.)
Move around the map.
Choose to attack targets in range with your solitary attack.

Oh, and one more thing ...
Pick up treasure if you're on the same square as a treasure box.
That's it.

[Tuner89]

It still sounds like a fun game from what I'm hearing, I kinda expected it to be watered down, as it is a spin-off game, so no real disappointment there, it's actually far deeper than I anticipated/told my friends, believe it or not xD

Cool stuff. Thanks for the info, Talon!

[Kindrindra]

My SRPG experience is pretty much limited to Fire Emblem, but... a lot of those sound really intruging, but I've never seen them used myself.

Steps: This is a good point.

Layout: This is kinda meh for me, since I have the habit of not changing the layout anyways. But. I get what you mean.

Multiple moves: Wait, there are SRPGs where you get more than one move?! I honestly didn't know this. Could you list some? I'd really like to try one! ^_^

Movement: Eh, from my experience this is more a balance thing. Characters with low movement often have rough-as-rock defenses and powerful offensive stats as well. Then again, I can see how this wouldn't neccesarily apply in pokemon- shame that they didn't go with the multiple move idea you said earlier; Imagine how cool Trick Room would be to use in a game like this! :O

Disincentive: Well, you could say being unable to use the character for the rest of the battle is a (default) disincentive. But I see what you mean in that there's nothing to stop you from simply bashing into your opponents and hopping they run out of mon before you do- disinscentives kinda help with the 'S' in Srpg.



In totally unrelated news, but kinda demonstrates how little worth my opinion has: I just figured out what the 'J' in 'JRPG' stands for yesterday. ._.





EDIT: Hi, I'm Kin, and I'm a :079:

[Talon87]

I'll direct you to the list of games I've mentioned numerous times in this thread and say "Check out any one of those if you want to get a good feel for what most of the games in the genre are like." See: this post (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=339652&postcount=87) and others like it.

I'd also recommend giving this article a look (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_role-playing_game). Yes, it's quite exhaustive. But you can skip ahead to the section called "Popularity" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_role-playing_game#Popularity) and handpick some names from there. Read about them and if any of them interest you, look into getting a chance to play them somehow. I guess this is worth noting: from the Tactics Ogre article, "In March 2006, the Japanese Famitsu magazine readers voted on their 100 all-time favorite games, and Tactics Ogre was named number seven." Note that this is referring to Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together.

Since I'm feeling generous =P, some linked samples for you.

Tactics Ogre: the Knight of Lodis sample (www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zimUoZAl50#t=5m04s)
La Pucelle Tactics sample (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvaSN5gpdDs#t=0m15s)

If you want to see more, look for them yourself. You're a big boy, you can figure it out.

[Kindrindra]

Thanks, I totally didn't see that you had listed some. XD

Oh, Lumineous Arc is a SRPG? Huh. I've heard good things about it, and I've been wanting it for a while. Hmm.

[lalaxxx]

Not to be rude, but i found this thread from googling stuff on the game, and Talon, you SUCK at japanese. Your first few posts on the gameplay were almost completely off, which shouldnt have happened at all if you even knew a little japanese. Will you please god damn quit writing about games which you dont understand and stop leading other people the wrong way? Either go learn japanese or wait for the english version, gamegeek.

[Talon87]

Not to be rude, but i found this thread from googling stuff on the game, and Talon, you SUCK at japanese. Your first few posts on the gameplay were almost completely off, which shouldnt have happened at all if you even knew a little japanese. Will you please god damn quit writing about games which you dont understand and stop leading other people the wrong way? Either go learn japanese or wait for the english version, gamegeek.
"Not to be rude, but [supremely rude and wrong]." :lol: That's okay: I'll bite. What have I said that you take issue with?

[Lindz]

Woohoo! Glad ta hear its coming out here afterall! Even though strategy games aren't my thing, going by Talons posts I may do okay enough to get by and enjoy it instead of get frustrated and head right to faqs! ^.^

[kusari]

Woohoo! Glad ta hear its coming out here afterall! Even though strategy games aren't my thing, going by Talons posts I may do okay enough to get by and enjoy it instead of get frustrated and head right to faqs! ^.^
Took the words right out of my mouth.

[deoxys]

Pokemon Conquest.

FUCK YES

THANK YOU NINTENDO

[Blastoise]

Multiple moves: Wait, there are SRPGs where you get more than one move?! I honestly didn't know this. Could you list some? I'd really like to try one! ^_^


...um, 99% of them?

Should have expected "babby's first SRPG", but will probably pick it up anyway once it hits the states because I am a whore.

[lalaxxx]

"Not to be rude, but [supremely rude and wrong]." :lol: That's okay: I'll bite. What have I said that you take issue with?

some examples would be like "Another example of this game's simplicity is the fact that you only really get one attack and (at least in the early stages of the game) one special. For Eevee, for example, his attack is Quick Attack and his special is an agility-boosting move that lasts for one turn only."

if you understood japanese, you would know that its not a special for that pokemon, its a bushou's power.

next, "Early, early on in the game, when I tried to recruit people, I was told "You can't have more than six people! You're gonna have to let someone go!" So I did, and from that moment on, I figured"

if you understood japanese, its "You've gotta place the bushou in another nation!" instead of letting him/her go.

"To address Amras's concern from before ... yes, it looks like you only learn one move and one special still."

once again, its not a special...

"they're not on the field and can't be the target of enemy Pokémon attacks. What the bushou do do is lend their Pokémon a second ability"

finally?! now u know?!

[Amras.MG]

You're splitting hairs just to be an asshole, lalaxxx, and that's not fun for anyone.

I was surprised to see that this will be localized. I will not get it though, because playing this game after playing SRPGs like FFTA would be offensive, especially because the Final Fantasy Tactics games rate among my favourites. I'm also not really that interested in Japanese culture, unfortunately. And this game doesn't do justice to the Pokemon, from what Talon says, and has a "fuck you [the player]" mentality.

Plus I don't have $40.

[Talon87]

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/jpns_2012_04_05_001.jpg

Most of these criticisms have nothing to do with the actual language, but let's take them in turn bit by bit.

Regarding "bushou power" and me apparently not knowing that that term is what the game uses: uhh ......... click me? (http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost.php?p=339656&postcount=89) :lol: :roll: I don't think you realize that calling the bushou power a "special" is what I have called it here for the readers' sake because, as you're probably not aware, many people here have played other SRPGs but only two people (uhhhhh and myself) were playing this particular game and this is the only SRPG which refers to its specials as Bushou Powers. Your criticism of me using a general term in place of a specific one is like saying, "It's not called a finisher, dumbshit, it's called an Ultra Combo. You clearly do not speak English!" if we were talking about Street Fighter IV. Or like saying "It's not called an ultimate, moron, it's called a Limit Break! :evil:" if we were discussing Final Fantasy VII. Except a Limit Break is an ultimate. And an Ultra Combo is a finisher. And a bushou power? It's this game's equivalent of a special. Like Amras said, you're splitting hairs.

Regarding having to let people go early on in the game, you're accusing me of lying but I don't think you quite understand the circumstances behind this experience. Test this out for yourself and see if you still think I'm lying. What happened was, I only had one or two castle towns under my control early on when this happened and I already had every single bushou slot filled. So when I got my next bushou recruit at the end of a battle, the game told me that I needed to let somebody go. This is not the same message it gives you when it tells you that a city is too crowded and that you need to put the new recruit in a different city. This is a different message that only appears when you already have max occupancy in every town. If you've never had to let a bushou go before, then perhaps this is why you might think I'm reporting misinformation. But I can assure you that this is what happened to me early on in the so-called Story Mode and this is what has continued to happen to me in any episode since where I have every single slot filled in all castle towns. It should be very easy for you to imagine how this could happen to somebody in the very beginning of the game when his total available slots are so limited.

And I guess that's it. Your other two complaints were your obsession with me referring to bushou powers as analogous to specials in other SRPGs. I don't know why this chapped your ass so badly but I really don't see how this has anything to do with Japanese knowledge.

Now: let's talk Japanese knowledge. :lol: For examples demonstrated in this thread, expand the first spoiler box. For examples from the real world, expand the second. I think you'll like what you find there.

1.コレクションのポケモンで、「ゴーストタイプ」を全て埋める(登録も必須)
2.ムウマかムウマージのリンク値を60%以上にする
Well, I fulfilled requirement #2 a while back. My Nouhime is currently sitting at 66.92% linkage with her Misdreavus. ^_^; So what about requirement #1? Their community is suggesting that I need to get every single Ghost-type Pokemon registered and accounted for in my Pokemon inventory.
ランセ一の美女

クリア条件：中原7ヶ国統一
主人公：オイチ、ギンチヨ、アヤゴゼン、ノウヒメ、イナヒメ、カイヒメ、ランマル
"The Most Beautiful Woman of Rance"
Clear conditions: unify the seven kingdoms of the central plains
Main characters: Oichi, Ginchiyo, Aya Gozen, Nou-hime, Ina-hime, Kai-hime, and ... l o fucking l ... Mori Ranmaru. XD
Names are provided in Japanese in Japanese alphabetical order.

=Major Bushou=
[your name] Eevee/Eeveelutions
オイチ Jigglypuff/Wigglytuff
カネツグ Gardevoir <-- mine still isn't showing 100% though =\
ケンシン Gallade
シンゲン Rhyperior

=Minor Bushou=
アキザネ Pichu
ウジチカ Sewaddle
カゲカツ Ralts/Kirlia
カツヨリ Larvitar
サダミツ Munna
ジョウウン Mareep/Flaafy
セイクロウ Skorupi
ソウウン Larvitar
タダツネ Machop
テルモト Petilil
トモノブ Ralts
ヒサアキ Scraggy/Scrafty
マサトシ Machop
ムネトキ Rufflet
ヤストモ Joltik

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/jpns_2012_04_05_002.jpg

These are just some of the many Japanese novels I own.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/jpns_2012_04_05_003.jpg

And no, these aren't comic books or light novels ...

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/talon87/jpns_2012_04_05_004.jpg

These are honest-to-goodness novels that require a pretty good command of the grammar, vocabulary, and orthography of the language.

But what do I know: you apparently have decided that I don't speak Japanese so I guess that means all these books I've read cover-to-cover must all be in my imagination! Thanks for the heads up! :o

[Kindrindra]

@lalaxxx: You might want to read the whole thread before you jump to assumptions. Talon ALREADY STATED THAT. And it's not a question of lack of ability to read Japanese- you forget that people get things mixed up even when they're in ENGLISH. :eyeroll:

It's especially funny because Talon is fluent in written Japanese. :P

[lalaxxx]

Most of these criticisms have nothing to do with the actual language, but let's take them in turn bit by bit.

Regarding "bushou power" and me apparently not knowing that that term is what the game uses: uhh ......... click me? :lol: :roll: I don't think you realize that calling the bushou power a "special" is what I have called it here for the readers' sake because, as you're probably not aware, many people here have played other SRPGs but only two people (uhhhhh and myself) were playing this particular game and this is the only SRPG which refers to its specials as Bushou Powers. Your criticism of me using a general term in place of a specific one is like saying, "It's not called a finisher, dumbshit, it's called an Ultra Combo. You clearly do not speak English!" if we were talking about Street Fighter IV. Or like saying "It's not called an ultimate, moron, it's called a Limit Break! :evil:" if we were discussing Final Fantasy VII. Except a Limit Break is an ultimate. And an Ultra Combo is a finisher. And a bushou power? It's this game's equivalent of a special. Like Amras said, you're splitting hairs.

Regarding having to let people go early on in the game, you're accusing me of lying but I don't think you quite understand the circumstances behind this experience. Test this out for yourself and see if you still think I'm lying. What happened was, I only had one or two castle towns under my control early on when this happened and I already had every single bushou slot filled. So when I got my next bushou recruit at the end of a battle, the game told me that I needed to let somebody go. This is not the same message it gives you when it tells you that a city is too crowded and that you need to put the new recruit in a different city. This is a different message that only appears when you already have max occupancy in every town. If you've never had to let a bushou go before, then perhaps this is why you might think I'm reporting misinformation. But I can assure you that this is what happened to me early on in the so-called Story Mode and this is what has continued to happen to me in any episode since where I have every single slot filled in all castle towns. It should be very easy for you to imagine how this could happen to somebody in the very beginning of the game when his total available slots are so limited.

And I guess that's it. Your other two complaints were your obsession with me referring to bushou powers as analogous to specials in other SRPGs. I don't know why this chapped your ass so badly but I really don't see how this has anything to do with Japanese knowledge.

Now: let's talk Japanese knowledge. :lol: For examples demonstrated in this thread, expand the first spoiler box. For examples from the real world, expand the second. I think you'll like what you find there.






These are just some of the many Japanese novels I own.

And no, these aren't comic books or light novels ...

These are honest-to-goodness novels that require a pretty good command of the grammar, vocabulary, and orthography of the language.[/center]

But what do I know: you apparently have decided that I don't speak Japanese so I guess that means all these books I've read cover-to-cover must all be in my imagination! Thanks for the heads up! :o

Uhuh, so you did miss out a number of stuff from even a reply. Thanks for the clarification of Talon, Kindrindra! So thats what happened. Firstly, regarding the bushou power, I said you were off on the description because you wrote "For Eevee, for example, his attack is Quick Attack and his special is an agility-boosting move that lasts for one turn only."
You wrote HIS SPECIAL, meaning each pokemon has a different special, and that was what I meant -.- (and really, this shouldnt have happened since you said you have a considerably great understanding of Japanese)

Regarding letting people go, I did not ACCUSE you of LYING, can you even understand what is OFF? Logically, when you only have 2 nations, and each nation already has the max number of warriors, it doesnt take an IQ of 180 to make one realise that DUH you have to release the extra people? Or you can say this is your first time playing such games and you TOTALLY DIDNT REALISE IT.

Now: let's talk Japanese knowledge.
Uhuh, those simple Japanese can be easily translated via sources like Google Translate, and those Japanese names of Pokemon can be easily searched from Serebii.

I see, so you own many Japanese novels. Well, i guess that means if i have a huge collection of German novels by some famous writer, I know German? Who the hell would know if you really read all the books? But this isnt important, one can simply have both the novel and a dictionary side by side if all else fails.

One more thing, Amras, if the game isnt going to be localised in English, and you have a fair amount of OCD, and somebody did an imperfect job at translating what you plan to play, you wont be saying this. "You're splitting hairs just to be an asshole"
Just saying~

[lalaxxx]

@lalaxxx: You might want to read the whole thread before you jump to assumptions. Talon ALREADY STATED THAT. And it's not a question of lack of ability to read Japanese- you forget that people get things mixed up even when they're in ENGLISH. :eyeroll:

It's especially funny because Talon is fluent in written Japanese. :P

btw, STATED WHAT? the "quote" button is not there for show, or is it?

[Talon87]

Honestly, I expected better. Oh well. Thanks for the entertainment last night, anyway.

[lalaxxx]

Honestly, I expected better. Oh well. Thanks for the entertainment last night, anyway.

Likewise, I expected better too.

[Tuner89]

so any ways, how bout dem pogemans conquest, eh?

They released english boxart, confirming that the game is indeed DS even in america(you never know! D=)

that sucks.

[YUKI.N]

>Talon
>lalaxxx

http://i44.tinypic.com/15yzwae.gif

[Talon87]

They released english boxart, confirming that the game is indeed DS even in america(you never know! D=)

that sucks.
The only reason this sucks is if you were expecting 3DS functionality out of the game. Otherwise, you aren't harmed for this at all. You can opt to play it on your DS or you can opt to play it on your 3DS. If the complaint is "It should have been a 3DS game to begin with! :evil:" then fine, but that doesn't concern the game's Western release. You'd need to take that up with Koei-Tecmo and Nintendo back when they announced the game in November.

By this same logic, are you going to be upset when B2W2 comes out in the West and, just like in Japan, it's a DS-compatible title? ^_^; Again, if you want to be upset that it isn't a 3DS game even in its original release, then be upset about that: but don't be upset that the Western one isn't a 3DS title that takes advantage of the 3DS platform when the Japanese release wasn't one either. ^_^;

[Kindrindra]

I'm sleepy today, so all I'm gonna say is this:


http://forums.upnetwork.net/showthread.php?t=3874

[Tuner89]

The only reason this sucks is if you were expecting 3DS functionality out of the game. Otherwise, you aren't harmed for this at all. You can opt to play it on your DS or you can opt to play it on your 3DS. If the complaint is "It should have been a 3DS game to begin with! :evil:" then fine, but that doesn't concern the game's Western release. You'd need to take that up with Koei-Tecmo and Nintendo back when they announced the game in November.

By this same logic, are you going to be upset when B2W2 comes out in the West and, just like in Japan, it's a DS-compatible title? ^_^; Again, if you want to be upset that it isn't a 3DS game even in its original release, then be upset about that: but don't be upset that the Western one isn't a 3DS title that takes advantage of the 3DS platform when the Japanese release wasn't one either. ^_^;

The fact it wasn't 3DS compatible in the first place is the issue indeed, and I chose to complain now only because now it is relevant to me. It shows that nintendo isn't fully committed in furthering their progression to the next generation; pretty sad after a year of 3DS' release, especially after all the promises they made of support.

To this day, there's only 5 note worthy first-party titles on the system, two of which are remakes, and two of which are rehashes. That's one new original game. After so many promises of continued first party support, I honestly feel like I wasted my money buying the system so close to launch; thank god for the ambassador system(which is still amazing), or it would be ridiculous.

I was hoping nintendo would clue in from the bad press they got releasing it as a DS title, and do a quick port before the localization, but it seems not =\ unfortunate.

[Kindrindra]

Eh, remember that Pokemon kinda has a habit of releasing games for consoles after they should of moved on.

[Tuner89]

Sure, but explain why TWO pokemon titles in a row have been released for 3DS, and now we're backtracking back to DS for 3 more?

Referring of course to pokedex 3D and pokemon rumble blast, both of which are excellently done.

Also, diamond and pearl were some of the first ever DS games, and pokemon crystal was one of the first GBC games... Pokemon has been one of nintendo's selling points of new systems for years, and it worked in the past. They honestly should have waited on black/white in my opinion, but w/e.

[Kindrindra]

Well, Dash and Trozei were out early on for the DS, now weren't they?

But, I can see what you mean. The one issue is that GF starts working on the next game before they're even done with the one they're currently on, which kinda explains how often they release for earlier consoles.

[Amras.MG]

Releasing on 3DS would have been a huge mistake, because only a fraction of the audience for this game would have been able to buy it. In addition, the first 3D Pokemon game being a spinoff would not be very professional, at least as I see it.

Nintendo is going to make way more money releasing this (and B2W2) for DS, and that's why they're doing it. To your point though, this does have the unfortunate effect of making the 3DS feel like an alternate version of the DS, rather than a true next-gen handheld. Personally, I'm fine with that. I still see 3D as a gimmick.

[lalaxxx]

I'm sleepy today, so all I'm gonna say is this:



uhuh, did u know that i can post all that as well even if i have minimal understanding of japanese just by referring to sites which have free resources like this?

japanese.about.com/od/japaneselessons/u/StartLearning.htm

[Jerichi]

Wow, you're extremely rude and unjustifiably mean. And this is coming from someone who rips on Talon on a pretty regular basis. Those are really unimportant details that he skimmed over and even the one he skimmed over that was important isn't that big of a deal. Please stop being a dick for no good reason.

On topic, I'm glad that this game is coming to the US. I'd consider importing it and floundering through it in Japanese, but I'd rather have an understanding of the story instead of forcing myself to translate menus the whole game.

[lalaxxx]

Wow, you're extremely rude and unjustifiably mean. And this is coming from someone who rips on Talon on a pretty regular basis. Those are really unimportant details that he skimmed over and even the one he skimmed over that was important isn't that big of a deal. Please stop being a dick for no good reason.

On topic, I'm glad that this game is coming to the US. I'd consider importing it and floundering through it in Japanese, but I'd rather have an understanding of the story instead of forcing myself to translate menus the whole game.

says the person who typed in yellow green.

[deoxys]

At least he knows how to use proper grammar.

[lalaxxx]

At least he knows how to use proper grammar.

do enlighten me on my grammar errors, please~~~

[Blastoise]

says the person who typed in yellow green.

Yeah, you're done.

Let it not be said that my retribution is not equal opportunity.

[uhhhhh]

...wow.

Anywhoo, I actually haven't been playing lately due to school and exams and all so you may have completed more episodes than I have Talon. Last time I played, I have finished all the one-star episodes and I'm at Ieyasu's story now.

[Kindrindra]

Not actually sure if I want to get it in english or not, actually. XD

By which I mean, I want to get the game, but I'm considering importing it despite the stupidity simply to improve my Japanese reading skills, if only slightly.

Kin, the Derp King.

[Talon87]

...wow.

Anywhoo, I actually haven't been playing lately due to school and exams and all so you may have completed more episodes than I have Talon. Last time I played, I have finished all the one-star episodes and I'm at Ieyasu's story now.
Well, it's great to have a playing partner again ... but I kinda burned myself out on the game in conjunction with their announcement that it's coming out in the US. The episodes I've completed are Default x01, Hideyoshi x01, Kenshin x02, Mitsuhide x02, Mitsunari x01, Kiyomasa x01, and Masanori x01. Honestly, you're probably not that far behind, if even behind at all. Mitsuhide's episode goes by ridiculously quickly, or at least it did both times for me. The A.I. unfortunately is so dumb and passive that you can pretty much beat that episode in advance of the halfway point for the deadline without lifting a finger. Kenshin's episode by design goes even quicker. The first time I played it, I beat it on Year 1 Month 3 which is as fast as you possibly can assuming staged invasions with six party members. The second time I played it, I needed to build up the wild Pokemon spots in the psychic castle town first and this took four turns. Despite that, I still ended up beating it iirc on Year 1 Month 6. ^_^; The last episode I was trying before I put the game down was Yukimura's (so that I could unlock Takeda Shingen's and then go and get Shingen's Groudon). I might pick it back up, I dunno, but the story premise in Yukimura's episode did not interest me.

Speaking of story premises, here's some small spoiler flavor for you for Mitsuhide's episode. :) I'm pretty sure you'll catch this for yourself though:

Both times I played Mitsuhide's episode, I would invade Ryuu on Turn 1. I'm not sure if the A.I. does this on purpose every time or if I just got lucky or what, but both times I did this, Nobunaga would then relocate himself and his best generals to Mitama. On Turn 2, I then stage an immediate invasion of Mitama both times. Well, whenever I'd do this, naturally it would be Mitsuhide's and Nobunaga's first encounter with one another in battle. And so I don't know if it was triggered by Nobunaga simply being in the invaded city or if it specifically has to be Nobunaga in Mitama -- probably the former, but like I say I don't know -- but what happened at the start of battle was that Mitsuhide would say something along the lines of 敵はミタマにあり！, playing off of Akechi Mitsuhide's real-life warcry of 敵は本能寺にあり！ (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%95%B5%E3%81%AF%E6%9C%AC%E8%83%BD%E5%AF%BA%E3%8 1%AB%E3%81%82%E3%82%8A) the night he betrayed Oda Nobunaga. It's the cute touches like these that make the game worth playing in my eyes. I mean, you have to know your Sengoku period history to appreciate them but typically that isn't a problem, I would think, for the sort of people likeliest to pick this game up. :lol: However, now that it's coming to the United States, one has to wonder how many of these things will be lost in translation. :|