Chess Rush
by Aethyna
Jul 10, 2019 |
1
Votes |
32
Played |
0
Reviews
10
rate
Genres:
StrategyGraphics:
3DLabels:
Fantasy Setting , Player vs Player (PvP) , ChessPlatforms:
Publishers:
Tencent Published by Tencent, Chess Rush is the latest “auto-chess” game to have hit the market recently. Featuring a lineup of amazingly-crafted heroes that you can recruit and then deploy onto the chessboard, the game offers an incredibly-addictive and competitive gameplay and a host of game modes to change things up a bit. Play Now Similar Games Played
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Summary
Chess Rush is the latest “auto-chess” game to have hit the market recently. Published by China’s tech giant, Tencent, the game features a lineup of amazingly-crafted heroes that you can recruit and then deploy onto the chessboard. In addition to offering tons of rewards to players and an incredibly-addictive and competitive gameplay, the game also provides a host of game modes that change up the gameplay quite a bit, giving the game the variety it needs to stick around.
Gameplay
If you’ve played an auto-chess game before, you should be able to easily get into the details of the game and start crafting your battle strategies the moment you reach the battlefield. However, for those of us who are first-timers, the game does have a pretty serviceable tutorial which introduces the basics of the game, such as how the game works and how you can play the game.
Generally though, the phases that players go through are very similar to a generic TCG and it works like this – the gameplay cycles between 2 phases, the Preparation phase, and the Battle phase. The Preparation phase is where you can recruit heroes to your “hand”. From the hand, you can then deploy them into battle depending on your strategy and need.
Similar to most TCGs, the number or types of heroes you can recruit depends on how many mana crystals you have for that turn and the lineup you get which is completely random… much like a card draw. The mana crystals you get will increase over time though and I’m guessing it changes slightly depending on whether you’ve won or lost the previous turn.
The heroes you recruit can also be upgraded in a way that’s similar to card upgrades or a match-3 game. You’ll need to have 3 of the same type and rank of heroes in order to “level” him up by 1 star rank. Each hero can be upgraded up to 3-stars, and naturally, the higher level your hero is, the stronger he will be.
The heroes are even separated by “labels” which namely include class (engineer, hunter, assassin, etc) and race (goblin, undead, demon, etc). All of these labels are used in the game’s combo system where you’ll get a nice boost if you have, say… 3 warriors or 2 goblin heroes deployed. The boost requirements are all listed in the tooltip so be sure to read them!
Of course, besides having stronger heroes, having more of them on the chessboard is also a great way to overwhelm your opponent’s forces. However, waiting for your character (the avatar you use to play the game) to level up without any assistance can take quite a while after the 3rd or 4th hero slot. This is where the mana crystals come in!
Mana crystals aren’t only used to recruit new units, you see – you can also use them to level up your character, and once you do, you’ll unlock a new hero slot on your team, allowing you to deploy one more hero on the battlefield. I’m not sure if there’s a limit but so far, I’ve seen players, myself included, unlocked up to 9 heroes. I’m assuming 10 to be the absolute maximum.
Now, deploying your heroes can be rather strategic in any auto-chess game. Like actual chess, you can make use of the grids on the board to, for instance, place enough hardier units to protect your squishier casters and sorcerers. With some great positioning, you can even send your assassin to go around the bulk of your opponent’s forces to take out their casters in one felling swoop.
That’s it for the Preparation phase; the Battle phase, on the other hand, mainly involves you watching your strategy plays out and to see whether you’ve won the turn or not. If you won, your remaining units will then be able to deal 1 round of damage to your opponent’s character; and vice versa. Naturally, the more units you have left, the more damage you’ll be able to inflict. The cycle repeats until only 1 player is left standing.
However, the interesting part about this game is that it starts you off with some PvE, where you’ll battle wild boars and bears, just so you can build up your team before pitting you against a human opponent. The human opponent you get is randomly selected from the roster of 8 players, all of whom are playing in the same match as you are. Like the alternating Preparation and Battle phases, the game also inserts several rounds of PvE in between bouts of PvP rounds.
As the game is a multiplayer game, there is bound to be parts in the gameplay where you’ll just be waiting for the timer to count down to zero just to usher in the next phase. On average though, each full match lasts between 15 to 20 minutes.
Chess Rush provides 4 game modes, namely Ranked, Casual, Basic (tutorial and practice), and Custom where you can customize your matches to give you the challenge you seek. Casual matches require game currency to join, unlike Ranked matches. Ranked also has 3 match modes, including Classic, Turbo, and Co-op while Casual mode only consists of Classic matches.
What’s the difference between these 3 match modes though? Well, Classic is basically the usual auto-chess gameplay which the tutorial and the practice mode covered pretty well enough. Turbo speeds things up a bit by allowing players to level up their character at a slightly lower cost but everyone will have lower starting health – 60 instead of 100.
Co-op mode adds in a “hero sharing” feature where you can place any deployed hero or hero on your hand to the hero sharing slot (2 slots max) so other players in your team can use them in battle. However, I’ve noticed that not many players use this feature when they are playing co-op with random strangers. This mode might be more well-suited if you’ve got friends to play the game with you.
Aside from the auto-chess gameplay, Chess Rush has many quests that you can complete to earn extra coins. There are also many rewards that you can collect simply by logging in or leveling up. I even got a gift by just updating the game.
Plus, since Chess Rush is a freemium game, it does have an in-game store where it sells EXP boosts, new chessboard backgrounds, and game currency. The game even has a VIP system that comes in 3 card tiers, Silver, Gold, and Diamond. By being a VIP, you’ll get a huge lump sum of gold and some more every day until your VIP expires. There isn’t anything in the store or in the list of VIP perks that is pay-to-win at the moment at least, so if your opponent happens to get a slew of advantageous hero draws, then he’s just lucky.
That being said, the only major downside to Chess Rush is probably its poor matchmaking. For some reason, a bunch of rank 1 players is dumped into a match with a rank 3 and rank 6 player …and guess who are the last two players left in the game? However, I understand that this is probably the case because the game’s still new and there probably isn’t a whole lot of higher-ranked players to keep them occupied, and mixing these players in with lower-ranked ones is the only option to speed up the queues. Talking about queues, the game has a really fast queue so you don’t need to worry about needing to wait ages for a match.
Community
Being a multiplayer game, Chess Rush has several social features, including a friend system (which also includes gifting between friends), global chat, and a co-op game mode. Since the app requires you to allow it access to your phone’s mic, you can actually chat with other players in the game using short voice clips, in a way that’s similar to the social messaging app, Whatsapp.
Graphics/ Sound
Chess Rush has some amazingly-detailed graphics. Really liked the hero models and the chess backgrounds. The animations and sound effects of the heroes while in battle are pretty awesome too. The game also provides what I’d like to call “tavern” music. The music’s both fun and soothing to listen to.
Conclusion
The new and intriguing “auto-chess” genre has taken over the world by storm with the advent of Dota Underlords, and although Chess Rush doesn’t have the gravity that Dota has, it holds up pretty well against its competition (as well as other auto-chess games). Despite having a matchmaking system that could use some work and requiring some pretty invasive permissions, the most important thing here is that the game isn’t at all pay to win. So, if you enjoy a good game where you’ll get to puzzle out the best strategy and combination of heroes to deploy and use, Chess Rush is definitely a great choice! Download it now and give it a shot!
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