Pokemon Conquest: The Forgotten Pokemon Strategy Game

If we could get a mystery Dungeon remake after all this time, there's hope yet for Conquest

What RT doesnt include here is that Conquest is LONG. Like. Extremely long. There's over a dozen different campaigns and the main story is unironically the tutorial, long.

Unironically, Pokémon Conquest has arguably one of the most in-depth postgames of any Pokémon spinoff. In fact, it's so insane that the main story might as well be the tutorial. After you beat the main story, you basically unlock "scenarios" where you play at the various warlords and other characters. Literally EVERY single character with a unique sprite has a scenario where you play as them, and there's even characters who don't appear in the main story at all. Each scenario has a different objective (such as conquering Ransei under a time limit, or accumulating a certain number of allies), and many scenarios restrict you to only certain regions of the overall map. In addition, the postgame scenarios have much greater depth mechanically - you can upgrade various facilities in the kingdoms, and the enemy's AI is dynamic and can straight-up attack you and try to steal your kingdoms, or if there are multiple AI factions, they can even attack each other. Finally, the Pokémon each warrior is linked to, and the status of the warriors themselves, is carried between scenarios - for example, if you find a warrior's "Perfect Link" (basically the species of Pokémon they are most compatible with), or meet the difficult conditions to "transform" a warrior (upgrading their skills) in one scenario, this will carry over if you recruit the same warrior in another scenario. You can even straight-up recruit the protagonist when playing as other characters, depending on the scenario. Keep in mind that almost everything I'm mentioning here is postgame exclusive - the main story lacks many of these features, and mainly serves to let you learn the basics and battlefields.

To be fair, i think this game was forgotten because, as far as i am aware, it was barely adveritsed. The only time I saw anything about it around its release was at the very back of a gaming magazine as "coming soon", and i never saw it in the DS game isles at the shops I went to, so I just assumed the games production had been cancelled or something. I would've loved to actually play this as a kid.

pokemon conquest is made long by two ways: the intense post-game, and the way the game hits you with "skill issue" over and over again as you fail to defeat the same army at least three times

I love my Pokémon warlordism, really adds to the element of cockfighting where the chickens are now raiding and pillaging

As someone who's actually played this game rather recently, it makes me happy seeing Dan play it. It's such an underrated gem.

I think the funniest thing is that Yoshimoto is actually the easiest fight in the game because if you just push his Gurrdurr off the edge it takes like 4 turns to get back on the arena because it’s so slow (source: I used Yoshimoto’s Gurrdurr and it can only move like 3 spaces per turn)

I honestly don’t blame RT giving up on Yoshihiro and his Gurdurr since that’s also the exact point that 15 year old me decided to give up as well with how much of a difficulty curve they throw at you! Would love to see a remake of this game someday with its Arceus shaped region if Mystery Dungeon got the same treatment.

Conquest came out when I was pretty young, and I remember setting up a lemonade stand so I could get money to buy the game. I remember tracking how much I got and being so excited when I finally got enough. The music is spectacular, the gameplay is the perfect mix of “yeah, a kid could play and be fine” and “but have you seen how in-depth these mechanics go?” I absolutely adore Conquest and would love to see it ported or remade or even receive a sequel someday. The game sets itself up for a sequel so well and then we just….. didn’t get one. Currently I’m working toward 100% completion, perfect linking everyone and evolving them.

Hearing Dan get so excited when he realized he could recruit Oshawott made my day, he's really grown since the Oshawott Genocide of 2022 Aaaand he killed it, literally unredeemable

RT I need to applaud you. You pick some of the most random games to play but you make them so fun to watch. On top of that there are times like this where you pick an obscure game that not a lot of people know about that happen to be favorites of a lot of people. I loved this game and I wish I still had a copy on me. Thanks for being you and for everything you do.

I don't even remember how I got my hands on this game as a kid, but I was absolutely ADDICTED to it and played it RELIGIOUSLY until I lost the cartridge. I spent multiple months looking for it, but it was never found. It makes me so happy seeing this game actually getting attention all these years later.

i loved this game so much as a kid, one really cool thing is as you conquer zones more and more of the map, and at the end (of the first campaign) it reveals the entirety of the ransei region is in the shape of arceus

Dude this game was my childhood, I just want a remake for switch

This game is a hidden masterpiece, the game mechanics are so interesting, the characters (even tho they’re taken from another game series) are so interesting and designs so well done. I love this game, hope with RT playing it, it gets the popularity it deserves!

Never played this one but I really want to. The DS era was peak Pokemon. Gen 4 and 5, Mystery Dungeons, Ranger, they were going all out here.

Fun Fact:Though this game is based with the Nobunaga's Ambition Series,most of the character designs for the warlords are the designs they have with Samurai Warriors/Sengoku Musou,more so the 3rd game's release. So this is RT's First Warriors game he has played.

I played a ton of this game back in the day. I remember that once you beat it, there was a bunch of campaigns for all the different warlords, and you could eventually recruit Arceus. Wild

In addition to the 4 turns, you can also recruit other Warlords if they don't deal any damage to you or you defeat them with a Super Effective attack. Also, special Warlords, the ones with gold backgrounds, can only be recruited if anther special Warlord defeated them and it's not story relevant that they flee (the Chimchar guy, for example, can't be recruited in the main story).