HachikanShogi Matta Ari

"HachikanShogi Matta Ari" is an unusual take on the Japanese Chess variant (Shogi) that, surprisingly, is more let down by a couple of tough design choices... but I think it's important to note this really is a free game, it's not a cash grab, mobile app, asset flip or a student homework assignment. That shouldn't be a remarkable thing, but there's so much low quality stuff on Steam that finding genuinely made games isn't nearly as easy to do as you think. What do you do in the game? This is really two games going on at once, which is a clever idea that's let down a bit by poor technical execution and those design decisions (which we'll get to). At face value, you're playing Shogi against an AI. Great. Design flaw #1... the AI is stupidly good. This is the Shogi equivalent of playing Chess against IBM's Watson and wondering why you got your butt handed to you. This flies against the core game premise which, amongst other things, is to have a Shogi game going on while you're doing other things. What other things? Here's what I think is the clever part of the game... the developer deliberately put "anbormalities" in the game, deliberate errors and mistakes, and you need to spot them. Kind of blending a really deep HOG with a Chess game. Where it falls flat is another punishing game decision... if you call out an abnormality and there isn't one, you lose, the end. I guess this was an attempt to stop gamers just smacking the "abnormality" button whether there is one or not, but that could have been handled more elegantly. Instead, it turns into an episode of frustration... and you're already going to be frustrated by the AI kicking your butt because it's too powerful. The upshot of those decisions is a game that could and should have been fun, but isn't. Visually, this has some fairly mediocre/dated looking graphics that will understandably be a turn off for a lot of gamers, and it's a big contributor to the failure of the game to attract gamers despite having no up-front cost. Now on to pricing and value for gamers. Most "free" games on Steam aren't really free. There's usually some kind of monetisation, from nasty mobile app cash shops, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, to any other number of shady pricing schemes that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game. Nothing demonstrates a developers belief in themselves and their work than giving it away without any remuneration. This is a service to themselves, and the gaming industry, and should be applauded. Of course, just because something is free, doesn't necessarily mean it's valuable, or something you might want to spend your time on. Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 130 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB shows this peaked at just a dozen or so concurrent players, and now there's basically nobody using it. Even though it's free, that was a dismal public reception. But if you take into account the problems I bring up in this review, it's easy to see why gamers rejected it. Given that this free title won't increase your game collector count, is it worth your time to add it to your library? I think you should give this one a miss. Although it's free, your time and storage are valuable resources, and the market is filled with superior options.