Game Review: Master Chess (MSX, Mastertronic)

Master Chess, according to Mastertronic, has been designed to be a no-frills chess playing program of advanced ability which is easy to use. The instructions note this in further detail with the ability to pause the game at any time, and effectively either re-arrange the pieces to a position of your advantage to work from, or start from a blank board and add the pieces as you need. In theory this means you could recreate a puzzle from a newspaper or magazine and play against the computer opponent, staging your own scenarios The instructions are comprehensive and it is well worth reading them whilst the game loads, including the useful set of commands when you pause the game, and what they do.  It makes a pleasant change to see that as it helps you immensely.

Knights of the Square Chess Board

When the game initially loads, albeit with no loading screen but with a fast loader in place, there is a very sensible colour scheme here for the MSX version. The chess board itself is red and yellow, with the black and white pieces able to be easily visible and stand out. You also have a nice sized blue cursor pointer when it is your move so you can position this as you need when making a move. You are asked to select black or white, and then the amount of thinking time (in seconds) that the computer opponent is allowed for each move. Anything under twenty seconds and the MSX will beep at you, so it seems that this figure is the absolute minimum. There is, like all the other versions of this game, no two-player mode, which would have at least allowed you to play a friend and have a game of chess. It is a big miss here and would have made it stand out more from the crowd too. If you select black, the board is rotated 180 degrees so that your starting pieces are always at the bottom of the board no matter which colour you choose.

Whoever is white starts the game first, and the grid is laid out with letters A to H along the top, and 1 to 8 along the right-hand side vertically – no matter which colour you choose. On this version, you move the pointer to the square with the piece on, press fire, then move the pointer to the destination square, and press fire again. If using keyboard, the default keys are not the cursor keys and space, which seems daft for a MSX game – why not set that correctly? You can pause the game with the RETURN key when it is your move, press 9 to redefine the keys, and enter the movement and fire keys, and then use option 1 to return back to the game. Once the move is the moves are checked and validated, and if incorrect you will be told, and in addition, you forfeit the turn and it goes to your opponent – but this can cause problems later in the game.

A Rook in a Book

As mentioned, can also press RETURN when it is your move for the options screen. Here you can return to the game, change the thinking time for the computer opponent, as well as re-arrange the board (or set up as a blank board), placing the pieces on the board to your hearts content. You select the piece you wish to amend with the pointer, and then select the destination square with the pointer and press fire again. You can also use the set-up play option to set the board as you want, selecting a square and cycling through piece choices with up and down and pressing fire to select. You can also replay the game from the start, pressing space or fire for each next move. You can also load or save a game – however it is always the same file, so one game per blank cassette, and start a new game should you wish to do so. And you can finally start afresh should you wish to do so.

As you play the moves, they are all recorded on the right-hand side of the board (and are replayed when using the replay option) and has notational shorthand, so C7xC5 might be a move from a rook (or castle) and taking another piece, moving from C7 to C5. You seemingly cannot force a best move out of the computer either during play if you wanted to speed up the game – you can try by pressing RETURN in vain, but it does not work. Something to bear in mind here, and make sure you set the right amount of time before you start to ease the pain a little bit. That said, the computer opponent does at least stick to the time limit and places a best move if it cannot think of anything else within that time.

Do You Take Cash or Check

All the standard chess rules are present and correct here, having checked them during a few games of play – even the en passant moves for the pawns, or to take the rook or castle along with the king (although getting to that point may be difficult.) Once you are in check, you need to come out of that by any way possible. However, here is where a nasty bug also surfaces. If you select a piece and then select a square for its destination, and it proves to be an invalid move, you are technically still in check and what should happen is that you get to go again and correct that error. Because you do not, the computer will try and “take” the king, meaning you have nothing to defend and can actually go on to try and get a result, as it gets itself confused. I had the same happen the other way when the computer was in check and made a move which did not take it out of check either (thus an illegal move), so had to re-put him back in. Seems like the intelligence needed here failed somewhat.  What would have worked better on your move is a “try again” message after any illegal move, and, therefore, still play the same move but with the right squares selected. This would have worked well and it means you would have to play the correct move.

In any case, if you do not encounter that issue, the speed of the game on the quickest thinking time means more often than not, you will be carefully plotting the computer’s downfall. Being able to use the pointer to place your pieces rather than using the letter and number notation is an improvement, and once you get used to that, you will find it plays very well. It is also good to see that some design considerations such as the board colours mean that everything is visible and correct too, with the board and information well laid out to be easy to read. Sometimes, less is more.  You can also set up your own puzzle as mentioned, so you can replicate those newspaper challenges you used to get, and once you start one of those, it does become quite good to see how you may have fared. Yes, it still has the in-check bug, but at least you can carry on and see what might have happened instead.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Master Chess are reasonable, and thanks to a sensible board colour scheme, all the pieces are visible as is the pointer used for selecting the squares, which works really nicely. Each of the pieces are recognisable as to what they represent with the board in two dimensions. There is also very little in the way of sound effects, just the odd noise here and there when you make a move or put in an incorrect move. The MSX had a good sound chip so I am not sure, especially considering plenty of memory was left, why it could not have had a relaxing piece of music playing as you and the computer opponent make the moves to win.

Final Thoughts

Master Chess is attempting to be a functional chess game with additional features such as moving the board around to your liking or setting up a puzzle to play from. The lack of two-player mode is a big miss, as playing against a friend would have enhanced the gameplay. Although the rules are there, and the colour scheme for the board is sensible, and you can see everything clearly, the bugs around illegal moves and when being in check means that you can effectively end the game with no king left yourself but putting the opponent in checkmate. The game does have promise but the execution sadly lets it down. There are better chess games available for the MSX, such as Colossus Chess 4 from CDS, or Superchess from Kuma, and I would recommend one of those two to play instead.

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