Pokemon Conquest Review
By: Ed Beers
Honestly, far too often, I find myself as a young brash boy, about to rally up a mishmash of followers and former enemies to unit all of Japan under my banner either for selfish reasons or boredom, dislike of how things work currently, or just to stop someone worse from doing so first. And that's just the adventure this new Pokemon game for the DS promises to give.
Like near all Pokemon games, it is unsure if you are a boy or a girl, but sadly, no there is no feudal era professor Oak to explain Pokemon to you, just text covered pans over still images, with some grandiose music. And before you can say what next, you're thrown into the battle for all of Ransei (the Japan like country you're fighting over). You see, in this world of humans and pokemon, warriors are those few humans who can communicate wordlessly with pokemon, a warlord is the warrior leader of a kingdom, and legend claims if one was to conquer and unit all of Ransei, one would come face to face with the pokemon who created the land.
So the plot is fairly simple, you're yet another warlord in this land who wants to see if the tale is true, while you defend yourself from other warlord, nothing all that thought heavy or moralistic minded, which I am thankful for, it lets me focus on all the brain throbbing gameplay. You have your map, the castles you have control over, the neighboring castles, and the paths between them. Each castle can hold up to 6 warriors, and each warrior can have a certain number of pokemon based on their stats, but you can only get more pokemon by linking with wild pokemon only with the warrior wanting to link with them. Then there's how well the warriors link with which pokemon (better linking means they can become stronger), finding that one pokemon they link perfectly with, leveling their pokemon through battles, making sure you put the right warriors/pokemon in the right castle to defend/attack the neighboring castle. Course there's the needed balance of warriors with the matching preferred type to catch wild pokemon, and those with pokemon of an effective type to beat enemy warriors. Eyes crossing yet?
No? Good, cause now we need to get into how the actual battles work. The maps are not all that big, but that could be a good thing. I mean, as awesome as hundreds of pokemon crashing into each other on a giant field might in theory, gameplay wise it gets a bit cluttered. Never mind that you need what little space you have to keep your enemies in range of your attacks. Each of the 200 or so pokemon in the game have 1 attack, and they all hit at different ranges. Some may hit right in front of them, some hit in a line or group attacks, some may hit from 3 space away... Though considering the range of some of these attacks I wouldn't mind larger maps personally. Of course if it was just pokemon attacking each other, there would be no need for the warriors controlling them. Each warrior, along with their preferred pokemon types and perfect links leading to more powerful pokemon, they also have their own stats that add to a pokemon's abilities, as well as special one time skills that can raise their stats, or heal certain status effects like poison and the like, as well as holding items for the pokemon to use. Course that would be plenty to keep track of, even if all the battles were just the same beat all the enemies. More often than not, the battles will be capture or hold all the flags, or have similar special features like shot cuts, random attack elements, and so on.
One of my favorite aspects of these waring states era Japan set games, is seeing the ways that the famous warriors and warlords of the time are portrayed, but it's even funner seeing what pokemon they perfectly link with. Sure, in the course of Japanese history there are some links that were bound to be obvious, like Hideyoshi, famously referred to as a monkey cause of his facial hair and lack of height, of course he would perfectly link with a flame monkey pokemon. Or that a sweet little girl like Oichi getting paired with Jigglypuff. But then you get the more, frightening links, such as Kenshi Uesugi, one of the more warrior like warlords though to be one of the two who would actual take over... And his perfect link pokemon is a Mewtwo. Yea, next why not give a shark heat seeking missiles.
Does this game leave me wishing there was more to it? Yea, wish it was a bigger game, or slightly better graphics, or even more than just one attack per pokemon. But over all, 35 dollars for this solid DS game, and no annoying 3D gimmicks, more than a fair price point in my view.
Like near all Pokemon games, it is unsure if you are a boy or a girl, but sadly, no there is no feudal era professor Oak to explain Pokemon to you, just text covered pans over still images, with some grandiose music. And before you can say what next, you're thrown into the battle for all of Ransei (the Japan like country you're fighting over). You see, in this world of humans and pokemon, warriors are those few humans who can communicate wordlessly with pokemon, a warlord is the warrior leader of a kingdom, and legend claims if one was to conquer and unit all of Ransei, one would come face to face with the pokemon who created the land.
So the plot is fairly simple, you're yet another warlord in this land who wants to see if the tale is true, while you defend yourself from other warlord, nothing all that thought heavy or moralistic minded, which I am thankful for, it lets me focus on all the brain throbbing gameplay. You have your map, the castles you have control over, the neighboring castles, and the paths between them. Each castle can hold up to 6 warriors, and each warrior can have a certain number of pokemon based on their stats, but you can only get more pokemon by linking with wild pokemon only with the warrior wanting to link with them. Then there's how well the warriors link with which pokemon (better linking means they can become stronger), finding that one pokemon they link perfectly with, leveling their pokemon through battles, making sure you put the right warriors/pokemon in the right castle to defend/attack the neighboring castle. Course there's the needed balance of warriors with the matching preferred type to catch wild pokemon, and those with pokemon of an effective type to beat enemy warriors. Eyes crossing yet?
No? Good, cause now we need to get into how the actual battles work. The maps are not all that big, but that could be a good thing. I mean, as awesome as hundreds of pokemon crashing into each other on a giant field might in theory, gameplay wise it gets a bit cluttered. Never mind that you need what little space you have to keep your enemies in range of your attacks. Each of the 200 or so pokemon in the game have 1 attack, and they all hit at different ranges. Some may hit right in front of them, some hit in a line or group attacks, some may hit from 3 space away... Though considering the range of some of these attacks I wouldn't mind larger maps personally. Of course if it was just pokemon attacking each other, there would be no need for the warriors controlling them. Each warrior, along with their preferred pokemon types and perfect links leading to more powerful pokemon, they also have their own stats that add to a pokemon's abilities, as well as special one time skills that can raise their stats, or heal certain status effects like poison and the like, as well as holding items for the pokemon to use. Course that would be plenty to keep track of, even if all the battles were just the same beat all the enemies. More often than not, the battles will be capture or hold all the flags, or have similar special features like shot cuts, random attack elements, and so on.
One of my favorite aspects of these waring states era Japan set games, is seeing the ways that the famous warriors and warlords of the time are portrayed, but it's even funner seeing what pokemon they perfectly link with. Sure, in the course of Japanese history there are some links that were bound to be obvious, like Hideyoshi, famously referred to as a monkey cause of his facial hair and lack of height, of course he would perfectly link with a flame monkey pokemon. Or that a sweet little girl like Oichi getting paired with Jigglypuff. But then you get the more, frightening links, such as Kenshi Uesugi, one of the more warrior like warlords though to be one of the two who would actual take over... And his perfect link pokemon is a Mewtwo. Yea, next why not give a shark heat seeking missiles.
Does this game leave me wishing there was more to it? Yea, wish it was a bigger game, or slightly better graphics, or even more than just one attack per pokemon. But over all, 35 dollars for this solid DS game, and no annoying 3D gimmicks, more than a fair price point in my view.
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