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Pokemon Conquest begins in UK July 27
Pokemon Conquest's strike team of cute critters and fictionalized warlords will attempt to take over the UK on July 27, Nintendo announced today.The strategy game was designed by Tecmo Koei to initiate kids and other neophytes into Koei's complex strategy games. It just has the side effect of being basically the weirdest thing ever.
Pokemon Conquest strategically designed to bring in new players
Going into my interview with Pokemon Conquest director Hisashi Koinuma, the DS strategy game seemed like the most inscrutably random agglomeration of properties imaginable. I couldn't begin to imagine a reason anyone would think to merge Pokemon with Nobunaga's Ambition, a strategy game about real Japanese warlords.Koinuma cut through the confusion without trouble, in an instant. "It would be nice if players would become interested in Nobunaga's Ambition," Koinuma said in response to my question about Conquest as a Nobunaga's gateway. "But as Tecmo Koei has created a lot of simulation titles, we wanted to introduce the genre of simulation games to children. It's not so much that we want them to start playing Nobunaga's Ambition as an entry point, but just as an entry point to the genre of simulation games."Of course! It all makes perfect sense as a first strategy game to pull kids into the genre. "Especially in Japan," he continued, "the number of users of simulation games has really dropped over the years, so in order to keep people interested in that genre, we hope that kids would play this game and would take it as a suggestion of 'oh, simulation games are like this.' Then in the future they'd continue playing simulation games."Koinuma believes that the hardcore nature of strategy/simulation fans leads the games to become ever more difficult and less accessible to attempt to satisfy said fans. "At the same time, there are people who want to start trying simulation games, well, now the games on the market are a lot more difficult, so it's a lot harder to learn how simulation games. Some new users are kind of turned off by the genre because it's too difficult."%Gallery-157211%
The insatiable need to dominate in Pokemon Conquest
I was more than a little excited when I was tasked with tackling a preview for Tecmo Koei and Nintendo's crossover DS title Pokemon Conquest last week.Conquest crosses the worlds of cute indentured monster servants from Pokemon with Nobunaga's Ambition, a series of Koei strategy games revolving around the bloody unification of feudal Japan by Oda Nobunaga. But Pokemon Conquest, which released in Japan last month as Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition, takes itself so seriously as a strategy role-playing game that it isn't the irreverent experience I made it out to be in my mind.%Gallery-154519%
Watch Pokemon Conquest trailers, lament Nobunaga's omission
How would you like to be Oda Nobunaga right now? First, you're turned into a cartoon character who plays second fiddle to imaginary forest critters in a video game for children, and then your name is bumped out of the title of said video game in North America.And on top of that annoyance, you've been dead for 430 years.For the rest of us who aren't 16th-century warlords, Nintendo released two trailers for Pokémon Conquest, and some new screens.%Gallery-152285%
'Pokemon Conquest' brings Nobunaga's Ambition stateside on June 18
Yes, that's a factual headline above: Nintendo is publishing the bizarre crossover of Pokemon Plus Nobunaga's Ambition in the US as "Pokemon Conquest" for the Nintendo DS. And yes, you also read that right -- Pokemon Conquest marks the second Pokemon game heading to the DS in 2012 rather than the 3DS (Pokemon Black/White Version 2 being the other).Unlike main series Pokemon games, Tecmo Koei handled development rather than Game Freak. Conquest is also a 2D adventure set in the world of Ransei, where players inhabit "a young warlord who is linked with a Pokemon." Pokemon Conquest arrives on June 18.%Gallery-152208%
