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Old 12-21-2011, 07:13 PM   #26
Kindrindra
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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.
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People should watch what they enjoy regardless of what others think, even if it's a terribad guilty pleasure.
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Though, I also dislike the concept of lamenting the current day while wishing to re-experience the past. At least, my modern attitude is to try and make each new day magical even if it's not, since exclusively reminiscing about the past is too pathetic.
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Old 12-21-2011, 08:11 PM   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kindrindra View Post
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?
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Old 12-22-2011, 03:52 PM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
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.
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People should watch what they enjoy regardless of what others think, even if it's a terribad guilty pleasure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Though, I also dislike the concept of lamenting the current day while wishing to re-experience the past. At least, my modern attitude is to try and make each new day magical even if it's not, since exclusively reminiscing about the past is too pathetic.

Last edited by Kindrindra; 12-22-2011 at 05:36 PM.
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Old 02-22-2012, 12:12 PM   #29
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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)!
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Old 02-22-2012, 12:20 PM   #30
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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. I read it last night, but it looks like it was published back on February 17, five days ago.
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Old 02-23-2012, 07:03 PM   #31
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
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. 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...!
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Old 02-23-2012, 08:02 PM   #32
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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! ^-^"
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Old 02-24-2012, 12:38 PM   #33
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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? >.<
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Old 02-24-2012, 01:28 PM   #34
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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.
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People should watch what they enjoy regardless of what others think, even if it's a terribad guilty pleasure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Though, I also dislike the concept of lamenting the current day while wishing to re-experience the past. At least, my modern attitude is to try and make each new day magical even if it's not, since exclusively reminiscing about the past is too pathetic.
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Old 03-21-2012, 01:42 PM   #35
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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. 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):
Spoiler: show
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 ...

Spoiler: show
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.

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! " and the game more or less forced me to challenge Hideyoshi to a fight.

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. 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:
  1. Stay behind in Kaen to recruit some Fire-type bushou.
  2. Press on to Aoba and kick their asses with Eevee, Jigglypuff, and your Fire-types.
  3. Stay behind in Aoba to recruit some Grass-type bushou.
  4. 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? 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:
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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. 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.
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Old 03-21-2012, 02:21 PM   #36
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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...y-warriors-vs/
Koei gets more Nintendo goodness. Possibly as part of the partnership this game brought around?

btw:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Media Create
[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!

Last edited by Lindz; 03-21-2012 at 02:29 PM.
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Old 03-21-2012, 05:21 PM   #37
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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.
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Old 03-21-2012, 05:45 PM   #38
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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! -- 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.

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.

Spoiler: show
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.
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Old 03-21-2012, 09:26 PM   #39
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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. ' 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?

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 4˝ 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:

Spoiler: show
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. As I head back home to the Bug castle town ... Kenshin's older sister, Aya Gozen, has staged a surprise invasion of her own! 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 " and staged an immediate invasion of Kenshin's castle town. And ... it was surprisingly easy. 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! 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! " -- 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.

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

I'm not joking. 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.

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Old 03-21-2012, 09:56 PM   #40
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The game does take type advantages into play though? What about Pokemon attacks used on human characters?
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Old 03-21-2012, 11:01 PM   #41
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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.
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Old 03-22-2012, 01:25 PM   #42
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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 ). Glaceon also looks pretty good. Man, I want them all! ;_; 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.
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Old 03-22-2012, 01:37 PM   #43
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>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.
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Old 03-22-2012, 03:46 PM   #44
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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! 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 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.

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.
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Old 03-22-2012, 10:28 PM   #45
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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:

Spoiler: show
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. 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:

Spoiler: show
Steel, Ghost, Ice, and Dragon.

The episode at the Poison castle town was pretty funny. (Spoilers?)

Spoiler: show
I enjoyed the interplay between Nene and Hideyoshi. (For those who don't know, Nene 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.)

Spoiler: show
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.

Last edited by Talon87; 03-22-2012 at 10:31 PM.
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Old 03-22-2012, 11:18 PM   #46
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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?
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Old 03-23-2012, 01:10 AM   #47
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
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. 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 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 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.
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Old 03-23-2012, 12:46 PM   #48
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Beat two more castle towns. Since these are near the end of the game, I'll spoiler tag them.

Spoiler: show
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! ) 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?) hot. 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. 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. 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.

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 : 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? Both bushou saw silver medals above the Litwicks' heads. Pretty frustrating since I was totally hoping to add a badass Chandelure to the team.
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Old 03-23-2012, 04:36 PM   #49
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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)

Spoiler: show
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! 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!? 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.
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Old 03-23-2012, 05:15 PM   #50
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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!

Spoiler: show
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.
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