Mr. N64's Breakdown of Virtual Chess 64's Game Elements:


Graphics:
3 out of 5: The 3D board is underwhelming and not that good to play with. The graphical distinctions between some of the pieces aren't as pronounced as they should be (i.e. the Bishops farther down the board can look a lot like the Queen). The 2D view is standard and doesn't do anything the SNES couldn't do except display the game at a high resolution. The 3D cartoon battles don't fit with the rest of the game's atmosphere and they're weird.

Music:


4 out of 5: The tunes consist of pretty good new age music. The tempo changes from piece to piece, but other than that the pieces sound very similar.

Sound FX:


2 out of 5: The game's sound effects are fairly poor to mediocre, except for the cancel move/illegal move sound that's somewhat of a funny quack.

Play Control:


4 out of 10: It's hard to make a chess game control poorly, but that seems to be what Titus has managed to do with Virtual Chess 64. Both the analog and digital controls are inaccurate and somewhat annoying. Aside from this major problem, the game controls ok. It's not hard to play the game, but it still looses major points for such a blunder.

Frustration Factor:


6 out of 10 (10 being the worst): If you're a beginner like me, playing the CPU may be more of a challenge than you're looking for.

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