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No fief, no life: Nobunaga's Ambition | NES Works 135

Published on Wed, May 22nd 2024 Gaming Rectangular HD

Another one of those monster-sized games with a massive legacy lands on NES. There really was something in the water in summer 1989, huh? I guess that's what they mean when they say the NES had The Juice. The Juice was the mysterious thing in the water.

In this case, we have a console adaptation of a groundbreaking Japanese computer game—their own take on the hex-based war simulations that the American grognards loved so much. Unlike Dragon Warrior, Nobunaga's Ambition was not built from the ground-up for consoles; this is a computer game through and through, and it makes few concessions for play on a two-button controller on a system marketed to kids. Nobunaga tosses you into the deep end and expects you to swim, and it isn't afraid to stick you with a game over before you make your first move. It's confusing, overwhelming, and opaque, and it makes no apologies for any of those things.

Naturally, it became a long-running series and transformed Koei into one of the most powerful and sustainable game publishers in the world.

Production notes:

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NES footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled to 4K with RetroTink 4X and 720p with xRGB Mini Framemeister.