Battle Chess

by Electronic Arts

Product Features

• Classic NES game!

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000B6DZX2
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,583 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Chess as you never played before! Battle the computer in challenging games of chess where it's not just a game ,but the life of all your pieces that remain on the line! Basic chess skills required to play. NES game.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Had potentiol, but was so slow it became annoying., February 6, 2011

By 

Micheal Hunt (Hellbourne) - See all my reviews

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Battle Chess (Video Game)

I won't go into the rules of chess, so if you don't know how to play it, then by me saying this does follow the rules of chess well and is programmed decently enough to pass as a standard chess game won't mean much to you. However, what was supposed to make this version a little different, was not just the fact that it's an animated version of the board game (as in your pieces actually walk and move and what not) but when you do take your oppositions piece or vice verse, it cuts to a battle scene outside of a castle between the two pieces (eg: Knight sword fighting with Bishop etc). But there is one thing I wished they would have included, and another thing that ruins the fun of whole game.

The thing I wish they would have done, is when two pieces do come together and go to the battle stage, you could actually battle it out. This would take the rules of regular chess, and make it rather interesting that instead of it just taking the piece, you have a chance to let it defend itself and fight back, so that maybe your piece isn't just taken... this would be an interesting version of chess to play. And all they needed to do was maybe give a piece a life bar that carries over to the next round if they challenge again, to keep it fair from those gamers who know what they are doing vs an opponent who doesn't, so it doesn't just give an unfair advantage.

And now to come down from la la land and stop wishing for what had not transpired in this game, I will move onto why this game is strictly not enjoyable to play. It's not the sound, or the control, they are standard NES day passable. No, it's the speed of the game. It's SO FRICKIN SLOW!!!!! If you move your Knight piece, it takes about 7 to 8 seconds for it to move into place. It slowly walks to the space in-front of it, which takes about two seconds, then it moves to the one in-front of that, and that takes another two second, then to the next, then it turns to face the other way, and walks into position... and whats even more annoying, if you have a piece in front of it you are moving by, that piece slowly steps out of your way, then steps back into it's position it came from after your piece has snailed passed it. This became so highly annoying I could not even bare to finish the first game, I just had to turn it off.

I know Chess involves patience, but this slug speed movement of pieces is ridicules. I don't know if I had a defective cartridge or not, but I have also seen an emulated online version of the game that moves just as slow, so I don't think it was just a bad game, just bad programming making you have to wait 8 seconds to move your knight. Which would lead to players being so annoyed with that piece that they would just leave it alone and not use it unless necessary which just takes away the strategy of the game. Even moving long distance pieces (queen, castle, bishop) took forever if I wanted to move from one side of the board to the other.

IF you have the patience to play something like it's in slow motion, then you may enjoy this game, but quite frankly, if I was playing a real game and someone took this long to move a piece from the moment he grabbed it, and wasn't thinking about if he should or not, and just doing it to take 8 seconds to move a piece to his chosen position where he knows he is going to put it, I would pick the chess board up and smash it over his head before sticking every piece up his nose and slamming his head against whats left of the board. Now that would be a violent version of chess!!!