"Gomoku Narabe Renju" - NES/Famicom

A.K.A: 五目ならべ 連珠

Alright, finally we're away from the release titles for the Famicom, and into... board games. Awesome. I'm going to power through these next two reviews because they don't have a lot to offer to anyone in 2019, but for the sake of completion, they need to be reviewed. Because it's my duty. A duty that nobody asked for, but a duty nonetheless.

----- Introduction -----

Go is a Chinese board game that was invented over 2,500 years ago, and features complicated strategy revolving around capturing sections of the board and cutting off your opponent's access and 'territory'.

This isn't that game-- this is Gomoku, which is what you do with a Go board if you're too stupid to play Go but still want to play with the shiny stones. Which is a category I roughly align with. 

The object of Gomoku is revealed if you analyze the Japanese words of the title, which I'll do for you because that sounds like a cool thing to do, and I think you'll think I'm cool if I do it. Here I go:

The "Gomoku" portion ( 五目 ) has the kanji for "five," ( 五 ) and what I believe is in this case simply a counter meaning "pieces" ( 目 ).  The "Narabe" portion is even easier: 並ぶ (narabu) is a verb that means to line something up in a row. The use of "narabe" rather than "narabu" is a grammatical concept, which I barely understand and is beyond the scope of this short Japanese tutorial, but-- 

Suffice it to say: "Gomoku Narabe" means "Line up five pieces in a row". 

The "Renju" ( 連珠 ) portion of the title is a variant of Gomoku. It's the professional variant, which you can read about here, if that's your thing. In brief, the main reason that it exists is that it was discovered that with perfect play, the black player will always win, so some rules were added to limit black's win conditions, evening the game out.

Alright, now that I've slaughtered some Japanese, let's play this game, and I'll explain the other rules.

Are you having fun yet!?

----- Playthrough -----

There's really not a lot to say here, once you know the object of the game. On the main menu you're given the option between an easy, medium, and hard AI, or playing two player with a human being-- if you have friends, which I don't, so I chose to play against the easy AI.

Unfortunately, the easy AI is 1,000x as clever as me and I wasn't able to win a single match.

The basic rules that you have as black are that you aren't allowed to win by lining up more than 5 stones in a row, and you can't form two open 3-stone or 4-stone shapes that intersect. Either would be a winning move for white, but for black it's an instant loss.

In this case I was too good, and lined up 6 stones as black, which scared the AI, so I lost.

The other two main forms which will win the game are the 3-stone/4-stone intersection, and the 4-stone line that's open on both ends. These are winning formations for either black or white. The reasoning being that when you enter these shapes, if you play the next several moves perfectly, the opponent cannot stop you from making a 5-stone line.

I managed to lose this round in about 10 seconds.

There's really not much else to say here. I've told you literally everything there is to know about the game. Just play it for yourself if you want to see it so bad.

I like how the bottom line says: "It is your DEFEAT."

----- Review -----

Intuitive Design: Good

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

Assuming you can read Japanese, the game's fairly intuitive. The title tells you the point of the game, which you probably already knew if you were Japanese, I guess. The game presents you with messages explaining your loss or win, when you manage such a thing. I think you could probably play this with no knowledge of the game and understand fairly quickly the point.

Satisfaction: Bad

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

Look, I'm a video-gamer, not a board-gamer. I get it's not exactly an action game, but placing the stones feels like it takes forever. The game is very slow, and frustrating when you're terrible like myself. I didn't have a lot of fun. I'm sure it would be more fun against a human of my skill level (awful).

Game Depth: Shallow

How deep is the gameplay?

It's not an arcade game but it's a game about putting 5 stones in a row. I explained all the rules to you in like 5 minutes. It's like checkers.

Sound Design: Minimal, Fine

How's the sound?

There's little here aside from sounds that play on stone placement, and a couple little ditties. There's a disappointing sounding tune that plays whenever you lose that adds to my personal frustration. STOP MOCKING ME, GOMOKU NARABE RENJU.

Graphics: I mean, whatever

How's it look?

It's a top down Go board. I guess the stones could be more detailed.

Personal Chord: No

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

No, I don't really want to ever play this again.

Play or Don't: I wouldn't

Should you waste your precious time?

If you have someone to play with, or just want to experience Gomoku for yourself, I'd say go right on ahead. Otherwise, if you're just looking for a fun game to play by yourself... yeah, probably not. Go play Donkey Kong, if you're trapped in August, 1983.

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死