Pure Chess (Wii U) Review

Starting out, the best place to go for everybody except the most seasoned chess players is the tutorial mode. It explains the basics of the game for beginners and offers additional information, such as terms or strategies for those who already know how to play chess. It is quick to complete, and interactive, too, and not just a series of paragraphs that consist of plain explanations.

The standard offline play mode is used to play a single game against the AI on various difficulties, or another player by passing the controller after each turn. In this mode, it's also possible to enable or disable the undoing of moves, a game timer or a feature that highlights all legal moves that can be performed with the selected piece. Speaking of which, the pieces can be moved with traditional inputs or by tapping the touch screen of the Wii U GamePad.

The challenge mode consists of three tournaments and 100 challenges that can be tackled. The challenges each provide a game in progress that has to be won by checkmate in one to five turns. Each variety has 20 of them, and they increase in difficulty depending on the number of turns available, as it's a lot easier to figure out a single correct move than a string of them. In addition to playing against advanced AI, this is a good way to improve one's skills offline.

The online play is sadly where the experience suffers. The inclusion of cross-platform support is commendable, and it does work between the tested Wii U and 3DS versions, but it's very inconsistent overall. It is required to sign up for the purpose of cross-platform multiplayer, but it's a very quick and easy process. Matches can be initiated in one of six slots either by searching for the name of a player, matchmaking with players of a similar rank or directly from the online leaderboards. Both parties don't have to be online at the same time, allowing for play by mail gameplay.

Those hoping for a live match can stay in the match after their move - as opposed to returning to the online menu - and it'll automatically continue as soon as the opponent has moved. This would work well in theory, but unfortunately, the process of sending a move is very inconsistent and can range from being instant to taking up to several minutes, making it a chore to play with a friend that's online at the same time. Even with no opponent actively waiting for a move, it can still take just as long before anything else can be done after taking a turn.