Star Wars Chess for Sega CD
Review #12120
Star Wars Chess
Come for the animations, leave for the laggy controls
Gameplay
It's chess. Yes, it's got some great animations showing Yoda tossing Boba Fett like a ragdoll, R2-D2 shortcircuiting an AT-ST, and Darth Vader impaling Chewy, but it's just a game of chess. And one with long load times and inexplicably bad digital controls. I mean seriously, how do you mess up the controls in chess? Software Toolworks found a way, but giving a second or more of lag when making a directional move around the board. It's the weirdest thing. Tap in any direction and you can feel the lag, but tap several times in rapid succession and experience the joy of your selection landing on an unexpected spot. The only way to succeed is to have a slooow step by step move around the board. It reminds me of that bank scene in Zootopia when the bunny and fox are talking to the sloth. Horrible.
Level Design
You can customize the look of the board and select one of five difficulty settings, but that's the extent of the customization. Even the easiest difficulty is too much for me, just like Chessmaster. I just suck at chess.
Theme
OG Star Wars! The animations are amazing. Most of the fun of this game is setting up the weirdest death combos. R2-D2 never disappoints.
Art Style
Sprites are ok, but don't look quite right. For example, Yoda is way too big and fat, Boba Fett looks like he's wearing khaki pants, and Darth Vader is wearing skinny pants. The colors are all weird as well, and there are graphical bugs aplenty. the whole thing looks like a fanmade offering without any official support from Lucasfilm/LucasArts.
Audio
Like the artwork, the sound feels like an approximation rather than official samples. The compositions are all lifted from the movies, but the sounds and recordings are obviously faked. Some sounds are better than others but on the whole I was disappointed by what could've been a highlight.
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