The Pokémon series is no stranger to curious spin-offs. Pokémon has tried its hand at action, puzzle, dungeon crawling, racing and even rail shooters, in addition to the traditional turn-based RPGs the franchise is known for. Pokémon Conquest is a crossover between Nintendo's beloved turn-based RPG series and Tecmo Koei's Japanese tactical strategy series Nobunaga's Ambition. Despite the seemingly peculiar pairing, the major defining elements of both game series mesh together quite well, creating a unique and enjoyable Nintendo DS title. There are a few annoying design choices that mar certain aspects of the gameplay, but the experience Pokémon Conquest offers overall is a very good one.
You play as an up-and-coming warlord in the Japanese-inspired realm of Ransei, on a quest to acquire a legendary Pokémon and ultimately defeat Nobunaga Oda himself. Pokémon serve as a warrior's weapon and pawn in-battle, with players moving their monsters on a variety of grid-based maps that serve as each region's battlefield. From a story perspective, Conquest is not all that different from your standard Pokémon game, except players will travel from kingdom to kingdom (rather than gym to gym) to reach their ultimate goal.
What makes Pokémon Conquest stand apart from other games in the series, aside from its setting, is its tactical inspiration from the Nobunaga's Ambition series. Gameplay heavily revolves around the 2D world map rather than the large, free-roaming maps of the standard games. On this map players can select regions/castles to invade, designate warriors to perform basic tasks in captured castles, or revisit captured regions to recruit free warriors and acquire new Pokémon. There is a robust list of Pokémon available in the game, though the free warriors leave a bit to be desired. Devoid of any personality, warriors are essentially Pokémon-wielding puppets with marginally differing stats or abilities. Even their artwork reflects this - aside from a handful of unique, story-relevant warlords, the bulk of the warriors players will encounter literally share the same dozen or so artworks. Perhaps it's too much to ask for a 100+ unique warrior portraits, but eye/skin/outfit color swaps would have gone a long way to differentiating these warriors. Especially since pulling-up a warrior's stats requires tedious menu-surfing.
In any case, each warrior/warlord can have several Pokémon at their disposal, which they can switch to as needed prior to battle. Warriors have a link/affinity percentage with their Pokémon, which serves as the "leveling" system in Pokémon Conquest. The more a warrior uses a particular Pokémon in combat, the more link points they earn. Raising the link between Pokémon and warrior serves to strengthen the Pokémon, improving their strength and movement range, and allowing them to evolve when certain conditions are met.
The most radical difference Pokémon Conquest presents compared to other games in the series is its battle system. Pokémon Conquest utilizes a turn-based strategy combat system, where a party of up to six Pokémon battle on a variety of grid-based maps representing a differing elemental type, and featuring unique hazards and gimmicks. Each Pokémon has its own range of movement, and each attack has a unique properties and areas of effect. In addition, the warriors commanding the Pokémon have a unique ability of their own, which they can use to strengthen their own Pokémon or allied Pokémon in a variety of ways (such as improving attack, movement range, defense, etc.).
Generally, battles boil down to moving your own Pokémon into range and attacking enemy Pokémon until all enemy units are defeated. The second prominent battle-type is the collect-the-flag style battle, where a Pokémon must stand beneath a flag to claim it. The army to claim all flags wins the battle. As mentioned above, most battlefields feature unique gimmicks or hazards that add a bit of complexity to combat. Fields with lava or water limit the movement of Pokémon who cannot traverse such elements. Some fields feature hidden traps or switches that activate traps. Others still feature warp-points or trapdoors that allow Pokémon to quickly travel around areas.
While combat is quite fun, it are also extremely straightforward and simplistic. Pokémon are limited to a single attack command in combat, and possess one passive ability that will trigger when certain conditions are met. While you don't need more than one attack due to the overall ease of the game, the limited options available to each Pokémon are still disappointing. The "strategy" in Pokémon Conquest comes from bringing the right Pokémon to the battle rather than any complexity inherent in the actual combat. If you know the rock-paper-scissors approach to Pokémon strengths and weaknesses, you will have no trouble securing victory in Pokémon Conquest. Even if you don't, supporting character Oichi is more than happy to point out exactly what Pokémon you'll be up against during major battles, and what they're strong and weak to.
There are a few annoying aspects to the gameplay that hold the game back. Because Pokémon are limited to a single attack during combat, the properties of their attack are crucial, and unfortunately, evolving a Pokémon tends to change the properties of their attack. This is particularly true of electric Pokémon. You may end up evolving your pokémon, only to find that the attack they've earned isn't as useful as the one they had beforehand. Since there's no way to devolve Pokémon or select which attack a player might want to keep through the evolution, it makes the entire process annoying and unrewarding.
The gimmicks many stages present add variety to the combat, but have the adverse effect of making fights feel protracted and exhausting. Many of the moving set-pieces these stages feature will move around or activate at the end of each round. The haunted field of Spectra, for example, has nearly a dozen set-pieces that move about the environment at the end of every turn. Waiting for each statue or will-o-wisp to make a move before being able to input your own commands, with no option to skip these animations, makes for a tedious experience at times. Fortunately, there are only a handful of really annoying stages (Valora and Spectra being the most annoying, in my opinion).
Pokémon Conquest has plenty of play longevity, in addition to it's enjoyable battle system and aesthetic. The primary campaign is about 6-7 hours long, but Pokémon Conquest offers plenty of end-game campaigns to play through after the credits role. There are over 30 additional campaigns that open up once the game reaches its conclusion. Ultimately, you will be spending quite a bit of time playing Pokémon Conquest if you commit to tackling all campaigns, finding all warriors, and acquiring the Pokémon that links best with them.
Overall, Pokémon Conquest is a very good Nintendo DS title - one well worth picking up for Pokémon fans and tactical game fans alike. The simplified gameplay elements and a few awkward design choices do detract a bit from the game, but the Pokémon Conquest is still extremely fun, and will keep you playing for a very, very long time.
Game details:
Genre: Turn-based Strategy, RPG
Developer: Tecmo Koei
Website: http://www.pokemonconquest.com/en-us
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Release: 06/18/12 - Available now
NY Console Games Examiner articles ©2012 by Gabriel Zamora; reposts permitted with link back to original article. All other rights reserved.
