Best of Board Games: Chess

Genre: Board Game

Players: 1

.

Review:

Best of Board Games is a Compilation of Chess, Solitaire Mahjong, and Solitaire originally released on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2014.The game was also split up into its individual components, with Best of Board Games: Chess releasing on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2014, and Nintendo 3DS in 2015.

This game’s presentation uses decent but unextraordinary-looking 2D visuals, with no options to change to alternate visual styles. The top screen features a scoreboard adorned with a rendering of a Russian-style palace and some falling snow. This is backed by a light and slightly-tense theme that’s just a bit too repetitive for my tastes. Overall this is okay, but not great.

The game uses only touchscreen controls, which work well enough, though optional gamepad controls would have been nice too. However, the features included are a jumble of good and very, very bad.

On the good side of things, you have time settings, as well as 90 puzzles ranging from “mate in 1” through “mate in 5”. On the bad side of things… okay, let’s start from the least egregious and work our way up…

First, there’s no tutorial, just a text guide. Okay, not great, but not uncommon.

Second, there’s no undo button. This is a massive omission, but far from the worst here.

Third, there’s no multiplayer. In a Chess game, this is a severe oversight and possibly even a deal-breaker… but it gets so much worse…

Fourth, the game forces you to play as white? What? Just what?

And fifth, the game is constantly giving you move suggestions, suggestions that you cannot turn off.

Thankfully, none of these issues are present in the chess puzzles, and I suggest you look at this game from that perspective – this is actually a game of 90 Chess puzzles, with an absolutely terrible Chess game attached

However, with this game being sold at $10, the price here is just absurd, especially with games like Academy: Chess Puzzles offering 750 Chess puzzles for $2. By comparison, $10 for 90 puzzles is an absolute rip-off, and once again, the version of Chess included here is so terrible you’d probably be best to write it off entirely. Do not buy this awful, overpriced scam of a game.

tl;dr – Best of Board Games: Chess contains an absolutely terrible version of Chess, as well as 90 decent Chess puzzles. This might have been worth it for the puzzles, except the $10 price tag is an absolute deal-breaker. Do not buy this rip-off.

Grade: D-

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