[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kesseniii_3906.jpg]]

''Kessen III'' is a 2004 game, and the 3rd entry of the Kessen series. It once again took place in Japan's UsefulNotes/SengokuJidai and way further from the first game's Sekigahara setting... in particular during the era of UsefulNotes/OdaNobunaga. It takes a little more realistic approach then ''VideoGame/KessenII''. This game is unique for one thing for its days of release... it completely gives a middle finger to [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade the usual treatment of]] [[DemonKingNobunaga making Nobunaga a demon or cackling evil bastard]] and instead made him unashamedly romantic (in the classical sense) and TheHero, [[HumansAreFlawed tragic and flawed yes, but ultimately a hero]]. [[HistoricalHeroUpgrade Way to go]].


The gameplay follows quite the same as its predecessor. You decide who deploys in what army, and controls your whole army, one at a time (The AI takes care of the other units unless the player intervenes), though you can still issue orders. You can also execute skills that can turn the tide of battle as well.

!! Kessen III provides examples of:
* AdaptedOut: The Emperor of Japan is not even referred to in the story, and one would reasonably expect him to show up along the way. Perhaps the creators didn't want to go into long explanations about the difference between Emperor and Shogun, and how everyone was loyal to the Emperor but he had no temporal control over his country.
** Likewise, Nobunaga's siblings, children and parents don't even feature when they had a role to play in history, again to prevent possible complication in an already complicated story.
** Some of Nobunaga's retainers like Sakuma Nobumori, Ikeda Tsuneoki, Murai Sadakatsu and several others are also absent.
* AlasPoorVillain: Just look at Mitsuhide and Yoshiaki's death scene.
** A number of them can be, such as Shingen, Kenshin, and Katsuyori's.
* AlwaysSecondBest: UsefulNotes/TokugawaIeyasu laments as such. Since Nobunaga never bit it, his chance never came. He's still a very dependable ally of Nobunaga regardless.
** Katsuyori Takeda (Shingen's son) is this and he grows sick of being compared to his father. This ends up disastrous for him (but advantageous to you/Nobunaga).
* AmazonBrigade: The Naginata and Kunoichi units.
* AnachronismStew: Miyamoto Musashi shows up as a general working for Mouri despite him historically born 2 years after Honnoji.
* AndYourRewardIsClothes: Played straight. You usually get Armors or Helmets ("Clothes") by getting A or S rank in certain battles.
** Averted in the sense that the "clothes" aren't actually useless, with many being awesome and completely practical. Every armor has its own stats that help you defeat your enemies even more easily.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: You must deploy exactly the required numbers of unit at the battlefield (the amount of required numbers of unit varies in each battles, usually 5 or 6), no more, no less.
* AwesomeButImpractical: The Ninjutsu skills, they look cool and do crapton of damage, yet they cost 3 to 4 skill slots, and 4 is the maximum amount of skill slots you can have.
* BadassInDistress: Yamanaka Shikanosuke was captured by the Mouri Army at the Battle of Akashi and must be rescued if you want to recruit him.
** Also Kanbei when he was captured by Murashige.
* BattleCouple: [[OfficialCouple Nobunaga and Kichou]].
* BeardOfSorrow: Mitsuhide grows one during his [[spoiler: captivity]]
* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Hisahide would rather blow himself up within his castle than letting the Oda forces capture him.
* BigNo: PlayedForLaughs, Hideyoshi gets two early on, one when he learns that Nobunaga had considered marrying him to Oichi but changed his mind when he married Nene. The other along with Katsuie when he finds out she is being wedded to Nagamasa
* BodyDouble: Matsunaga Hisahide used this tactic at the first Battle of Mt. Tamon.
** Shingen Takeda does this as well
* BodyguardCrush: Mitsuhide was a former bodyguard of Kichou and is very enarmored at her. [[spoiler:It's one of the causes he initiated Honnoji.]]
* BoisterousBruiser: Maeda Toshiie and Shibata Katsuie.
* TheCameo: Tokichiro Kinoshita (UsefulNotes/ToyotomiHideyoshi) is first seen selling figurines of [[VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors Sanada Yukimura]] and [[VideoGame/DynastyWarriors Da Qiao]]
* [[GuestFighter Guest General]]: If you have the first ''VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors'' and/or its ''Xtreme Legends'' save, you can unlock Maeda Keiji and Inahime, using the same model from [[VideoGame/SamuraiWarriors SW1]].
* ChekhovsSkill: Mitsuhide is shown hitting the bullseye with a rifle early on and Nobunaga claiming that firearms are the way of the future. At Honnoji [[spoiler: Mitsuhide is the one who fires at him]]
* ChildrenAreInnocent: Oichi's daughter is shown playing at times, blissfully unaware [[spoiler: The Azai and Oda clans are at war due to Nagamasa's betrayal]]
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Mitsuhide's Spanish ally Pedro flips on a dime during the final battle, defecting to the Oda when his troops are lowered. [[spoiler:But he's an enemy yet again in the ''true'' final battle, supporting Yoshiaki's bid to re-establish the shogunate.]]
* ClingyJealousGirl: Yoshino gets like this at times as she's smitten with Nobunaga.
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Black for Oda forces, red for enemies and blue for ally {{NPC}}s.
%%* CompetitiveBalance: The troop types:
* CoolOldGuy: Mori Yoshinari, Momochi Sandayu, Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin, probably Hisahide.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: The Miyoshi Trio may look like a bunch of blabbering idiots at first glance, but they are actually quite competent in battle and may kick your ass if you're not careful.
* CurbStompBattle: Every battle has the potential to be one (with you being either the stomper or the stompee) depending on your preparations and planning.
** Nagashino is easy to become this like it was in history. Just give all your troops riflemen and let loose on the Takeda cavalry. If played correctly none of your characters will even take damage during it!
* DefeatMeansFriendship / DefeatMeansPlayable: Many (if not most) of the optional officers can be recruited this way.
* DiscOneNuke: Kani Saizo; you can recruit him quite early in chapter 6, has simple recruitment condition (beating him in a normal battle), quite high stats and high spear proficiency, and most importantly, he leads the third-best spear unit in the entire game with endgame-tier stats. Of course, actually defeating him is no easy task, especially with the equipment you have at the moment.
* EscortMission: The first Battle of Sekigahara.
* EvilCounterpart: Pedro to Amalia, as Mitsuhide's foreign ally. They're even [[ArchEnemy arch-enemies]].
* EvilOldFolks: Hisahide Matsunaga
* FaceDeathWithDignity: Baba, Yamagata and Naito at Nagashino. Hisahide as well saying he will watch what Nobunaga does from now on from hell before he blows himself up.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Before the Battle of Sawayama Koroku asked Mitsuhide and Murashige about the possibility of a traitor within the Oda forces. [[spoiler:It turns out that the two were TheMole planted by Yoshiaki from the very beginning]].
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Yoshiaki has very high INT stat (probably one of the highest in this game) yet one of the most tactically incompetent. He often rely on his subordinate(s) (usually Mitsuhide, Fujitaka or Fujinaga) to make tactics for him, and when he tries to make a tactic himself, it fails horribly (see GeneralFailure entry below).
** His intellect may be better suited for political and diplomatic affairs rather than military, as he can maintain the unity of the Ashikaga coalition (which consists of the forces of several independent daimyos) for more than a decade.
* GeneralFailure: Yoshiaka Ashikaga is this during the first fight at Kyoto, all his plans fail and when met he closes the gates...[[EpicFail locking HIMSELF in with the Oda troops]]
* GeniusBonus: Katsuie and Hideyoshi's constant bickering throughout the game may be a reference to their RealLife feud after Nobunaga's death that culminated in the Battle of Shizugatake.
* GetBackHereBoss:
** The main objective in "The Fall of the Asakura" is to defeat Asakura Yoshikage before he flees the map completely.
** In the first Battle of Mt. Tamon the several BodyDouble of Matsunaga Hisahide (and later Hisahide himself) will run around the map, forcing you to give chase.
* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: Hojo Ujimasa appears as an enemy at Battle of Fuji without any explanations other than a one-line "Ieyasu is fighting the Hojo" and he never gets a mention again afterwards.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: This game is merely about a civil war so no one really "good" or "evil" and Nobunaga is only one among many Daimyo who aspires to "Unite the Land and End the Chaos" aka Total Domination.
* HappilyMarried: Unlike history, Nobunaga and Kichou clearly love each other here.
* HardModePerks: If you play on Expert you can play as Oichi after Nagashino. There is also an extra battle you can (and must) play that is available only on Hard or Expert to unlock the GoldenEnding.
* HighlyVisibleNinja: The Ninja units are just as visible as any other units.
* HistoricalBadassUpgrade: Saito Tatsuoki is historically regarded as incompetent, yet in the game he's shown to be quite a capable commander (albeit with some temper issues), and at one point he kills Mori Yoshinari with a clever BatmanGambit.
* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: And ''how''. Take the usual victim of HistoricalVillainUpgrade in Japanese media (so much that [[DemonKingNobunaga he got his own trope]]), give him a better, but tragic light, skip some of his worst moments (like the burning of Mt. Hiei), and voila.
** HistoricalVillainUpgrade: This in turn gives this to some of Nobunaga's enemies. Not just UsefulNotes/AkechiMitsuhide, but the majority of the Saito clan (except Kichou/Nouhime). Especially Saito Tatsuoki.
* HonorBeforeReason: Why Nagamasa refuses to join The Oda after they attack The Asakura, Nobunaga wants him to join him not wanting to kill his brother in law but Nagamasa is bound to his ties and spends the game as an enemy.
* HowWeGotHere: The game begins with Nobunaga in the middle of Honnoji, fighting for his life, and was suddenly shot dead by a mysterious assailant. As his life seemingly seeping away, we get into a flashback on how he started, being the Fool of Owari. [[spoiler:And nope, reaching Honnoji is not the end of the game.]]
** [[spoiler:DreamingOfThingsToCome: It turns out to be a prophetic dream that Nobunaga has been having since he's a child.]]
* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: Hideyoshi nearly does this to Katsuie when he tries to figure out how to use his rifle and winds up holding it backwards and accidentlly sets it off.
* IOweYouMyLife: Why Fujinaga Isshiki sticks around with Yoshiaki, its revealed that Yoshiaski rescued him one time when he was about to die and since then Fujinaga has stayed with him no matter what.
* InUniverseNickname: Niwa Nagahide got 'Potato Samurai', first coined by Nobunaga, and then Toshiie used that shamelessly.
** Hideyoshi is called 'Monkey' by Nobunaga and Katsuie.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Yoshino realizes that Nobunaga is in love with Kicho despite the fact she's in love with him and thus decides to support them.
* KickTheDog: Tatsuoki, did you really just ''have'' to gloat over killing Mori Yoshinari!?
** No, but it's understandable why he does. Yoshinari is (in-story) one of Nobunaga's finest commanders so his death will be quite a considerable blow to the Oda army, and Yoshinari at the time is attacking the Ashikaga coalition's base at Sakamoto, so yeah, successfully defending your base while at the same time killing one of your enemy's best does deserve a celebration. Also this is no different than Nobunaga celebrating the death of Imagawa Yoshimoto or the conquest of Sakai.
%%* TheMole: [[spoiler:Mitsuhide and Murashige]].
* ManlyTears: Whenever someone important dies. In fact, the voice director also tried applying this effect by telling the voice actors to bawl and sob during scenes like this: Mori Ranmaru is voiced by the same guy who voiced Zhao Yun in ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'', and when delivering the news of his father's death (Yoshinari), he was reporting in the middle of ''sobbing'', something the VA never did in DW.
** UsefulNotes/HondaTadakatsu also cried as such, on the news of Imagawa Yoshimoto's defeat and the liberation of his vessels.
** Katsuie sobs as well after a believed to be dead Nobunaga rescues him and Toshiee from the Uesugi
** When Shingen dies his generals instantly burst into tears.
* McNinja: Pedro Cortes hails from Spain and somehow belongs in Ninja class.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Nobunaga expresses this after the battle at Odani castle has resulted in [[spoiler: Nagamasa's death]] the castle in flames, and his sister heartbroken.
** Also Katsuyori after tons of defeat, realizing that instead of keeping the Takeda banner high, he ran it to ground thanks to his recklessness. [[DrivenToSuicide He and the whole Takeda clan commit seppuku afterwards]].
* OlderThanTheyLook: Mitsuhide is about six years older than Nobunaga and already in his mid-fifties at Honnoji, and Baba Nobufusa is either 59, 60, or 61 years old at Nagashino (He was born in either 1514 or 1515 with unspecified date).
* OnlySaneMan: Fujitaka was the only one from the shogunate who think that opposing Nobunaga was a bad idea.
* OriginalGeneration: Young shrine maiden Yoshino and foreigner LadyOfWar Amalia van Kyre.
** From the opposing side we have [[McNinja Pedro]].
* OutsideTheBoxTactic: Shooting the enemy form behind their own fence proves to be effective. This is possible because [[FriendlyFireproof the enemy can't break their own fence]], so if an enemy unit is fully barricaded means they're doomed. This tactic is very useful at The Final Battle of Ishiyama to take out the Miyoshi Trio and The Saika Faction with minimal damage.
* PaletteSwap: Used on Weapons and Armors.
** Subverted with the Helmets, only very few of them are this while most are different in shape.
* PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: Nobunaga and Kicho, Oichi and Nagamasa.
* PocketProtector : When Nobunaga get shot at Honnoji, the bullet hits Kicho's hair ornament at his chest, leaving him uninjured.
* ProfessionalButtKisser: Tomomichi of the Miyoshi Trio's dialogue consists of him praising and applauding Nagayuki and The Shogunate, this guy could give [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Smithers]] lessons in butt kissing.
* RapeDiscretionShot: Well not exactly the horrific rape, and it's PlayedForLaughs, the screen switches to Nobunaga conversing normally with Yoshino while Amalia 'rapes' Hideyoshi.
* RecurringBoss: Several, with the Saito duo, Tatsuoki and Toshimitsu, taking the cake. Tatsuoki can be fought in 10 battles (Kiso River, Sunomata, Sekigahara I, Inabayama, Sakai, Echizen, Anegawa, Sawayama, Kyoto I, Asakura) and Toshimitsu 12 battles (all mentioned above plus Sekigahara II and Gifu).
* ShesAllGrownUp: Nobunaga's first chronological appearance is about saving a little, adorable Kicho. And the next time he meets her, he hasn't changed much, but Kicho already transformed into a smoking hot LadyOfWar.
* ShownTheirWork: One scene depicted Nobunaga cheering on a sumo match. That wasn't something random to further give him the HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Nobunaga in real life was a sumo fanboy that organized tournaments for his and other people's funs and handsomely rewarded the champions, one of the few traditional Japanese things he's fond of.
* SiblingTeam:
** The 2 of Terumoto's closest generals who always accompany him, Kobayakawa Takakage and Kikkawa Motoharu, are biological brothers.
** You can fight the 3 Hojo brothers: Ujimasa, Ujiteru, and Ujikuni at Fuji.
* SkewedPriorities: When it rains at Okehazama, Yoshimoto is upset. Is it cause it will slow the march of his army and also hide Nobunaga and his men while they try to ambush him? No, it's cause it will ruin his face paint.
* SlasherSmile: Mitsuhide gives one that is this and NightmareFace when he is [[spoiler: killing Fujinaga]]
* SmarterThanYouLook: Koroku may look like a witless brute, but he's actually Hideyoshi's advisor and the leader of Hachisuka intelligence squad. He's also the first to aware of the treachery spreading through the Oda and is suspicious of Mitsuhide prior to Honnoji.
%%* SmugSnake: Some of the rival warlords such as Hisahide.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Saika or Saiga? Kagekatsu or Kagekatu?
* SuckSessor: Katsuyori to Shingen. Even the Takeda retainers lament if God has forsaken their clan seeing Katsuyori getting too hotheaded to prove himself better than Shingen and opts for a LeeroyJenkins strategy for Nagashino. It ends with [[CurbStompBattle just about the same it goes in history]].
* TakeThat: Mitsuhide is accompanied by his nephew Akechi Hidemitsu [[VideoGame/{{Onimusha}} Samanosuke]] (yes, spelled like that). During one scene, Nobunaga just had a normal duel with Samanosuke as normal Samurai in the battlefield, Nobunaga commends on Samanosuke's skills before he killed him in fair combat. Yeah, quite the reverse from the usual [[VideoGame/{{Onimusha}} 'Champion of Goodness Samanosuke defeating Evil Demon King Nobunaga to save the world']], huh.
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: It's more like Casting Officer Skills is a Free Action.
* ThenLetMeBeEvil: After defeating Imagawa at Okehazama, Nobunaga claims if necessary he'll become a demon to make peace but we don't really see him do anything evil.
** The stage "Siege of Sakai" encourages you to destroy the merchants' residences for loot, which gives the implications that Nobunaga either allows, encourages, or outright orders his men to sack and loot the residences, and possibly slaughtering their inhabitants.
* ThisCannotBe: Having lost his territory, his castle, and his army the last sight of Tatsuoki Saito is him surrounded by Oda troops on his hands and knees ranting in disbelief that he has been defeated by The "Fool of Owari" before he is silenced with an arrow. (Possibly fired by Ranmaru seeing how he vowed vengeance before him see below and Bowmen are what he specialises in)
* TookALevelInBadass: Tokichiro Kinoshita. Of course, we know he's UsefulNotes/ToyotomiHideyoshi.
** Nobunaga of course, when the game starts he's The Fool of Owari, it doesn't take long to shed that.
** Mitsuhide too. When he was seen in the services of Mino, he's either incompetent or getting stomped around by the Saito. When he joined Nobunaga, he's already transformed into a hypercompetent officer that becomes Nobunaga's greatest asset and eventually rival once he betrays Nobunaga.
** And for that matter, Kicho as well. That little girl whom Nobunaga saved in the very first chapter suddenly became a stunning LadyOfWar in a span of few chapters.
* TranslationConvention: Amalia, Frois and Pedro are Europeans and they talk to each other in Japanese.
** Probably justified, since they came from 3 different countries (Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, respectively) and Japanese is pretty much their second language.
* TrickBoss: The Shingen you defeated at the north of the map is just a BodyDouble, the real Shingen shows up at the center of the map (along with some reinforcement) after you beat the stand-in.
* TrueFinalBoss: [[spoiler:Yoshiaki at the Battle of Yamazaki.]]
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Until Honnoji that is.
* VillainDecay: Tatsuoki starts off as one of the regional lords and rulers conspiring to rule Japan. By the time he's defeated for good, he's stuck as a subordinate under Asakura.
* WakeUpCallBoss: Imagawa can be this, you gotta take Nobunaga and Yoshino around and attack him without being spotted but while your doing this you gotta protect your main camp with your other troops from his armies attack and that includes not only Tokugawa but Tadakatsu as well and did I mention they are likely stronger than you are?
* WarriorMonk: Uesugi Kenshin and most male, Priest-class officers like Honganji Kennyo or Ankokuji Ekei. For the troops, basically any unit that has "monks" in its name.
* WeaksauceWeakness: The elemental walls, while very powerful, can easily be countered by casting a debuff to the user.
* WhamEpisode: The Battle of Kanegasaki starts off as a battle against Yoshikage Asakura only to find out Nagamasa has betrayed Nobunaga and you must retreat, and at the end [[spoiler: Nobunaga is shot and wounded by snipers]]
* WhatIf: [[spoiler:The game ultimately takes on a spin on history, in if Nobunaga survives Honnoji]]
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Mitsuhide's retainers disappear with no explanations after Nobunaga retakes Gifu castle (sans Toshimitsu, who dies in the battle).
%%* YamatoNadeshiko: Nobunaga's sister Oichi.
* YesMan: Masayasu very rarely says anything other than "Yes, yes!"
* YouKilledMyFather: Because of Tatsuoki's KickTheDog moment, whenever he appears, Ranmaru will declare his intent of vengeance. When he dies at Honnoji, his brother vows to avenge him as well.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Terumoto was born in 1553, so he is just in his late twenties/early thirties when he confronts Nobunaga.
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