336 · Battle Chess
Battle Chess is a quite typical chess game, but it comes with a twist: all pieces are represented by small, realistic figures that walk around on the chessboard, and when one piece takes another, they both take part in an animated battle. There is a different animation for each permutation, depending on which pieces are capturing or being captured. You can also play in 2D without animation.
The back of the box says "It took 2000 years for someone to make chess better," and we checked: that is the real box copy. Mike, Sean and Joe were on this one. What "better" means here is animation. The rules are untouched, and your pieces now walk across the board and act out each capture. Interplay published it, the same company behind Fallout and Baldur's Gate, and Brian Fargo of Wasteland worked on it, which surprised us.
What works
- The captures have personality. Every pairing has its own little scene, which means every combination had to be programmed Knight takes Knight, Knight takes Bishop and so on. The king occasionally pulls out a gun, and the rook is a golem that eats whatever it takes. The best ones were the movie nods, like Monty Python and Indiana Jones.
- Holding B shows where a piece can go. That is the most advanced feature we found.
- A 2D mode strips out the animation. It's quicker, though the piece still blinks a few times before it moves.
What doesn't
- Nothing here is fun more than once. The first Pawn takes Rook is a treat. After that you want to play chess, and the game makes you wait. A bishop can take around 45 seconds to trudge across the board while other pieces shuffle aside for him, which killed any immersion. A knight should be leaping over people, and nobody should politely step out of its way.
- No features. Earlier chess games had puzzles, training and tutorials. This one has none.
- Menu-less start. After the copyright screen you are simply in a game, with no title screen and no mode select. We wondered if it was finished, and you have to menu through the first game it sets up for you to change anything.
- The name. We expected Archon, where captures turn into little fights with their own stats. Joe called "Illustrated Chess" a fairer title. We argued whether a pawn with a real chance against a queen would be a better game or one we'd hate, and never settled it.
Beyond the game
The series just kept going. We counted Battle Chess Enhanced in 1991 with nicer graphics and the same walking speed, a CDTV version with spoken intros, Battle Chess 2 on Chinese chess, a 2015 Steam remake where the pieces still crawl, and a cancelled Battle Chess 3 with early CG footage. The original appeared on everything from the Amiga to the FM Towns. Our guess is it was cheap to make and earned more than the cartridge cost to print. Our pitches for a sequel included a two-board chess variant and a Tamagotchi mode where a pawn evolves.
The bottom line
Skip it. All three of us voted no, which extended a long drought of games that didn't make the list. Sean's advice is sound: if you want a computer opponent, a cheap Panasonic chess set will do. The animations are tedious, and without them it is just chess with a lot of obstacles.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- It took 2000 years for someone to make chess better
- NES Longplay
- Manual
- It’s chess with animation
- there are a total of 35 different battle animations.
- the knight versus knight animation references the black knight fight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the king versus bishop fight pastiches the short battle between Indiana Jones and a swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- Show all moves by holding B
- The game can be also played in a 2D version with no animation
- Sequels and Spinoffs
- The Amiga CDTV version has a fully voiced introduction describing the movements of the pieces for the benefit of beginners.
- A sequel titled Battle Chess II: Chinese Chess was released in 1991, based on xiangqi, commonly known as "Chinese chess". 1992's Battle Chess 4000 spoofed science fiction movies and television series (such as a battle sequence involving the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey) and used a clay-animation art style similar to ClayFighter.
- In 1991, Battle Chess Enhanced was released by Interplay for IBM PC compatibles and Macintosh with improved VGA graphics and a symphonic musical score played from the CD-ROM.
- A remake, Battle Chess: Game of Kings, was released on Steam on December 11, 2015.
- On December 28, 2015, Brian Fargo revealed that he had started working on a second sequel of the game titled Battle Chess 3 in the late 1990s but the game was cancelled. He also released a footage of the prototype of the game.
- Essential Games List Vote
- Next week
- NEStalgia Byte
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Battle Chess. It took 2000 years for someone to make chess better. Battle Chess.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And we've made the joke before when playing chess video games about like chess 2 and when is that going to come out? And did they kind of lean into that a little bit with the back of the box there? It took 2000 years for someone to make chess better. Oh, that's the real back of the box? That's the real back of the box. Do you think I'm saying that? You think I'm just giving out?
Yeah, it's always the real back. Right. Well, I mean, this one sounded like one of the... Because we've had situations where it's like, oh, I just had to say something because yada yada, but no, I mean, I'm just surprised that they would be that bold. If you're going to go for it, if you're going to say buy chess because we made it better, that's the only way to say it, right? Emphasize how long chess has been around, which isn't true. It hadn't been around for 2000 years by that point.
And not by this point either. I could have sworn that there was some stuff from a little book called The Bible that talked about chess. But they didn't even have guns when The Bible was out. That's true. But they didn't have guns in the original chess either. They do have guns in chess. There's guns in battle chess. True. Which is what makes it better. I guess there are. Yeah, depending on which set you get, right? Isn't that the interesting thing about chess?
There's the standard set that everybody can buy or whatever, but then there's Simpsons chess and Mario chess and whatever you wanted to make. There's all the different chess boards where you have to look for a few seconds longer to be like, wait, is this a pawn? Yeah, that's why I don't like any of those chess sets. I just want to know how to, because, because like, you know, once, maybe you'll know what the initial like lineup is, but once you start playing for a bit, everything is all scrambled.
Yeah. I have a Harry Potter chess set, which is nice because it's Harry Potter themed, but the Harry Potter theme is Harry Potter chess. So there's still chess pieces. So it's like, yeah, it's a themed thing, but it's still just chess. Well, here's a question for you, Joe, since you're on the Harry Potter chess set, is like who the bishop is on a white side the same as blacks? Or is it like, you know, Slytherin and Gryffindor? I think it's the same. I think it's like, it's like... What a missed opportunity.
I think it's like universal wizard chess. It's not like Hogwarts wizard chess, you know? Right. Oh, you're talking about in my chess? Yeah. It's the chess from the movie, which is just like their version of chess. You mean like giant chess? Yes, giant chess. Isn't their version of giant chess just battle chess?
Kinda, yeah. I mean, their version of regular chess is just battle chess. It might be, now don't quote me on this, but it might be a little tiny bit faster than battle chess. Just a little bit. But otherwise it's similar. What do you mean? You don't like to just sort of lumber around and then you're not really sure what's happening because they just sort of start like stepping around each other. Yeah, yeah.
One gets out of the way for the other. You know, it's like, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. I mean, like the knight should be on a horse and like jumping over people. Like the enemy shouldn't ever get out of the way for you. You know, I lost all immersion at that point. Absolutely. And what you guys are talking about is back to the reference of the back of the box. It took 2000 years for someone to make chess better.
Better means that it has animation now. That is what they changed here. They didn't change the rules of chess at all. They didn't change how the pieces function or even an additional silly mode of chess. It is just this time the chess pieces can walk across the board. Granted, you have to still tell them where to go. But they'll walk across the board and then a fun little cut scene that is obviously predetermined based on, you know, who's capturing who will play out showing the combat.
And to their credit, the animation is not just some dry, like, you know, soldiers on a battlefield striking one another. I mean, some of them are. Yeah, sure. And some of them are. But then occasionally, as referenced earlier, the king will just like pull out a gun or the golem will just eat you alive. The golem being the rook, of course. Everybody always thought that the rook was a golem, right?
I mean, I guess it kind of is because it's like a living castle, right? That is weird. I never saw it that way or thought that it was like some kind of creepy otherly being. I mean, I also never did. But I'm thinking about it now. Why is it the only thing that's not a living person?
Well, you know, from the, like the canon, like the deep lore of chess, that's just sort of how castles are built. Like, you know, like in Game of Thrones, I haven't seen it, but I imagine that like there's a castle that walks around. Oh, right, right. But is there anything else missing or anything I'm missing in highlighting what makes battle chess specifically different than regular chess?
There are, you know, there are no rule changes. So other than adding some fun little animations to the chess game, right? It would basically be like if they, I'm pretty sure we are going to play an NES Monopoly game at some point. If that doesn't have animation, then that's just Monopoly on NES. Right. If it has animations to it, should we start calling that Battle Monopoly?
If they battle. It really is a, like a kind of a misnomer title. Like, I thought that this was kind of going to be like Archon, in that it was going to be chess that, like, because it even, it cuts to a little cut scene when, when you interact. And that's like where Mike was talking about all of the ways that they can die or shoot people. Um, and for some reason I thought it was going to be similar to in Archon where it cuts to that little cut scene where you can actually fight. But then I guess that isn't chess anymore, but maybe it could have been battle chess.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. I mean, like Archon, as much as it looks like a version of chess, it's not. The rules aren't like chess. It's got its own strategy. It's got its own rules. It's own game. I thought it would be kind of cool to have a game that has the rules of chess in some way.
But, like, the defender, you know, if, if, if a pawn is about to take the, you know, your queen, then, like, the queen might have some advantage. Like, maybe, even though, even though the pawn, like, got the, the jump on her because of, like, the positioning, maybe there's some way you can, like, take control in the battle and there's stats or whatever. Like, that would make it different than regular chess. And I'm not saying that that would even be fun. Like, that might, like, I might hate that, but what, I, I think that a, a, a, a more apt title to this game would be, like, uh, illustrated chess.
Yeah. Um, yeah. And it is cool, like, that they had to program, like, a scenario for every possible combination of people battling, I guess. Knight takes knight, knight takes bishop, yada yada. Exactly, yeah. And they have, they have a nice little different fun thing each time. But, you know, the problem being is that it's fun to watch the first time to see what's going to happen, how they're going to make it, you know, look like the, yeah, the, the pawn takes a rook or whatever. But then after that, it's like, okay, now I want to play chess. And it takes a long time.
Well, Joe, thankfully there's another mode where you can just play what they call 2D chess, where it just removes the animations and you just play chess with their, uh, figures. And so you don't have to. Yeah, 2D is a weird way to word it because it's all 2D. And real chess is 3D. Like, there's nothing about it. Yeah, it's all 2D. Uh, but. But it's got the classic, like, icons. Yeah, yeah. I mean, classic chess would have, would have sufficed, I think. Non-animated chess.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even the, the 2D version, it's a lot faster than the regular version, but it's still just way too slow. I select where I want to go and then, like, it stops and, like, the piece blinks a couple times and then it disappears and then it blinks a couple times in the spot. And, like, I don't know. It's fine. You usually take, if you're not, if you're not timed, you usually take some good time between moves anyways. But when I'm playing against the computer, sometimes I just want to keep things moving.
It's just, like, the game does not want that to happen. Okay, in 1993, which really isn't too far away from 1990, uh, Star Wars chess is gonna come out on, um, computers and Sega CD and that's probably about it. But, like, that, that's gonna come out. And I think, even though that's just the same normal chess, right, except for now Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader can go toe-to-toe instead of two random kings you've never heard of, um, I think with the appeal there works a little bit more because you are, you have established characters that you kind of want to see, like, everybody's animation for.
I want to see how Luke Skywalker defeats every single one of the Empire's pawns, etc., you know? Like, here, I don't think I really cared about it beyond the funny ones that were references to movies like Monty Python or Indiana Jones. So, when, when it's just, like, a straight-up actual battle between a knight and a, um, and a pawn, it's like, well, that was, that was a waste of time.
You know, like, well, I mean... You wouldn't control anything. To, to Sean's point, if it was more like Archon and it kind of became, like, a, uh, 1v1 fight where you at least maybe had, I don't know, not stats, but, like, obviously the knight should be more powerful, but if you can out-time him or something, the pawn could potentially take back the move. That would run some real risk implications to every single thing that you do, because if, uh, if you put your rook up against a pawn and there's not a 100% guaranteed chance of capture, you might second-think those moves and it might make the chess game a little more, uh, strategic.
Yeah, and just to, to further develop this game, this imaginary chess game that the three of us are making right now, I, I think you'd have to also have, not, not only, like, oh yeah, of course the, you know, the knight is, is stronger than a pawn, but you'd also have to have an advantage if you are, if you're in a position where in regular chess you would take the other thing. Like, if a pawn is about to take a knight in regular chess, that should give you something to make it still play like regular chess, you know?
Or else you would never use your pawn to take anything, because it would be the weakest thing on the board no matter what. I think we would hate that game. I think that, you know, you say, you, you, you can say that, uh, it might add some strategy, but this is already a strategic game. I think adding randomness makes it less so.
Is it random, though? That's what I'm saying. I'm saying not add randomness, but add, like, the thing, alright, you, you, you have a pawn diagonal to, to a knight. The pawn in regular chess takes the knight, so, in this case, now the pawn has a major health or, or power advantage, but the knight still has a chance to defend itself, kind of like a knight.
I think you are adding randomness, because you're removing, like, before, like, if, if it, if it works out that a knight moves into a bishop spot, or if any, if any piece enters the spot that a, that, that an enemy piece is in, it is a certainty that that piece disappears from the board. It is no longer a certainty that that piece disappears from the board, and you can move a piece into a spot, and then it gets blown up.
That's adding randomness, because it's now, it's based off of, like, your, I don't see that as randomness. I don't think I'm saying randomness, though, I'm saying, like, you have to then make it, like, an actual, like, street fighter fight, where, Right. The knight is clearly superior, has, whether it's more health or stronger attacks, like, is able to, uh, do more damage against the pawn, but now it's a, it's a skill level of, like, if you're good enough at the game, your pawn can take down anyone.
I, I, I, I agree that that is a thing that this game sounds like. Like, that, that, that, that's what it sounds like this game is. I, I think that, like, why even call it chess at that point then? Uh, like, I, I'm saying that, that, yes, that's what I thought this game was going to be, but I don't think that that would have been a good game. I think we would have disliked that. I mean, I think, I think that there's potential for that to be a good game. I don't think that, like, if you go in expecting chess and you play that, I think you're going to be mad.
But I think if you go in expecting, like, oh, this is a weird thing, like, how does this work? Because it's going to be a little different than chess. I think that it, it could be. They'd probably screw it up, but it could be cool, you know?
It's also just interesting that if you're expecting chess, uh, just how few chess features you get. When I was writing down, uh, what to include here in previous chess games, we had, um, we went as far as puzzles and we went as far as training and learning the game and tutorials. In this one, it's the most advanced feature I could find was that if you hold down the B button while it's your turn, you can see all the possible moves of where your cursor, whatever object your cursor is currently on. So you can see everywhere your queen can theoretically go by holding down the B button. And I'm like, that's it in terms of features?
Uh, that's, it's rough, you know? When I'm writing up bullet points for the show here, most of it relies on the animation because that is their standout thing. I just think they should have leaned into, uh, something else with the animation then, right? I think we're all agreeing that there's just not enough to that. Uh, there's, there's not enough variety. There should have been more randomness, uh, in terms of what you see done between, uh, these, or more movie references. Like, I don't know. I just feel like what I got. Yeah, I guess if it was faster, more variety, like there should be several Knight Takes Pawn, uh, animations. And they all should happen very smoothly.
Uh, I remember when I was younger, I don't remember what it was called, but it was some PC-10. chess game that we had on the family computer that there were like 20 something different, like, skins. And a couple of them were animated. And now, granted, this was a Windows game with some pseudo 3D. So, there was a bit more horsepower behind these animations. So, it could be smooth and it could be quick. But, like, that was kind of fun because it could still be, like, low variety as long as it happens, like, smoothly.
Um, whereas in this, like, the animation is sort of a hindrance because now it's just slowing down the pace of the game. Yeah, and it's not only, like, the battles that we're talking about that are slow. Like, literally, when you move your piece, I don't know why it's like this. But, like, the, you know, you move your bishop and he, like, trudges across the board. Like, God forbid you're moving, like, far across the board because, I mean, it honestly will take, like, 45 seconds for him to get into the position that you want him to. Maybe longer than that. And then other things are going to move out of the way slowly. So, keep going.
You know, it's just nobody's in it. Even people who are interested in the animation, nobody is in it to see these things walk across the board. So, you know, like, just let them move, let them run. I used to have a, uh, this is even before that PC game. I used to have, like, a physical, uh, chess board with, like, a membrane top. I mean, maybe you guys had one of these, too. And the board itself had the computer in it. And, uh, I think that was probably a, uh, a more, an easier way to play chess than battle chess.
Well, on the sequels and spinoff side, they did have a few, uh, future iterations of battle chess. Yes, uh, the Amiga CD TV version, which, uh, raise your hand if you ever heard of that before. Uh, is it done? Is it built into a TV? Is that why it's called CD TV? Or is it just, like, a Sega CD?
But, I don't know. I didn't research that part. But the battle chess version for the Amiga CD TV, uh, added fully voiced introductions describing, uh, the movements of the different pieces. So that there was at least some kind of tutorialization of the game. But didn't you think it was gonna be fully voiced, like, completely when I was reading that? Like, not just, like, oh, we added an intro that explains how the game works. And then we left the game as is.
Wait, like, so there's, like, there's dialogue? Like, the pieces talk to each other now? There's no. See, that's what I'm saying. Didn't you think that's what I was getting to? Yeah. Instead, it's just, like, we added this thing before you start playing battle chess that explains how the pieces in chess move. Wow. Well, okay, but that is something I thought was kind of weird. And this is, like, this is, like, getting granular now. But you boot up battle chess. And, like, for me, I didn't even get to the mint, to, like, the, the, not even menu, the title screen. It was just, like, the copyright information. And then I, like, pressed A or start or whatever. And then it's, like, the game had started.
There's no menu. You don't select your mode or anything. There's no press start to begin. Which is fine. It was just weird to me. It just felt, like, it felt kind of just thrown in there. Because there was no menu or anything, I was, like, is this game finished? Yes, that is true. Because you're right. You have to then menu through that first game that it sets up for you to change anything about it. Which just feels awkward. You should always, according to every NES game we've ever played, you should always set up everything first and then go into the game. Right. I think it would have been more on brand if it gave you a blank, a blank chessboard and then each, like, like, like, like coming out onto a stage, each piece slowly trudges to its spot.
Yeah. Like, I mean, they do that in Arkham, but it's, but it's fast and cool. And you can skip it, I think. Mm-hmm. In 1991, a year later after this release, Battle Chess Enhanced was released for the PC and Mac. And it really is just updated graphics. Most of even the battle animations remain the same. And they didn't even fix the speed or, you know, the walking speed of the characters or anything or their specific looks or whatever. It's just, like, hey, nicer graphics. So I guess that's all you could expect in a year's time. But does that deserve the enhanced moniker? I guess it's not. I guess it's describing it.
I mean, does this mean that this was, like, well-received? That it's getting all this, like, love after the fact? I think it was just cheap. Yeah. I think it's cheap to make. And they made more money than it cost to print the cart.
Who made this? Is this, like, anybody we've heard of? Interplay Productions. Interplay? Interplay Productions. The one we know? Or, like, some other Interplay? Well, what else do we know by Interplay? Well, Interplay, like, was the company that released, like, Fallout. Yes. The very same. I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Wow.
Publisher of Baldur's Gate. I see the Fallout, you know, DNA in this. Absolutely. Yep. So, the very same. And, yes, it was, Joe, to your point. And probably Sean's right on something about, at least the production side, cheap to make. I don't know if it was cheap to buy. But it was released on everything, too. So, it was just kind of ubiquitous. It was like, for the video gamer who needs chess, we've got you covered. Because you're on the Amiga, the 3DO, something called the Archimedes, the CD32, the CDTV, the Apple IIGS, the Atari ST, the Commodore 64, the FM Towns, the PC-98. That's what I was waiting to hear, the FM Towns.
You knew it was coming to FM Towns. Absolutely. So, what would you do with Battle Chess 2? And, spoiler alert, there is one. So, if you were Interplay and you were hugely successful with Battle Chess, what would Battle Chess 2 be, knowing that you already did Battle Chess Enhanced with, like, a, you know, graphical overhaul?
I would have Battle Chess with different, like, quirky ways of playing chess. And I'm not talking about what we were talking about before. But, like, there's a, I don't remember what it's called, but there's a way to play chess where you have two chess boards. And two people are, you know, two people are playing. And if you take the white queen, then that white queen goes to the other white player playing the other side. So, you can have, everyone's always trading pieces to these two games, and then whichever color wins both games ends up winning. And it's called Battle Chess 2 boards.
Yes. Love it. That's interesting. I think. No, I would make each, like, I think that there would just be regular chess, and it would just be this game with the really slow animations. But there's a second mode where you can just pick a piece to be, like, a Tamagotchi.
And you, like, feed them. And, like, if it's, you can, like, have little, like, there's little mini games where you can, like, scratch their chin. I think that'd be pretty cool. And if we're going Tamagotchi, I think it would be cool that if you could, like, yeah, you have a little, you're taking care of a little pawn, and then it'll, like, eventually evolve into, like, a bishop. Or, like, alternatively, it'll evolve into a rook, and eventually you get it to be a queen. No, no, no. You raise it. Pawns are lowborn. They will never become kings and queens. Well, they could become knights. Sure. Yeah. And then maybe something else becomes something else.
Or maybe it could become, like, a weird duck thing, like Tamagotchi's did. Battle Chess 2. Abandoned traditional chess for Chinese chess. Chinese chess? Chinese chess. I believe it's called Jiang Qi. Which is also just known as Chinese chess here in the West. But it's just a completely, it's the same idea, same, like, you know, hey, let's add all these fun animations and everything. But hopefully they included a tutorial for this one, because I don't know about you guys, but I don't know the rules of Chinese chess. I definitely don't know the rules. They know that that was a thing. I know Chinese checkers.
Yes, which was what I was wondering. I was like, is that what that is? But apparently, no. Chinese chess is different. And it's also different than Shogi, which is Japanese chess.
Shogi I played thanks to Clubhouse 52 on Nintendo Switch. But never heard of Chinese chess before. I mean, I'll check it out. Why not? The problem with Chinese chess, at least in the game that they made, is that the board requires, like, a lot of different directions. It's not just a 64 square board. It, like, allows a lot of different ways.
Is it, like, hex? No, no, no. It's still, it's still, sorry. It's still a square board. But I just mean, like, you can walk in a lot of different directions depending on where you are. And then you can only walk forward. And then you can start walking in a bunch of different directions again. I don't like that. So everything got, like, in order to fit it on the screen, everything got kind of, like, scrunched in, which makes everything look really stretched.
Which is just not a good decision. Instead, there's got to be another way to emulate that. But I've never seen another version of Chinese chess done on video games. So maybe this is just a, this is the great barrier for humanity or for civilization. Nobody has been able to put Chinese chess on a video game. And that's usually what collapses society. Jeez. In 2015. All right, let's jump ahead. There was a remake of Battle Chess called Battle Chess Game of Kings released on Steam. And believe it or not, they still did not fix the speed of which these characters walk around. And it's on Steam. There's not even, like, a slider? I didn't see a slider in the playthrough that I watched. But I only watched so much of it because they were walking so slow.
Also in 2015, about, like, 17 days after the release of that game, Brian Fargo, who was, I guess, the creator of Battle Chess, or at least a lead developer on it, revealed that he was working on a Battle Chess 3. You've got to be kidding me that Brian Fargo worked on this game. Brian Fargo revealed that he had started working on Battle Chess 3 in the late 1990s. But who was Brian Fargo? He's, like, another, like, CRPG guy. Like, he worked on Wasteland and stuff. Like, it's, geez, this is wild to me. This is, like, this is what I usually dedicate a whole section for, and I'm just, like, stealth dropping it in the tickles and spinoffs.
But Wasteland, if you take a look, that was interplay. So it's all connected. Yeah. I just thought maybe this was, like, a part of interplay. Like, this is before they got into, like, cool stuff, and they were still doing shovelware. But maybe, you know, some of the names that I know were, like, you know, they're not above shovelware. So when did Fallout 1, like, come out?
I don't know, like, 94-ish? Okay, okay. Because in 91, Interplay worked with Nintendo to make Mario teaches typing, which is just insane to say out loud. But, yeah, the same people. That is a computer game, one of the few Super Mario Bros. computer games in which, you know, Mario just walked. Sorry, 1997. Okay. Yeah. So some time between these. They were able to realize their potential. But they were already working on stuff, right? Didn't they do, like, um...
I have no idea, actually. I'm not gonna say that that was them, but I thought A Bard's Tale. It's really funny, and I know that, like... I'm looking at the Wikipedia page for Interplay, and it's funny that they're just doing it in alphabetical order, like, in terms of all of the IPs that they've worked on. So it just goes from Baldur's Gate series to Battle Chess series.
Well, they've released enough of them. I guess. And then they've got Clay Fighter and Earthworm Jim. So, you know, it's a complete random assortment of things. So the Battle Chess 3, to go back to it, was canceled. However, a prototype footage was released. So as, like, a tease for fans. Nothing ever came of it. But it was, you know, like, really weird early CG graphics.
So this would not have been on any Nintendo console. This would have probably just been a computer game. But when I say early CG, I mean the kind of stuff Pixar was doing before Toy Story. That might have even been the game that I played. Now, if we're saying that this is, like, the definitive series of computer chess throughout the 90s, I might have owned one of these. Check out Battle Chess Enhanced.
You might have played that. Yeah. And did they walk slow? You said slightly faster. I feel like they didn't. I feel like it was faster than this. And you just had more time as a child. Yeah. You were willing to watch them walk slowly across the, from one square to another. And I know we did say this at the beginning, but it's worth mentioning again, that it is kind of funny that, like, other characters just move out of the way as they move across.
Like, there's such a wasted potential here for just, like, different variations of, like, who's fighting who, too. Like, we could have had some guerrilla war style fighting. And then some, you know, medieval fighting and then some sci-fi futuristic fighting. Like, it is wasted that there's just one set. But I get that that has to do with the fact that they could only program so many animations. And they could have also just released those as separate games, which seems like that was the plan with the Battle Chess franchise, just continuing to get release after release. But we're going to just focus on the Battle Chess on NES for our next segment, the Essential Games List.
I think we kind of covered it here. I will just say, as a fan of Chess, there was very little to be a fan of here. And I get it that, like, it's a different time period now, but that's kind of the point of the show. So I really didn't like it today, which is when it counts the most. I don't know if, like, as a kid or if, like, the idea of kind of like the first time you can put, like, a DVD into your laptop and just be like, I'm watching movies on my computer, right? Like, I suppose that that was, like, a cool moment that now nobody gives a shit about.
But it was cool back then. I guess maybe Chess with animation was worth saying that it took 2,000 years or so to make Chess better. But now we've animated it knowing that CG was on the rise and everything. Like, I could see the appeal of something like that. But it's only in hindsight nothing to look forward to now.
Sean? Yeah, I agree. I think that the only reason that these really had, that this had to have been successful just because of the novelty of seeing chess pieces walk around. And once you've seen it once, you've kind of finished it. And you may as well just play chess on a, like, against a computer on, like, a cheap, like, $20, like, Panasonic chess set. If you need to play against the computer. Joe? Yeah, nothing about this felt in any way elevated from chess. I mean, the one thing would be those fun animations and the animations heavily, were heavily outweighed by the fact that they were really tedious. You know, there was no...
After, you know, after two minutes of playing this game, I'm just like, okay, I just want to play regular chess. Like, I don't want to see these things lumber across the board. Like, while it's kind of fun to see how this piece will take out that piece. Otherwise, it's just chess with a lot of obstacles.
So, definitely not essential. Alright, that's three no's. So, once again, not essential. And it's been a minute since we've had an essential game. Um, I don't know what our longest drought is, but this is a pretty long drought. Um, you guys feeling okay to keep the show going? I think we can just drop it here. Joe? I don't know. Does it get worse? I mean, I feel like we gotta be coming... There's something coming up. We didn't get to color a dinosaur yet. Like, we got some gems coming, I'm confident. Final Fantasy's coming up. It is coming up very soon, but actually, I'm confident next week, Circus Caper is just that gem that we've all been waiting. Everybody always wanted to play a game where your sister gets kidnapped at a circus.
And this is that game, finally realized. Um, I know, uh, Todd Howard worked on this. And it's really funny to think about, uh, who might have worked on this game? Who are we going to reveal? Stay tuned for the next episode of Nostalgia. Not Next-stalgia. Uh, Friday. Every Friday, as a matter of fact. Every Friday since, uh, 2018. So, that's worth, uh, looking forward to. Because we're gonna keep doing that until, like, what'd you say, Joe? What was the math? 2034?
2032, I think. 2032. Okay, so we'll- We should just quit now. What? 2032 is right around the corner, Sean. Yeah, and, and yeah, stay tuned. Don't, don't, don't leave the podcast to come back. Like, keep the podcast running all week until next Friday. And rewind the episodes when you're done with them.
Bye. Bye.!! Thank you.
