[h1] Insanely fun action-bomberman spin to chess, and then some more! (8.4/10) [/h1]
I'll be honest, I think this game deserves to be an all-time classic among arcade games. Most people are probably familiar with Chess and Bomberman, and surprisingly, both of them combine into a very fun package here! I will say though, if you are on this store page expecting some real grand "chess-strategizing", your ELO probably won't be useful here, as this is more like 90% action game with 10% quick-time-planning.
Firstly, I'd say the amount of main gamemodes present here really make me feel at home.
[b]There's Adventure, which is a surprisingly meaty and fun single-player campaign[/b] where you fight against increasingly difficult chess pieces. (Yes, there's also enemy chess pieces instead of just chess bombs.)
Next is [b]Survival mode, where you simply have to survive a minute of chess bombs dropping all over the place[/b]. It's worth noting that there's some memorization going on here, but that is not foolproof, as the pieces' position gets slightly randomized, by having the board flipped or be rotated among the 4 quarter quadrants every new attempt, from my observation. You need reflexes here too!
There's also [b]Puzzle mode, where you try to destroy all targets in a level using one active chess bomb and chaining them with other passive-reactive bombs[/b]. It's a bit like forking practices in chess, although it gets a lot more complex with levels that have 4 or 5 pieces and you have to avoid your own explosions!
Outside of that, there's also the fun [b]Dungeon Mode[/b], which is like, a "roguelite" spin on the adventure mode for the most part, with item upgrades and shops helping you along the way. It gets tough when you go through the difficulties, but thankfully, the steam achievements seem to stop at Difficulty 5, which was personally where I also stopped increasing it!
[u]The rest of the modes are pretty minor in my mind[/u], but outside of these solo game modes, you also have [b]the Battle Mode[/b], where 4 different "chess ducks" can battle each other, including the feature to add in a CPU AI with a difficulty value of 1-10 to replace one spot. I'd say it's very fun to try playing 2-player local Co-op in, or even play as a single player against 3 bots on Level 6 or 7. Heck, even you can simply just try to spend an afternoon beating one CPU AI on Difficulty 10, and it's actually REALLY intense! This is basically the pure bomberman mode, since your enemies can actually drop bombs too all the time and move how you do!
There's also online battles, obviously, but with this being an indie game, you rightfully won't really get a match most times if you don't prepare a friend of your own to join your lobby!
There's also an [b]Arcade[/b] mode, which is more like, you get a bit of every other mode in one go? Handcrafted by the developer themselves, with 4 varying degrees of difficulty!
There's even a new update introducing a [b]Gauntlet Mode[/b], which seems to be a simplified version of Dungeon Mode with a highscore-chasing approach, grading how quickly you can kill enemies without getting hit!
[h3]Information:[/h3]
[b](•)Playtime: Easily around ~15-30 hours of fun imo, not counting the roguelite mode, but beating everything else almost perfectly[/b]. I am speaking from recollections however, I didn't actually record my time when I 100%-ed each game mode, but I think I'm right on the range, and most of my other playtime is just from last added in Roguelite/Dungeon mode.
[b](•)Quite challenging achievements.[/b] I'd say they're not frustrating for me personally as a decent action-gamer, but they do take a while. Nothing that can't be reached with practice for the most part though! I'm just glad it doesn't force me to max out the difficulty levels on the Dungeon mode, because those get insane when you start going past the steam achievements.
[b](•)Hidden Free Extra Puzzle Levels, for you![/b] The game semi-recently had an update that added a custom puzzle editor, for custom puzzle-making, and while you can share and find codes with the community, [url=https://www.ctmatthews.com/blog/chessplosion-puzzles/]the developer actually made some of their own, sharing it in a blog[/url]. So, for the average player, you might not know these levels exist, but you're welcome!
[h3](+) Pros:[/h3]
[b](+) Well-balanced bombs.[/b] Coming in with a chess mindset, you would think that Queens are very OP, and knights and kings are close to useless. Well, you might be almost right, except Queen simply shoots out slow-moving bullets, to make it weaker than your average Rook/Bishop in some situations (since those explode instantly instead, much better for long range engagements), while Kings and Knights have an added effect of their explosions "lingering". Bonus points to King for being able to act like a "landmine" and exploding way earlier than other pieces, if something enters its proximity after its "armed"! Basically, kings and knights are very good for territory control.
[b](+) Fair difficulty curve (Adventure / Dungeon).[/b] As stated, your enemies are chesspieces, with a lot of behavior types. Some of them are "chasers", simply chasing you with their ways of moving, and can additionally charge at you if they normally move in a line and can be easily baited into explosions, but there's also "gunners" in later levels, who shoot out bullets when you're in range, and "bombers" who simply drop pieces corresponding to themselves. And they all move just like how chess pieces would, for the most part! I think Dungeon Mode additionally has "catapulters" or something like that, trying to drop bombs to where you are at by launching them at you instead, but they're stationary themselves. But all this being said, it's really fun to try to play against multiple pieces at once, outsmarting them and learning to predict their behavior where you could. Although I can't deny that some luck with the bomb RNG as to what you get can really help, especially since your bombs are reactive to gunners' bullets!
[b](+) Decent Round customization (Battle).[/b] In Battle Mode, or whatever online Lobbies you end up making, you can set certain parts of the game rule, such as how many points total for a player to win, round duration, amount of hearts per player, and which board to play on. Of course, there's some room for additional options here, since they all have maximum limits, and durations are only adjustable on one minute intervals, but for most purposes, they're fine, and it's better than forcing you toward a particular default!
[h3](-) Cons:[/h3]
[b](-) Custom Online Battle Lobbies don’t seem to allow us to add in CPU players to the game.[/b] Even though you can do this locally as a single player game! Would be nice to be able to set up some sort of co-op “fight vs CPU” this way; if the friend I want to play with isn’t available near me. I would say this is the game's greatest flaw right now.
[b](-) No “custom” “battle arena”.[/b] I’m talking about the battle mode again, both local and online, where you play with friends or fight off against Computer AI. There’s 20-24 maps to choose from in both cases, but I would’ve loved to have the ability to design our own maps, on our own terms, with our own grid size. I'm still voicing my desire for these, but seeing a recent update getting pushed out, I say it's still not off the table! This is even more justified by the fact that we have puzzle editors now.
[b](-) Relatively repetitive music.[/b] It's not bad, but it does make my mind feel numb at times. You can get a calming thinking music on Puzzle Mode, and maybe Adventure or Dungeon Mode every once in a while plays Boss Music, but other than that, you live with the music on the trailer. This almost always happens with arcade games though, so I'm used to it!
[h1]Regardless, I think people simply should get this game, if you love action games and you're even slightly interested in Chess![/h1]
