Review | Chessplosion

LifeisXbox’s Chessplosion Review | Chessplosion is an arcade action puzzle game where you drop chess piece-shaped bombs to create chain reactions and trap opponents. Defeat enemies and bosses in Adventure Mode, break targets with limited bombs in Puzzle Mode, dodge explosions in Survival Mode, or fight friends and AI in Battle Mode. Created and published by CT Matthews,  Chessplosion offers a ton of variety in such a small package and its innovation sets it apart from the crowd.

ℹ️ | Chessplosion was played on PC and completed in full before providing this review. Please note it is only available for PC at this current time.

What we liked!

• The Concept | The concept is the first thing that will strike you as the most impressive feat of this game. A chess game crossed with Bomberman. You simply place chess pieces on the board and after a few seconds, bombs will detonate and attack the opposing pieces. The kicker here is that each piece explodes into its direction or movement that the chess piece would do in a real game of chess. For example, the bishop will explode sideways the entire length of the board. The Rook will explode, vertically and horizontally and the queen will do all directions except that of the horse which explodes in an L shape over 4 squares. It’s a really impressive idea.
• The puzzle element | Despite this being a spin-off of Bomberman crossed over with chess, there is a degree of being careful where you place your pieces. Bombs will explode in certain ways depending on your piece, enemies will move and attack like chess pieces at the same time. It’s not about just placing bombs and praying, the more that goes on on-screen means the more attention you have to pay since the slightest hick-up can mean you go back to the start.
• The Boss Battles | Yes, I didn’t expect this either. There are boss battles in this game and each boss has a life meter above its head. For example, the first boss has 4 hearts to destroy. Placing the explosive pieces in its path and successfully hitting it will remove a life, but be careful, bombs can also kill you. The bosses can even place their bombs down to stop you also so there is also a decent amount of planning on what to put down and when.
• The Online Features | Surprisingly there are so many online features here that you can also explore. There is the usual story mode which is your standard world map like something from a Mario game, but on top of this, you have your usual matchmaking and lobby along with battle mode. I was unable to test these though due to finding no games online to play. Within Battle mode, I can see that there is also a team battle mode and also a tennis mode, again unable to test this at this stage.
• The Solo game Modes | There is quite a lot on offer here. On the solo play, you have Adventure mode which acts as your story, puzzle mode which acts as a series of small curated puzzles to complete with specific requirements or handicaps. Survival mode pits you against a series of never-ending enemies to see how long you can last, Arcade mode which is a score based mode to see how many points you can achieve, training mode which talks you through how to play the game and gives you a series of scenarios to play so you can get acquainted with the game and finally there are some extras to mess around with which can help elevate the game. It’s really impressive just how much stuff there is here for solo-only play.

Somewhere between

• The Music | The music is okay, it’s a series of high temp lo-fi music on a loop. It works, but it’s nothing special. I wouldn’t say it adds anything to the game itself but it does the job and if you find the loops distracting or irritating then you can turn them off in the options.

What we disliked

• Easy to Blast your way through | Despite being a puzzle game, it did become quite apparent that if you spam the bomb placing button and run out of the way quick enough, more often than not it would eliminate the enemies pretty quickly resulting in you being able to complete the stages pretty quickly. If the game were more turn-based or allowed you to place one bomb at a time, it would have been a good way to overcome this.

How long to beat the story | 3 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | 8+ hours
Similar with | Bomberman. With Chessplosion it’s a very innovative idea and there isn’t much like it on the market. Bomberman is the only thing that comes to mind.

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