"Honshougi: Naitou Kudan Shougi Hiden" - NES/Famicom

AKA - "本将棋 内藤九段将棋秘伝" (... whew!)

Well, here's another "it finally happened," for you. Our first shougi game!

So, now is the time when I admit to you I don't actually know how to play shougi. Which is going to be a problem, because much like riichi mahjong, the Japanese truly love their shougi, and it shows up a lot in video-games on old consoles. Just for you guys (and also because I've always wanted to), I'm going to teach myself how to play shougi to write this review and for future reviews on shougi video-games.

Unsurprisingly, Honshougi Naitou blu-blu-blah doesn't have a page on the English Wikipedia. Slightly surprisingly, it does have a page on the Japanese Wikipedia!

Honshougi was published by Seta (no, not Sega-- Seta). It was developed by Random House, which sounds familiar to me, but I can't find anything about them and I certainly can't name anything else they've developed. Maybe somewhere along the line we'll bump into them again, probably as a developer for Seta no doubt.

The game was named by Naito Kunio, a professional Japanese shougi player, and apparently recording enka music artist. I aspire to be at least one of those things when I grow up.

As always, I'll attempt to save you from the depths of non-understanding by badly translating the title.

本 - Hon (Main; Present; Real)
将棋 - Shougi
内藤 - Naito (family name of Naito Kunio)
九段 - Ku Dan (9th level)
秘伝 - Hiden (Secret; Mystery; Secret Formula)

Here's my best attempt: "Real Shougi: 9th-Dan Naito's Shougi Secrets". Like it? 

Let's give 'er a try.

Oh man this is the game with the anthropomorphized computer! I remember this.

----- Playthrough -----

Before I could play anything, I had to learn how to play shougi. All I knew about it is that it's kind of like chess, but Japanese. So, I knew to turn straight to the series that has turned more weebs into shougi players than perhaps any other: Yakuza.

And luckily, I found a video specifically themed towards making you able to complete that set of side-missions in that game. Perfect (thanks, Yakuza Fan)!

So after a quick 2x speed watch, I decided I knew everything I needed to know and dived in (knowing I was totally going to regret it).

Yeah I can move pawns too, buddy-- wait, why are you moving other stuff? Stop!

To be honest, there's really not much going on in this game except playing shougi against a computer. There's really no story, there's no campaign, anything like that, you just hit start and you're playing shougi. There's no difficulty settings or options either, or even music. Just you with your receding hairline and this board-game and this weird robot in a kimono.

My first match was a total loss, as I slowly realized I had not internalized the capabilities of some of the pieces (and had no idea what I was doing). Honshougi doesn't give you any helpful outlines to tell you where pieces can move or anything, so I messed up a few times (for instance, I tried to set up an attack with a knight to the side only to discover they can only move forwards, then to the side, unlike chess).

Eventually I admit I kind of just started shuffling pieces around to end it.

Ashamed and defeated, I set out for a few more matches to see if I could at least come close to beating this robot. I have no idea how hard the AI in this game is supposed to be, or how reasonable it is for a total beginner to hope to win, but I didn't feel particularly confident at this point.

As a terrible but occasional chess player, I knew I first needed to try to understand why the opponent was making his moves, so I started watching him more closely and thinking about the logic of each thing he was doing as best as I could.

His poker face was very good, though.

I noticed a few things: the CPU seemed to like his pieces to stay mostly together-- particularly he seemed to like to build walls of generals that covered all of one another's blind spots and keep those around his king to make it hard to put it in check.

His castle is... too fortified and strong.

The other thing he taught me is being a dick with harassing the opponent by stealing pawns and then putting them directly in-front of pieces that can't capture forwards, or as a trap (for instance, as pictured below, using it as bait to try to get me to let him take my rook with his knight).

Wh- I'm not gonna do that.
But now I don't know what to do...

I started trying to use my chess intuition and some of these tricks I was learning against the CPU, making use of the pieces I captured to perform surprise harassment attacks in his backlines. I was able to defend myself and extend the game for a long time, but because of his tight formation from the beginning, I had an extremely hard time feeling like I was ever making any progress. I just couldn't figure out how to get to his king.

Eventually, he stole and promoted my bishop, and next thing I knew it was harassing me on the backlines near my king, and try as I might, I just couldn't get it out from back there. I had lots of stolen pieces, but I just couldn't figure out how to use them to any advantage.

Ouch, my shougi bone.

After that loss, I decided that was pretty much all the Honshougi I needed, but I was glad to feel like I had learned a little bit about the game for the next time it makes an appearance.

----- Review -----

How long did I play?

An hour.

How much did I beat?
I won 0/3 matches.

-----

Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

Well, not having any beginner's aid whatsoever or the ability to see where the pieces can move when selected is really not very helpful, but the game does seem to imply that it isn't for beginners anyway (with the name of a professional player, and "9th dan," which as far as I know is the highest rank-- equivalent to "Grandmaster" in chess).

Gameplay: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

Playing shougi was pretty fun, and I can certainly see where it's like chess but with additional strategic elements-- the mechanic of stealing pieces and placing them on the board as a turn is truly interesting and adds another dimension to the game.

But anyway, this game didn't invent shougi, so really I should just rate it on the gameplay experience in the context of Honshougi, and I guess I'd say it was pretty good. The CPU doesn't seem unbeatable, he made some of what seemed like weird mistakes to me, and I think someone better than me could certainly do it. It's easy and quick to move the pieces as well, so the game doesn't waste a lot of your time.

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

I mean, there's really just the one opponent and all you can do is play against him. It's pretty lacking in depth, but I have a hard time imagining this was marketed as a full price game even at the time.

Presentation: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

The graphics are pretty good, as evidenced by the fact that I could actually visually understand the kanji well enough to learn what the pieces were. The pieces are supposed to have two kanji on them, but they made it just one to give it enough detail on the NES hardware that you could tell them apart. All in all, it looks pretty good, and I like the little robot and guy and their animations.

There are no 

Personal Chord: 

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

I had fun learning a little bit about shougi with the game and I like the little robot graphic. I don't think there's much here for me though other than that which makes me want to rep it.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

Probably not. There are like a million shougi games and this one offers absolutely nothing besides playing shougi against a computer. You can do that in any other shougi game I'm sure, and I bet others have campaign modes or at least some kind of progression system that would set them above this one.

It's just a Famicom novelty, really.

-----