Genre: Strategy
Platform: GBC
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone

Chessmaster is one of those games that spans many platforms, like the R-Type series. I haven't played any of the other Chessmaster games, just like I have not played any R-Type games other than R-Type DX (well, okay, I played a LITTLE of R-Type 3). If any of the other Chessmaster games are better or worse than this, I don't know. In this game, you play chess, as you probably guessed. There are various difficulty settings, and you can choose to be black or white. You can also turn the coordinates on, which most people who know enough about chess should be fluent with. You can also link up and play against friends.

This is out of five stars, like always. Also, since everything I review seems to be rated E for Everyone anyway, that part will be removed from future Reviews. If the game isn't rated E, I'll say so, but otherwise it IS rated E.

Graphics: *

I'll be honest with you, the graphics are not good. Yes, you can tell which piece is which color easily, and the
same with the chess squares. However, they didn't go out of their way to make the graphics good. On the other hand, the graphics don't really need to be good in this game.

Sound and Music: *

There is absolutely no music whatsoever in this game, which dropped this score quite a bit. While you can
sometimes think the little voice saying things like "Check" is sort of funny, the only other sound is a sort of sproingy noise which occurs if you move a piece to a square it can't go. There's also a little "pizzazz" that
you hear whenever a move is made. It's really hard to describe that sound, but it's not bad.

Difficulty: ** 1/2

There are difficulty levels, from being really easy to being pretty tough. Almost anyone who won any chess
tournament wouldn't have trouble with this game. Since the difficulty varies so much, I had to give this an average score.

Controls: *****

The controls are so easy! You press A and choose a piece to move it, then use the directional pad to choose a square to move it to. Yes, there are other buttons, but time doesn't matter at all in this game.

Levels: ***

Considering the levels are just chess games, it's tough to give this a good score. The layout is exactly the same, but the way they're played through is always different. On the other hand, there are different difficulty levels, which make it different. Also, you can set it up as you want to and start a game from there. Therefore, I gave it a slightly above average score.

Concept: 1/2

Sorry, this concept has been taken already. A chess game? There have already been Chessmaster games, and there were other chess video games.

Story: no stars

There is no story at all to this game! None at all, absolutely none. Zip, zero, nada, goose egg, zilch, nil. Am I making my point across?

Bosses: N/A

There are no bosses in this game, so this gets no score whatsoever.

Replayability: ****

Well, you never can really win this game, so you can always come back for more. Then again, if you beat the
final level easily there's not much point to it. Then again, if you beat the final difficulty level easily, odds are you probably are wasting your time buying this game, and you should be spending more time preparing for your upcoming chess tournament.

Secrets: no stars

There are no secrets! The amount of secrets is the same as the storyline: none! No secrets whatsoever.

Fun Factor!: ** 1/2

People who don't like chess will probably hate this game. People who really like chess will probably like this game. It all revolves around what you think about the sort of game this is.

OVERALL: ** 1/2

This game is different than most others, which makes the scoring a little difficult. Still, it's an average game.
Some people will buy it and dislike it, and some will buy it and like it. That's the trouble with this game, and why it only earned an average score. Besides, this game doesn't actually teach you how to play chess. Overall, I wouldn't reccomend this game. The vs. play (playing a person on your Game Boy or via a link cable) is pretty pointless because you can do the exact same with a chessboard. And chessboards don't cost $30.

Want to review a game yourself? Email me!
Go back to Lemmy's Reviews.
Go back to my main page.