Nobunaga Oda

Nobunaga Oda (織田 信長) is the title character of the strategy series, Nobunaga's Ambition. He made his debut as a "Warriors" character in Dynasty Warriors and appears as one of the characters in Samurai Warriors. He is generally considered to be the Samurai Warriors equivalent to Cao Cao.

He is Nohime's husband, Oichi's older brother, Nagamasa Azai's brother-in-law. He is one of Japan's three unifiers along with his former generals, Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Ieyasu Tokugawa. He wields a two-edged straight sword imbued with dark energy and has the power to hurl a dark "force" blast at his foes. This appearance has led to some game reviewers to jokingly refer to him as Darth Vader. In the first game, he's 33 years old.

Samurai Warriors
Nobunaga is a powerful warlord who seeks to unify and rule Japan. He earned his fame by destroying Yoshimoto Imagawa's forces at Okehazema. He is often referred to as the "Demon King", due to his cunning, sheer ruthlessness, and his habit of burning rebellious cities to the ground. In the first game, he shares a particularly close with relationship with his wife. He enjoys the prospect of facing death and generally remains unfazed when the tide turns against him. If he fails to kill the Ikko rebels, they will join forces with his rivals Shingen and Kenshin. He then has to fend off a fearsome force and simultaneously deal with the mutiny amongst his forces.

In his upper path, Mitsuhide rebels against him at Honnoji. No, in a show of her characteristic love, turns against Nobunaga and is intent on taking his life. With the help of his sister and Ranmaru, he is able to safely escape. Though he survives Honnoji, he is forced to retake Azuchi Castle, his home base of operations. Knowing that Mitushide and the other traitors against him are there, he goes to end their resistance. Once he defeats them, he sets the castle on flames and promises to someday join them in hell.

In Samurai Warriors 2, Nobunaga forms a closer relationship with Mitsuhide, who becomes a sort of apprentice to him. Similarly, his ties with Ranmaru and No are downplayed as well. Nobunaga also adopts a devil's advocate motif, often asking others their desires and a way for him to grant them. His story focuses more on his conquest of the Uesugi and Takeda clans than the previous title.

After he succeeds suppressing his rivals, Mitushide betrays him at Honnoji. His son, No, Ranmaru, and a handful of surprised retainers help Nobunaga in battle. In the last moments of his duel with Mitsuhide, his opponent spares his life and accepted death to escape Nobunaga's cruelty. Moved by his final words, Nobunaga states that he never wanted his retainer to die but will continue to live in honor of the man he slain.

His dream stage is an extension of his story mode and Nobunaga begins his final conquest to unite the warring states. Since the attack at Honnoji caused universal confusion with his ranks, Ieyasu gathered a "Anti-Nobunaga" coalition with the greatest daimyo in the land. This included the remaining Uesugi forces, the Date army, and the Shimazu clan. Once Nobunaga defeats them, he becomes the grand unifer of Japan.

Dynasty Warriors
He also appears as a bonus character in Dynasty Warriors.

Warriors Orochi
In Warriors Orochi, Nobunaga is first seen as a fearsome neutral party. In reality, he is gathering various warriors to join his resistance against Orochi. He is also fascinated by Cao Cao, the conqueror that several people state he resembles.

Kessen
Nobunaga briefly appears in the first Kessen as an aspiration in the sky. Moments before Ieyasu departs for Sekigahara, Nobunaga wishes for his dream to live on with Ieyasu.

In Kessen III, the roles are switched and Nobunaga is the main protagonist. Contrary to his common image in fiction, he is portrayed as a heroic and reckless man with a sincere ambition to end the land's chaos. He is very close to his wife, Kicho, and is well liked by his generals. Unlike his Samurai Warriors counterpart, he is symbolized in some way by a hawk. He visually ages as the game progresses and adopts a new attire various times throughout the game.

As far back as he can remember, Nobunaga has an ongoing dream of his death in a fiery room. He sees two blurred figures in it and believes that they will probably shape his fate. He confides this dream to Kicho, who believes that it maybe a premonition. The game's story remains modestly faithful of his historical battles until Mitsuhide's betrayal at Honnoji. There, his life is saved by Kicho's metal hair clip, a memento she left behind for him and kept close to his chest. With all of his enemies joining Mitsuhide, he leads a resistance to destroy Mitsuhide and save the land from any further warfare. In the extra ending for the game, he eventually travels overseas and makes peace with Spain. He also allowed an overseas village to be built and expressed wishes for all of Japan to learn about Christianity and European history.

Quotes

 * "I have come to make this land my own."
 * "Worthless!"
 * "Is that so?"
 * Nobunaga's most common quote in Samurai Warriors 2: Empires and Nobunaga's Ambition


 * "Ieyasu, I entrust my dream to you. My vision of an united land. My dream cannot die. It must not die..."
 * Nobunaga's spirit talking to Ieyasu; Kessen


 * "The world is only a dream. You just have to be bold and live it."
 * Nobunaga's thoughts about dreams; Kessen III

Development
Initially, the designers aimed to portray him as "Sengoku's demon king" and went with their spin on the typical Nobunaga attire seen in fiction. They gave Nobunaga a sword to enforce his trait of quickly eliminating anyone who opposes him. For his redesign, they wanted to differentiate him further by emphasizing his symbolic item in the series, which is black feathers. To keep the dramatic flow of action for his character, they decided to split his mantle and adorned his armor's collar with feathers.

Trivia

 * Nobunaga's voice actors vary in every series he appears on. In Samurai Warriors, he was voiced by Douglas Rye (the same voice actor of Dynasty Warriors 5's Cao Cao), while in Samurai Warriors 2 he was voiced by Brent Schaus. In Kessen III, he was voiced by Crispin Freeman, who voiced Guan Yu in Dynasty Warriors 5.