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January 1, 2012 9:52 PM   Subscribe

Pokemon: Game Freak and Nintendo's series of cartoony monster-training RPGs that kicked off huge crazes among the kids of both Japan and the U.S. In these games, children take up the calling of "Pokemon trainers," capturing the titular animals and then keeping them as pets or fighting them against either wild pokemon or those of other trainers.
Nobunaga's Ambition: An even-longer-running classic series of historical strategy/simulation games produced by Koei. Noted for their realistic approach, their difficulty, and a high level of dryness. You grow rice, distribute it to your population to keep them happy, send out spies, guard against assassins, raise and train a military, and ultimately attempt to unite feudal-era Japan.
And now... Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition, a Real Thing that will Soon Exist.
posted by JHarris (26 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yay now I can play Pokemon and pretend to be learning about Japanese history!
posted by melissam at 9:58 PM on January 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Wait a minute, Mewtwo was created in a cloning lab. What's he doing in Feudal Japan?

This just totally breaks immersion for me.

Also, does this mean we'll see pokemon used to slaughter peasants who failed to pay their taxes/were insolent towards the local lord?
posted by Grimgrin at 9:58 PM on January 1, 2012 [9 favorites]


I will only buy Nobunaga's Pokémon Ambition if it includes Harvest Moon-style farming.
posted by Nomyte at 10:00 PM on January 1, 2012


The gameplay snippets in that trailer make it look more like a straightforward strategy RPG than a sim-strategy. Then again it would be hard to wedge Pokémon with Really Cool Attacks into that part of the game so they might not want it in their trailer.
posted by LogicalDash at 10:00 PM on January 1, 2012


@Grimgrin: Also Mewtwo is a genius, shouldn't he be commanding armies? Also: He has enough power to time travel I bet. Wanted to go back to a time before those evil pokeballs.
posted by Canageek at 10:28 PM on January 1, 2012


Everything else aside, this looks like a really fun game.
posted by gronkpan at 10:31 PM on January 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Canageek: Maybe, but he seems to be paired up with a trainer. Why would he travel back in time to a point where he's an unfetterable force of nature only to pair off with a squishy human?
posted by Grimgrin at 10:39 PM on January 1, 2012


"Why would he travel back in time to a point where he's an unfetterable force of nature only to pair off with a squishy human?"

BECAUSE HE'S THE ONLY HUMAN WHO EVER BELIEVED IN HIM
posted by gronkpan at 10:41 PM on January 1, 2012 [8 favorites]


*Shocked anime reaction face*

What? Impossible!
posted by Grimgrin at 10:43 PM on January 1, 2012


Canageek: Maybe, but he seems to be paired up with a trainer. Why would he travel back in time to a point where he's an unfetterable force of nature only to pair off with a squishy human?

Spoiler alert: pokeballs are actually skinner boxes.
posted by kafziel at 10:49 PM on January 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


I hope this gets localized, it looks awesome.
posted by silby at 12:23 AM on January 2, 2012


I haven't ever thought about Pokemon before, but I notice the entire premise would be illegal if it were done with dogs.
posted by cromagnon at 12:55 AM on January 2, 2012 [5 favorites]


I lost a large portion of the summer of 1990 to Nobunaga's Ambition on the NES and I now see it's been ported to iOS...
Damn you JHarris.
posted by the_artificer at 1:16 AM on January 2, 2012


This is stupid- all Jigglypuff wants to do is write commentaries on classical Chinese poetry, and Charmander's evolved form is a secret Christian who keeps trying to form an alliance with the Portuguese!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:57 AM on January 2, 2012 [6 favorites]


So, the monks of Enryaku-ji were inferior pokemon trainers.... This section of history now becomes clear to me!
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:25 AM on January 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Saint Francis Xavier- I CHOOSE YOU!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:44 AM on January 2, 2012 [4 favorites]


I've never played Nobunaga's Ambition, so I can't recognize any of its influence here, but the gameplay in this trailer looks like this will be halfway between pokemon and Final Fantasy Tactics.

The logo at the end was for the regular DS, not the 3D one, which is interesting. I'm surprised Nintendo didn't push for this game on their newer platform.
posted by tylermoody at 7:38 AM on January 2, 2012


Koei historical sims are the one genre I've never been able to penetrate. I love their business sims, though.
posted by Edogy at 7:46 AM on January 2, 2012


tyler: LOTS of people have a DS. 3ds doesn't have the market penetration.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 7:55 AM on January 2, 2012


I'm fairly certain that if this game is released in the US it's going to be for the 3DS only. Nintendo really wants people to buy the new system and the only way to do it is to have games that people want that they can only play on the 3DS.

I haven't ever thought about Pokemon before, but I notice the entire premise would be illegal if it were done with dogs.

People have noticed that before.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 8:12 AM on January 2, 2012


Oh dang, I'm sorry I'll never get a chance to dick around with this, then. I'm not a DS gamer and I'm not buying a 3DS, but I'd have loved to play with this for a little while.

I was too old when Pokemon came around, but I spent many an hour with Nobunaga's Ambition at age ten or so. I loved the personalities in the game. I was terrible at the military actions, and I blamed myself at the time, but now I just think it was a terrible control system.

Since I was no good at that, I learned that I could always be sure of conquering a neighboring fief by starting out on the small island as a neighbor to the six-year-old Lord Sojo, sending an assassin to kill him, then walking into the place and taking over. With the armies of two fiefs under my control, it was easier to bluff through being terrible on the battlefield.

My mom didn't allow me to play violent gun-centric games like Contra, but that was one lesson that Contra would sure as hell never have taught me.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:26 AM on January 2, 2012 [3 favorites]


This makes me wish Akira Kurosawa was still around to make an pokemon/samurai epic based on this game.
posted by hot_monster at 10:19 AM on January 2, 2012


I have been hyped about this! My wife has been into Pokémon for quite some time, and I love the mythos, but I have a hard time with the actual games. They are such a brutal grind at the start. I always tap out after the 10th consecutive Geodude encounter.

But this - I dig turn-based games that bank heavily spatial positioning! Finally, I can raise a crew of Squirtles and Ninjasks and what not, grind-free!
posted by ignignokt at 1:11 PM on January 2, 2012


This isn't something that Nintendo of America would localize at all, much less something it would port to 3DS to try to push that platform on American customers. I would be very surprised if it managed to show up in Nintendo's American lineup, but if it does, it will be very quietly released on DS.
posted by jcfletcher at 1:22 PM on January 2, 2012


My bets are on Atlus doing the localization, as for Disgaea and La Pucelle.
posted by LogicalDash at 2:44 PM on January 2, 2012


If it's released in the west, the Nobunaga's Ambition will be completely dropped. It'll probably be called something like Pokemon: Ambition or something.
posted by BiggerJ at 4:06 PM on January 2, 2012


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