Jishogi

Immensely enjoyable despite it's faults. NO SPOILERS The bad: The art isn't very consistent, and there are a few odd decisions made in the design like unnecessary confirmation prompts, but they didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the game very much at all. EXCEPT for the movement speed. I was constantly wishing I could move faster, but even that only became annoying when I was repeating content for all the different endings. A lot of background info for the setting is placed in basically "lore books". These are completely optional, so if you don't want to spend around half an hour just reading them, you might miss some interesting info. Obviously it would be ideal if this information was naturally included in the game's narrative, but I understand why the dev made the decision to do it like this. I didn't mind at all, but this goes in the negatives section by default. The good: The puzzles are interesting and very unique. The concept is very original as far as I know, and they were enjoyable to solve (save for one or two that I got stuck on for a while). If you don't like the puzzles, or are just here for the story/characters, you can skip them by pressing backspace. Speaking of the story, it's very good! The writing is great and I would say it's the strongest point of the game. It starts a little slow in the first act, but never felt like a drag to get through. Total length is fairly short too, so nothing overstays its welcome. I enjoyed every minute of it, and went out of my way to test out different combinations of choices just to see the small changes in the dialogue and endings. As for the characters, the star of the show is the cute blonde girl. She's the best, I love her. She's sassy and annoying. She makes bad jokes and insults the protagonist. She can be incredibly rude and selfish too. So basically she's perfect... Jokes aside, she and the protagonist are very well written, and the look inside their heads that we get really makes them grow on you. Even the side characters were interesting and compelling additions to the story 10/10. (btw the dev says they weren't completely satisfied with Fifield's sprites, but I think the artist knocked it out of the park). Finally, the music. I'm not the type to actively focus very much on background music, but I can still say this: it's good. I genuinely did enjoy the OST and each piece fit the scene where it played very well and contributed to my enjoyment. Overall I'd highly recommend giving it a try, even if you're not into the puzzle aspect of the game (just skip them if you want). I wish the dev had more time to polish this up to it's maximum potential because it deserves it. As it stands, it's still great and most importantly, I wish I had more of it.

It's peak Yuri Don't worry about the puzzles too much. On first-timer intended settings it feels more like a physics puzzler. What with your pieces moving in a line until they're stopped or bounced off a wall.

This is an amazing game with one of the best written stories I've seen. Can't recommend playing it enough. Its nice and concentrated in the story it wishes to tell, which it uses for its full effect. This game's story is pinging around my head like a dvd screen saver. The puzzles are also really solid. They provide a decent challenge. Though most of the time you can just brute force your way through them if you don't want to think. Over All, LOVE THIS GAME! No game before has ever gotten me to want to tell other people about it to the point of writing a review. But this game sure has. It is so underappreciated. This game deserves to be a cult classic. I am so happy I found out about this game.

good game. I like the story and the sprites. developer, I hope you make more games. I made a video with all endings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFREsgZhGIs

A quick note before we begin: [i]Jishogi[/i] is NOT a horror rpg game like [i]Mad Father[/i] or [i]Ib[/i]. While the game does present dark themes, these themes are not used in a way that is meant to scare players in a traditional sense. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [i]Jishogi[/i] is an interesting game. The problem with [i]Jishogi[/i] is that it's trying to cater to two types of audiences that don't (in my opinion) mesh well together. The gameplay centers around chess and shogi. For the unaware, shogi is a Japanese game that like chess, is held at a competitive level. You DO NOT need to know how to play shogi in order to play this game. While it would be helpful, the gameplay itself does not require you to know the ins and outs of either shogi OR chess. You basically just click on pieces and send them in the direction that the arrow is pointing. Your goal is to capture all pieces on the other side. It's a pretty simple concept but can get VERY challenging later on, ESPECIALLY in the second half of the game. And it's this challenge that makes [i]Jishogi[/i] seem jarring compared to its Visual Novel aesthetic. Cause you see, [i]Jishogi[/i] is both part strategy and part Visual Novel. The story of [i]Jishogi[/i] (in my opinion) is its strongest point. I really enjoyed the story. And while I did appreciate the gameplay, the complexity of the puzzles and the way they functioned just didn't work for me (and I assume the same goes for many others). If you're a VN player and just want to enjoy the story, then unfortunately you're gonna have to play the puzzles. If your a hardcore strategist, then you may not be interested in the story at all. Just to clarify, I am NOT saying that strategy and VN's don't work well together. What I am saying is that the difficulty of the game is a such a large curve that it can hamper the experience for some players. (And yes there is an easy mode, though even easy mode can still be quite challenging at times). This difficulty also presents some pacing problems as one moment, you're learning about something important and then the next, you’re stuck on a puzzle for 2 hours just trying to capture another piece. Compare this to other rpg maker games, where at least the gameplay feels more interactive with the story. Like when your character has to move places or interact with the environment in order to solve puzzles as seen in games such as [i]OneShot[/i] or [i]To the Moon[/i]. Although shogi and chess are thematically part of this game, the gameplay itself does not lend to a more interactive experience with the characters. Like I think it would've been cool if there was something that tied both shogi and chess together. [spoiler]Maybe a showdown between Mayu and Fifield using their representative games? Don't know how that would work but just a suggestion.[/spoiler] Thankfully, there is a skip feature that allows for players like me to enjoy the story without the stress of the gameplay and I am grateful that the developer decided to leave this in. Speaking of story, I find it to be very well written. It is a bit confusing at first but when things are finally revealed, it feels very satisfying. Although the plot feels a bit contrived in the way its presented, the characters themselves feel like very real people. They have relatable flaws and weaknesses but also many strengths. Ultimately, the themes of selfishness, morality, choices, and forgiveness are at the center of this game and are all messily tied (in a good way) at the ending. One gripe I did have with the storytelling though is that much of the lore presented in this game is unfortunately told in long winded word exposition you find in books. While I don't hate this kind of "encyclopedia" storytelling, I'd much rather experience the lore though the characters and story rather than having it spelled out for me in writing. Some of the exposition seems unnecessary and makes the books feel very wordy and otherwise bloated. You could probably cut out half of it and you still wouldn't miss much. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All in all, you’re probably wondering, do I recommend this game? And my answer to that is... it depends. Because in all seriousness, [i]Jishogi[/i] truly is unique in the world of rpg maker games. I can't think of a single game that replicates the style of gameplay seen in this one. The closest games I could say that are "vaguely" similar would be [i]OneShot[/i] (or any rpg maker puzzle game in terms of style). And even then I'm stretching it a bit. So, if you like traditional rpg maker puzzle games then yes, I would recommend, but I say this VERY lightly. As the challenging nature of the gameplay may turn players away. On the other hand, if you like strategy games like chess or shogi (or similar) then yeah I'd recommend it. The story would just be supplemental regardless of whether you like it or not. Just a note, despite my review of the game, I can definitely tell that the creator put a lot of love and hard work into this. I’ve quite enjoyed my time with it so here’s my final say. Keeping what I said in mind earlier, I’d definitely recommend at least giving it a try if you like any aspect of rpg maker games or strategy/puzzle games in general. You might vibe with it, you might not, but for the price it’s not too bad and who knows, you might be pleasantly surprised in the end. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [i]I hate this game we play, but I still play it[/i] ~ Fifield

Fun puzzle thing. Cool story

A fun rpg maker game, the puzzles are pretty cool and I really like the story, the only negative is that the character walks quite slowly so backtracking is a bit clunky. EDIT: with the 2.0 update the dev has added running :D yay thank youu

[h2] Joya oculta [/h2] Es el mejor juego de estilo novela que he jugado y se ha vuelto mi favorito de este estilo. recomiendo vehementemente que prueben este increible juego. Su historia es un 10. El arte visual es un 9 ya que a veces se ve borroso. La jugabilidad es un 9, es bastante comodo el movimiento aunque te cansas de tener que caminar por tantos lugares. Y por ultimo los puzles serian tambien un 9 ya que es dificil seguir el camino de las piezas con los ojos, aun asi no es realmente dificil, pero muchas veces te pierdes en seguir la trayectoria de las piezas. Por ultimo me gustaria decir que no es necesario saber jugar al ajedrez o al shogi para jugar el juego. Es solo una especie de "tematica" pero realmente no tiene muchas similitudes con estos juegos

For its price bracket, it's a great game. The story is short but thoughtful, and the puzzles are quite creative. I would say there are slightly too many puzzles for the payoff of solving them, but that's just a minor issue after the skip function was implemented. Slight spoiler below: It's possible to get the best ending with or without crafting the peace offering, so there are two versions of it where in one of them features Mayu gratifying herself in terms of her attraction towards Fifi. While Fifi does state that she doesn't mind if you choose to do this, and nobody else is affected by this, it still does not technically pass moral muster. All this being said, however, it's one of those things that is very hard to resist doing since it has no negative consequences. The question of which version of this ending is better will vary depending on the individual.

The story is very interesting and unique. Don't want to spoil too much, but I like how many different ending options there are. There's a lot of different choices you can make to impact it. There is quite a lot of reading if you want to get the full story - that's probably the only downside. The puzzles can be challenging but not ridiculously hard. Overall a really pleasant experience. Hope the developer makes more games.