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Old 03-23-2012, 10:44 PM   #51
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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:
Spoiler: show
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:
Spoiler: show
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
Spoiler: show
The MC him/herself
though I guess that is to be expected in a game like this.

Last edited by uhhhhh; 03-23-2012 at 10:53 PM.
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Old 03-23-2012, 11:15 PM   #52
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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! ), then I wonder how you get Leafeon. Speculation informed by how I appear to have gotten Glaceon:

Spoiler: show
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. 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. 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! ) 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.
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Old 03-23-2012, 11:28 PM   #53
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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

Last edited by uhhhhh; 03-23-2012 at 11:33 PM.
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Old 03-23-2012, 11:32 PM   #54
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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.

Spoiler: show
=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.
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Old 03-23-2012, 11:36 PM   #55
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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.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87
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.

Last edited by uhhhhh; 03-23-2012 at 11:40 PM.
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Old 03-23-2012, 11:39 PM   #56
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Quote:
Originally Posted by uhhhhh View Post
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!? How does that even begin to fit with:
  1. the theme of his famous helmet?
  2. 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. *sigh*
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Old 03-23-2012, 11:45 PM   #57
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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)
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Old 03-24-2012, 10:02 PM   #58
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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:

Spoiler: show
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? " -- before I noticed, on Glaceon's second go-around, the little silver Link badge above Arceus's head. ^_^; "Well this is easy! "

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!

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!? ) 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. ^^; 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." 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 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 2˝ more weeks.
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Old 03-24-2012, 10:27 PM   #59
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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 it first and posted about it ) and the Reshiram event. XD

Interesting tidbit: Mitsuhide was supposed to have been linked with Moltres instead of Articuno.

Last edited by uhhhhh; 03-24-2012 at 10:34 PM.
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Old 03-25-2012, 11:58 AM   #60
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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.
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Old 03-26-2012, 11:42 AM   #61
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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:
  1. To date, I have made only 11,500 in spare cash.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

Last edited by Talon87; 03-26-2012 at 01:48 PM.
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Old 03-26-2012, 12:52 PM   #62
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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?
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Old 03-26-2012, 03:55 PM   #63
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
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 ...

Spoiler: show
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 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.

Last edited by Talon87; 03-26-2012 at 03:59 PM.
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Old 03-27-2012, 12:17 PM   #64
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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 where Serebii talks about it. Quoting it in case he changes the text later:

Quote:
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.
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Old 03-27-2012, 09:57 PM   #65
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Actually, I think that's not a legendary Pokemon but more of a swarm of rare Pokemon? I'm not too sure. :s
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Old 03-27-2012, 10:30 PM   #66
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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 " 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)
Spoiler: show
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:
  1. Bring Ieyasu's Lairon/Aggron and Nouhime's Misdreavus.
  2. 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. ^_^; )
  3. 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.)
  4. 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.
  5. Because you're the defender, you automatically win if the match times out.
  6. 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.
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Old 03-27-2012, 10:44 PM   #67
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Well in some episodes, you start out with the buildings leveled up already so... :s
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Old 03-27-2012, 11:11 PM   #68
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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 -.-) 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.
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Old 03-27-2012, 11:28 PM   #69
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
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.

Quote:
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.

Quote:
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 -.-) 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. ^_^;
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Old 03-27-2012, 11:38 PM   #70
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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.)
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Old 03-27-2012, 11:41 PM   #71
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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
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Old 03-28-2012, 01:14 PM   #72
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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! " 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 that pokes fun at a strategy I'm sure we're all too familiar with and how it can horribly backfire. (Poor Muneshige. ) 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!
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Old 03-28-2012, 05:57 PM   #73
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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 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.
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Old 03-28-2012, 10:58 PM   #74
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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! ) 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. 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. ^^; 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. 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! ) 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. ^^; )
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Old 03-29-2012, 06:44 PM   #75
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Status update: First, a list of all my bushous.

Spoiler: show
-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.

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. ) 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. 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 , I've got at least 20 of the potions that heal you for 200 HP, and I even splurged (just because I could ) 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.)
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