Kou Shibusawa/Special Column

Translations of Kou Shibusawa's column at Gamecity are being written here. His column's full name is Shibusawa Kou Special Column Game Focus.

#1 Parents and Children Playing
April 12, 2012

Hello, everyone. I'm Kou Shibusawa. I decided to make a column to convey my thoughts and impressions directly to you. I hope you enjoy what I write.

Now, on to business. Today, I want to talk about Pokémon Conquest (Pokémon Plus Nobunaga's Ambition).

Nobunaga's Ambition is a historical simulation series which was first made in 1983. Next year will be the series' 30th anniversary. Nobunaga no Yabou: Tendou is the latest main installment and the thirteenth entry in the series, but there have been other genres and platforms incorporated with other titles as well. Nobunaga no Yabou Internet, Nobunaga no Yabou Online, and the ongoing social game Hyakuman-nin no Nobunaga no Yabou to name a few. But the series has never before been tied to another franchise, so Pokémon Conquest is its first ever collaboration title.

The goal while developing this game was to make it a "simulation title that parents and kids can play together". There was a fear that simulation games might be too high a hurdle for children to handle. So the first approach we devised was to make it a "children's first simulation game" and make it as easy as possible. Things were going well until we thought to have it simultaneously appeal to the adults who played Nobunaga's Ambition. These two contrasting ideas caused several hardships in the creative process, but I think we managed to find a good balance to satisfy both sides of the coin.

As you may well know, Pokémon is a tremendously popular game with children. Adults may overhear their children playing and they might recognize one of the historical figures' names. With this title, children can share their knowledge of Pokémon to their unknowing parents, and parents can enjoy teaching what they know about historical figures to their uninformed children. Both parent and child can mutually bounce back and share information with one another, which I think is a fun experience that this game can offer. Please, by all means, play this game as a family. It would be truly fortunate if everyone has a great time playing it.

I still have a lot of things I want to talk about. Next time I want to write my thoughts as a developer down, so please look forward to it.