[h1]This is my comprehensive review of 3D Hentai Chess.[/h1]
3D Hentai Chess is a game developed by Flying. Stone. Production and was released on August 28, 2020. At first, many users complained about several bugs, including the inability to promote, castle, and en passant. These features are key to an authentic chess experience. Some features that are key to an authentic chess experience include the ability to promote, castle, and en passant. Promotion is a key move to an authentic chess experience. This is achieved when a pawn, a type of piece that can only move forward, reaches the other side of the board. Once this happens, the pawn can no longer move forward, so it is allowed to be changed to any other type of piece that is not a king. A pawn that has reached the other side of the board can be switched out for either a queen, rook, bishop, or knight. Promotion is extremely important to an authentic chess experience as it is often the only way to win many endgames. Sometimes, a player must promote to win an endgame. Some endgames are impossible, without promotion, meaning it is an extremely important part of an authentic chess experience. Another feature that was missing was the ability to castle. Castling is extremely important to an authentic chess experience because it is a part of many popular openings. Castling is a move by which a player moves 2 pieces at once. Namely, the king and the rook. The player chooses a direction to castle in move the king two squares in that direction and moves the rook to be next to the king on the side closer to the center of the board. This move is used by many popular openings. Many popular openings employ castling because it is a move that both activates the rook and protects the king. One of the key things that happens in openings is the activation of pieces, which helps in the middlegame and endgame, where the player with more active pieces will have an easier time controlling the board and creating attacks. The other thing castling does is hiding the king closer in the corner. Hiding the king in the corner is usually a much safer place for the king to be rather than the center of the board. The center of the board is far more exposed to attacks from enemy pieces, especially if the enemy activated their pieces, so it is important to get the king into a safe position. Castling achieves these two elements, which is why it is employed in so many popular openings. Many openings use castling because it does two things at once, making a very efficient use of a move. Castling is a key element to an authentic chess experience. The last element that this essay will mention that was missing from the first version of 3D Hentai Chess is en passant. En passant, French for "in passing" is an admittedly rare move that can only occur under specific conditions. The first condition is that a players pawn is on the 6th rank if they are playing as white or the 4th rank if they are playing as black. Then, the opponent must move a pawn that lives on a file adjacent to the 6th or 4th rank pawn 2 squares. In chess, pawns have the ability to move 2 squares in one turn, which is usually a faster alternative to moving 1 square twice, saving precious time. This is why most players opt to move pawns 2 squares frequently, especially in the opening, which allows the player to gain control of the board much faster than if they used single pawn moves. However, when this happens next to an aforementioned 4th or 6th rank pawn, it would now be impossible for that pawn to be captured because it slid right past the attacking pawn. Therefore, a rule called "en passant" was added, where the 4th or 6th rank pawn can confusingly take the pawn as if it only moved one square. This was added to prevent players from making a passed pawn too easily, which is a pawn that doesn't have any pawns ahead of it blocking its way to promotion. This rule is key to an authentic chess experience because it can prevent the creation of a passed pawn too easily and it is a move that many players often joke about. Due to how specific the conditions are to make en passant happen, the opportunity to play this move is quite rare. This leads to many players saying that the move is forced, despite that not actually being the case. The reason many players say the move is forced is because the opportunity to play it is so rare that players might find joy in playing it, even if the position is clearly better if they do not play this move. The culture surrounding the en passant rule leads to it being an essential part of an authentic chess experience. The lack of three key parts to an authentic chess experience in the initial release of the game could suggest that it was rushed or the developers improperly researched to rules of the game. This is by no means a terrible sin. Of course, this game needed to be released on time, but it was a missed opportunity to not take the extra mile to properly research the rules of the game. If they developers perfected these elements right off the bat without having to release several updates later on to add these missing features in, many of the reviews of this game would have likely been positive, leading to higher sales figures. However, the developers did end up adding these features back in, so the game is now the feature complete game that it is today.
[h2](Continued in coments...)[/h2]
