Pokémon Conquest



""Unleash Your Pokémon Ambition!""

- Tagline, used on the official Pokémon website.

Announced in December 2011 and released on March 17th, 2012 in Japan, franchise giant Pokémon crosses over with, of all things, Nobunaga's Ambition, a real-time strategy series known to Japan more than America.

The game is set in the fictional region of Ransei, where warlords fight alongside Pokémon. You play as a young warlord, who sets off to conquer the region to stop everyone else from tearing it apart trying to conquer it. In reality, this conquest is effectively a glorified tutorial of relatively short length, and the meat of the game is the many different scenarios one can play after completing it.

There is a six chapter manga adaptation named Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition: Ranse Picture Scroll that began on March 16, 2012 and is hosted on Niconico Seiga. Surprisingly, given the virtual non-existence of one of its parents in the west at the time, on April 2012, it was revealed that the game would be brought to the United States, under the title Pokémon Conquest, on June 18th, and it was.


 * Adaptation Dye Job: Mori Motonari was given green hair, fitting to the Grass theme he was also given.
 * A Day in the Limelight: Most of the Warlords get special episodes focusing on them after the main story is completed.
 * Aerith and Bob/Adaptation Explanation Extrication: How Gracia's name works in this canon is unclear.
 * Anachronism Stew: Mewtwo's a genetic experiment. What's he doing in feudal Japan?
 * The clothing style of some of the Warlords counts as well. Sun visors probably weren't a standard in Japanese fashion back than. Ditto Masanori with his Kamina glasses, and Gracia's top hat.
 * The Tram Nation, period. It's practically a feudal Japanese power plant.
 * Oh, and if you command a Warlord to move to a non-adjacent nation, they travel by blimp.
 * Some dialog mentions Pokeballs exist outside Ransei. This implies Ransei is actually a more modern world styled after the Sengoku, raising even more questions.
 * Artificial Stupidity: The AI can get itself stuck in chokepoints unable to attack because it has ranged units in the lead and melee units up front. Unless flanked, it will never retreat to rearrange. It's also pretty good at killing itself on the hazards of certain arenas.
 * Badass Mustache: Hideyoshi in his upgraded form.
 * Bag of Spilling: Your link level and finances are reset to the default in every post-game episode.
 * Battle Couple: Among the Warlord Leaders accompanying Nobunaga in the final battle is his wife Nouhime.
 * Ginchiyo and Muneshige Tachibana defend the Tram nation much earlier. And once you recruit them, they'll only evolve if the other is present.
 * Nene and Hideyoshi in the Poison Fang Nation too.
 * Big Fun: Takeda Shingen and his two Pokémon of choice.
 * Boobs of Steel: Most of the female Warlords.
 * Bragging Rights Reward:  You have to finish everything in the game that involves him or her before you unlock it, although it does make repeat runs through the final scenario a little easier.
 * Brother-Sister Team: Kenshin and Ayagozen.
 * Brutal Bonus Level: Some of the special episodes are significantly harder than the main game.
 * Call Back: The ice in the Blizzard Nation functions similarly to the Ice Path in Pokémon Gold and Silver.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Yoshimoto. For one, he doesn't realize losing a battle means losing his castle until one of his retainers informs him. He also seems to think he's playing a ball game called "Pokémari" rather than actually battling. He's also quite the Adult Child.
 * Convection, Schmonvection: Non-Fire-type Pokémon, and humans for that matter, are certainly pretty fine with battling in the middle of a volcano, just so long as they don't enter the lava itself. In fact the Fire Nation in its entirety is practically a volcano, it's a wonder how people even live there...
 * Crossover: Pokémon meets Nobunaga's Ambition.
 * Cute Shotaro Boy: Hanbei.
 * Dangerously Genre Savvy: Either Kenshin or Shingen. (whichever you choose to attack) You challenge them on their home turf, only for them to refuse, you go back to your previous base, disappointed...
 * Although it isn't that bad since the Pokémon garrisoned in their castles would have pretty much granted a Curb Stomp Battle.
 * Darker and Edgier: To the Pokémon side of the crossover's usual fare, anyway. Not as much as one would expect of such a crossover, though.
 * Difficulty Spike: Right after the water kingdom.
 * Another one on reaching the Steel, Ghost, and Blizzard Nations.
 * Defector From Decadence: Completley Averted. Warlords loyal to Nobunaga will never join you under any circumstances. You'll have to wait for their special episodes to use them.
 * Defeat Means Friendship: To recruit new Warlords, you first have to defeat them in battle within a certain number of turns to 'earn their respect'. This even works on the Leaders' generic minions, but the Leaders themselves have one additional requirement: the final blow must be dealt by another Leader. (including the Hero and Oichi) And even then, some leaders won't join unless the story specifies it.
 * Designated Girl Fight: Ginchiyo's special episode.
 * The Dragon: Mitsuhide to Nobunaga, though he later becomes The Starscream.
 * Disc One Nuke: While link rating (levels) aren't retained between scenarios, obtained Pokémon are and unlike the main story where plot battles have fixed power, opponents start at low level (and default Pokémon equipped) and gain power the longer they are left alive. This means most come down to quickly grabbing a warlord with a fully evolved Pokémon and using it to rush the other domains.
 * Dub Name Change: Aside from the Pokémon due to Grandfather Clause, and the title itself, this looks to be the first localized Pokémon game to largely avert this. The regions will be getting one though.
 * Elaborate Equals Effective: The Warlords get more-impressive outfits as they improve their link with their Pokémon.
 * Elegant Gothic Lolita: Gracia. It even shows in her choice of Pokémon!
 * Eleventh-Hour Superpower:
 * making this something like a five minutes to midnight super power.
 * Another example is choosing to evolve your Eevee into Glaceon. To do so, you need to use it in the Blizzard Nation... the last nation before the final battle. As a trade off, you'll be super-effective against all of Nobunaga's Pokémon.
 * Empathy Pet: Pokémon owned by important characters tend to mimic their Warlord's animations in cutscenes.
 * Everything's Better with Samurai
 * Excuse Plot: A rare in-universe example! There's an old legend in Ransei that the Phantom Pokémon will appear to whoever owns all 17 castles. Thus, all the nations have an excuse to invade eachother.
 * Expressive Hair: Kaihime's hair almost literally explodes when she gets angry.
 * Extended Gameplay: Zigzagged.
 * Extreme Omnivore: Bug Bite will eat ANY consumable item in this game, not just Berries. This includes Potions, status healers and some headbands...
 * Friendly Fireproof: Averted. You need to be careful where you position your Pokémon sometimes. On the plus side, it lets you make use of combos like you can in the main series, such as hitting a Volt Absorb Pokémon with an Electric-type move to heal it.
 * Get Back Here Boss: Unusual for such an early point in a game, but Hideyoshi's Chimchar definately qualifies. Being a Fire-type Pokémon, it can walk on lava panels, and its Ember has a range of 2 spaces. At this point, you neither have a fire type of your own, nor an attack wiith more than 1 range, so he'll just sit back on the lava sniping you if you let him.
 * Everyone in Mitsuhide's story. Since Nobunaga and underlings control most of the map (bar your start and the southwest area they'll quickly conquer) at the start, all the characters with unique portraits will only retreat to another holding of Nobunaga's faction when defeated instead of joining you or retiring into the random recruit pool. The result of this is that you face a much more consistent set of opponents, and that you can't advance as quickly as normal since you can't rely on recruiting defeated enemies as a way to have up to snuff soldiers and have to either go into random encounters or assign reserve units to recruiting missions.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Some of the female Warlords' outfits border on Absolute Cleavage... in a Pokémon game.
 * Ranmaru existing in a Pokémon game.
 * Graceful Loser: Just about everyone. Notably, Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin will throw a party for you after defeating one or the other.
 * Gratuitous English: One of the generic classes speakes this way. (In katakana though)
 * Guide Dang It: Good luck figuring out the generics' Best Link Pokemon without a guide! You only get two clues, their specialty type (having two makes it even harder, as it's usually NOT a dual-type sharing both like you'd logically expect) and the "compatability" indicator above wild Pokemon when selecting them. (Even then, Gold compatability doesn't guarantee a Best Link) Fortunately, unlike the named Warlords, getting a generic's Best Link doesn't provide any special benefits.
 * Handsome Lech: Magoichi. Hits on Oichi in the pre-battle dialogue, and needs to have 3 female Warlords in his nation in order to evolve.
 * Historical Badass Upgrade: All the female Warlords, at the very least.
 * Inverted with Yoshimoto, who goes from the serious Daimyo as depicted here to a painted faced loony.
 * Historical Beauty Update: A given, considering the art style.
 * Historical In-Joke: During Mitsuhide's chapter, when attacking a nation defended by Nobonaga he'll say "The enemy is inside [Name of Castle]!" like he did in real life.
 * Hot-Blooded: Motochika, oddly for a water user. It makes him a Foil to the calm, cool-headed grass user: Motonari.
 * An Ice Person: Akechi Mitsuhide seems to be able to generate ice on his own accord. It even freaks out his Lapras.
 * I Let You Win:  This is somewhat evident in gameplay, since the initial battle with the character is fairly easy, and the character's remarkably level headed about losing to you.
 * Ice Queen: Ayagozen's design just screams this. Complete with Frosslass-style hood in her upgraded form.
 * Improbable Age: Motonari certainly seems to think so about the protagonist, to the point where he worries he's the old guard on his way out, much to the dismay of his retainers.
 * Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Used by Oda Nobunaga no less!
 * Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja: With Hattori Hanzo, Fuma Kotaro, and several others.
 * Curiously, all of the ninja-like Pokémon are absent, so these guys have to make do with Dark and Poison types.
 * Instant Win Condition: Some maps can be won by capturing all the flags scattered throughout, though in practice it's unlikely you'll reach them all without killing most of the enemy.
 * Interface Spoiler: Averted. There are 199 Pokémon on the Pokédex-esque list at the start of the game.
 * Justified Tutorial: The nations surrounding the starting one specialize in Fire, Water and Grass types, so fighting them serves as an indirect tutorial on type matchups.
 * Lazy Artist: The game's advertised 200 Warlords are comprised primarily of a little over three dozen different generic character designs re-used several times each with different names, type preferences, and abilities. Altogether, there's only around 70 unique designs for the generals, or about 107 if you're feeling generous enough to include the evolved designs.
 * It's averted to varying degrees with the Pokémon, however. All 211 (more than advertised, curiously) Pokémon have at least one unique portrait, and those associated with special Warlords tend to have more.
 * Level Scaling: If you get too far above the enemy's average power, they'll immediately increase in power. Given the disparity needed to trigger it, this effectively doubles as Anti-Grinding and/or No Fair Cheating.
 * Lighter and Softer: To the Nobunaga's Ambition side of the crossover's usual fare, anyway. Accordingly, characterization differs greatly from Koei's norm.
 * Akechi Mitsuhide does not have his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
 * Gracia is a historical figure famous largely for her faith, martyrdom, and father. The only time Conquest alludes to any of those things is placing her as one of her dad's underlings without further explanation.
 * Nobunaga is sort-of reasonable rather than self proclaimed demon lord.
 * Ranmaru surprisingly manages to make it into the crossover, and has a relationship with Nobunaga of the style of "Well Done, Son" Guy and understandably never mentions their their historic relationship.
 * Luke, I Am Your Father:  But if you know your history, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise.
 * Lost Forever: Evolving or releasing Oichi's Jigglypuff too early results in the very useful Jigglypuff Bow being forever inaccessible. Since getting the Moon Stone needed to do this is a requires a random merchant spawn with the stone needed, and being able to release it requires a fair amount of grinding on top of the obviously poor move, only a small number of players will encounter this issue.
 * Mercifully averted with the downloadable missions and events thanks to an exploit in the password system. Unlike virtually every other game that required connecting to Nintendo Wi-fi Connection (defunct since 2014) to unlock content, generated passwords can be used as an alternate to trigger these events meaning that the game can still reach 100% completion on a fresh save without a cheating device or using a fake DNS to force the game to connect to a third party recreation of the servers.
 * Magikarp Power: The Trope Namer itself is in the game, but your starter shines almost as notoriously as it. With only one attack, the Eevee you begin with is pretty useless past the first few maps until you evolve it. You're going to have to be very patient if you wanted any of the Eeveelutions other than the first three, though....
 * Abra too, as, until it evolves, it's stuck with teleport, which can't damage things at all. (Not totally useless, you can try using it to seize objectives... if you're feeling lucky.)
 * Despite being her perfect link (highest level cap), Oichi's Jigglypuff is not particularly good even after evolution. However Oichi's second highest options is a long list of Pokémon that start terrible but become incredibly powerful after evolution such as Staraptor, Alakazam, Eevee/its evolutions, and Bisharp. If prepared during the main story, many scenarios devolve into recruiting her as fast as possible to take advantage of their power at low levels (since evolutions, but not power, are retained across scenarios and Oichi is often obtainable early) in order to conquer large chunks of the map.
 * The Manga Of The Game: One that's posted on Nico Video at least every other Friday.
 * Meaningful Name: Ranse means "turbulent times", an apt name for the Sengoku Period-esque world the game is based on.
 * All of the nations have one too.
 * The Medic: Oichi's Warlord Power heals your whole team, so she could be considered one.
 * Mighty Glacier: Most fully-evolved Pokémon have lower movement ranges to prevent them from becoming totally broken. Shingen's Rhyperior is a notable case: low movement and a long-range-only move makes it difficult to position, but once it uses Rock Wrecker, it will certainly leave a mark... and you won't be able to use it next turn.
 * My Master, Right or Wrong: Mitsuhide struggles with this during the main story. He eventually decides to go full-blown Starscream in the post-game.
 * Nice Hat: The male hero's second helmet, Mouhime's Mismagius-inspired witch hat, Ieyasu's sword-like helmet.... They're all over the place.
 * No Campaign for the Wicked: Averted. Everyone gets their own chapter after the main story, including the apparent Big Bad Nobunaga.
 * Non-Standard Character Design: Masanori's 'emotion' sprites are much more exaggerated and cartoony compared to everyone else's.
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: Hanbei seems lazy and uninterested, but is just as brilliant a strategist as his partner Kanbei.
 * Pokémon Motif: Several Warlords evolve into wearing armor that resembles their Best Link (The only Pokémon they can reach 100% synchronization with), i.e. Kotaru's Zoroark claws and boa or Masamune's Braviary helmet.
 * The Power of Friendship: A Pokémon's strength is determined by how well synchronized it is with its Warlord, in lieu of a more traditional experience system. This even translates into the story, as your rival military commanders don't start putting up a challenge until their Pokémon are visibly synchronized with them.
 * Proud Warrior Race Gal: Ginchiyo comes from a clan of Electric type users, and she's proud to bear that heritage. Just like in real life. (minus the Electric Pokémon)
 * Psychotic Smirk: This is Kotarou's only 'emotive' sprite. Kanbei has one too, but it's more of a smug "just as planned" look, him being a master strategist and all.
 * Purely Aesthetic Gender: Besides Lord/Lady usage, nothing non-visual changes based on if the main character is male or female. Even the one thing in the game that depends on a character being male or female (Magoichi's second form requires he be stationed with three females) does not count the main character regardless.
 * Puzzle Boss: Mitsuhide, mostly due to the terrain. Ieyasu in the Steel Nation too, as he requires you to have Pokémon run on gears to open/close gates.
 * Recurring Boss: Hideyoshi. First shows up in the Fire Nation, then later appears to help Nene defend the Poison Fang Nation.  His Chimchar evolves each time.
 * Recurring Traveler: Keiji, and the trio of Mitsunari, Kiyomasa and Masanori.
 * Redemption Demotion: Avoided in the main game, where enemies join at the same level they were defeated at. Inverted in extra scenarios, where enemy warlords and warriors have their default Pokémon when fought even if they evolved or replaced it in the main campaign and immediately upon recruitment regain their previous power.
 * Reused Character Design: All the human NPC character designs originated in Samurai Warriors 3.
 * Take Your Time: While enemies outside of the main story will gain levels and eventually attack if you wait forever, unless the story gives a time limit, years can progress with no other change. This can be taken to the extreme in stories that don't end when the region is unified, such as ones that require collecting a bunch of Pokémon, can safely go on for decades, which is great for grinding out swarms, evolutions and/or waiting for the merchant to bring evolution items. In theory generic units can also desert if left inactive too long, but this has such a low chance of happening you'll see it once in two decades and have a chance to fix their mood before they actually leave.
 * Seventh-Episode Twist: Well, excluding the Hajime Nation, the 7th castle you capture will be either the Earth or Phantasm Nation, and afterwards
 * Spell My Name with an "S": The region's name -- Ranse is the Japanese spelling, while Ransei is the English variant. This could be to prevent mispronunciation, most English speakers would read the Japanese spelling as "rans" instead of "ran-se".
 * The Starscream: Mitsuhide to Nobunaga in his post game scenario, in reference to real world Mitsuhide's ambush of Nobunaga.
 * Starter Villain: Hideyoshi, though "villain" is a bit of a stretch.
 * Stealth Pun: In real life, Hideyoshi was nicknamed "Little Monkey" by Nobunaga because of his appearance. In this game, he uses the Chimchar family.
 * There's also the fact that, historically, Nobunaga was defeated by Mitsuhide, who was in turn defeated by Hideyoshi. In this game, they specialize in Dragon, Ice, and Fire types respectively.
 * Hideyoshi's personality in this game is impish and silly to match
 * The Stoic: Hattori Hanzou... doesn't show much emotion. His dialogue generally consists of brief, matter-of-fact statements such as "I linked with [Pokemon Name]." or "Victory."
 * Stone Wall: Several Pokémon retain this stats from the main game. Since they lack the support and damage over time that makes them useful there, they're all almost completely useless to the player thanks to every level having a time limit rendering defensive play non-viable.
 * Stripperific: Kaihime when upgraded.
 * Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Despite fighting alonside Masamune, it's obvious Magoichi doesn't like him very much. In fact, one of the requirements for his evolution is for Masamune to not be in the same nation!
 * Those Two Bad Guys: The two generic Warlords who invade you at the start. One of them uses Bidoof. Um... yeah.
 * Those Two Guys: Hanbei and Kanbei during Hideyoshi's scenario.
 * Title Drop: Nobunaga's Warlord Powers are titled Great Ambition and Extreme Ambition.
 * Tomboy Princess: Kaihime. It's even one of her powers!
 * Took a Level in Badass: As in Pokémon, the monsters can evolve to more powerful forms. Unlike either home series, the Warlords can also "evolve"... more impressive looking armor (though mechanically and even visibly it's no different from a Pokémon's evolution).
 * Turn-Based Strategy
 * Verbal Tic: Yoshimoto tends to end his sentances with の.
 * "Wake-Up Call" Boss: Shingen and Kenshin. Their armies are much stronger than you're used to, and they're the first opponents to use fully-evolved Pokémon. Oh, and they add a variety of different type users to avert Poor Predictable Rock.
 * Walking Shirtless Scene: Some of the Warlords, most notably Keiji.
 * Why Did It Have To Be Fighting Types?: After capturing the first three nations, the next three open up... one of which is the Fist Nation, upon which Oichi notes that both your and her Pokémon are Normal types... yeah, you're advised to avoid that area for now.
 * Wolverine Claws: Kotarou, when upgraded.
 * Worthy Opponent: Yukimura sees the hero as this. It makes a lot of sense when you realise his specialty Pokémon is Charizard which, according to the Pokédex, is also prone to this kind of behavior.
 * Undying Loyalty: Ranmaru to Nobunaga.
 * Useless Item: Gyro Ball does damage based on how much slower the user is compared to the opponent and only does a single point of damage if the user is faster. For whatever reason Forretress, its sole user, is actually given a moderate speed growth instead of the low of the main series. As a result of this, Forretress can't do damage unless the enemy outlevels the player significantly from a low defense difference (if not higher), and can't do damage if it doesn't because its attack won't be high enough to beat the enemy's defense.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Inahime has this as one of her powers. Given that it increases movement range and makes ALL attacks hit for three turns, emphasis is probably placed on the 'iron heart' aspect of the trope.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: The female protagonist (it's more noticable on the "gender select" screen when starting a new game).