Single Comment

I have a 7x7 board and two chess sets and I tried this game. This game is all tactics and uninspired tactics to that (as you can drop anywhere you want). There is a rule for pawn promotion but you are unlikely to ever see a promotion in this game because once the drops start they never end. In general I feel this is a problem of drops as such. Chess is a game which pieces are subject to various restraints and you need good coordination and management to overcome these restrictions. Thus chess is a game of coordination. Drops destroy this very idea by allowing you to drop pieces anywhere on the board. The moment you make a drop every piece becomes all-powerful - it can go to any free place on the board. This essentially destroys the structure of the game. In original shogi the problem is alleviated somewhat because pieces are slow and the board is rather large. But here it is the other way round. The board is small and the standard chess pieces are very fast so the game becomes a heavy-handed slaughter. In general I am of opinion that the shogi idea of drops is one of the worst concepts in game design ever.