Pure Chess: Grandmaster Edition is finally available on Xbox One and it’s everything you might expect. For starters, as the name suggests, it really is purely chess. There’s no flair or unnecessary distractions but the graphics are gorgeous. It looks photorealistic and each chess piece, board and environment is beautifully crafted. Despite all this, I feel that Pure Chess lacks soul. It’s hard to explain. Hopefully you’ll know what I mean after reading this. When you play games like Pure Pool and Pure Hold’em, they have a certain quality about them that makes them more than what they are. For example, in Pure Pool you could play against the developers by downloading a pack. This gave the game the human element it needed. Plus, even the computer made odd mistakes even when you were playing alone. Pure Hold’em even gave the computer-controlled opponents some personality and their own little quirks. Pure Chess seems more like a clinical presentation that lacks magic. Don’t get me wrong, Pure Chess is a competent chess simulator which features many modes and pieces but it needs more personality.
Let’s talk about the game first. As you would expect, Pure Chess: Grandmaster Edition comes with more features than the standard version available on other platforms. The game has a dozen or so different piece designs such as the ornate Battalion set, Easter Island set, Halloween set, Forest set and Roman set. This adds some character to the game when you’re playing against the computer or a friend. As mentioned earlier, the visuals are just breathtaking and VooFoo Studios have established themselves as masters when it comes to their graphical presentation. All of their games are photorealistic.
There is a local match mode where you can play against a friend on your couch or if you want, hop online and challenge anyone. Both of these modes work flawlessly and if you’re playing a local match, you can add a computer-controlled opponent to take on. Note that the multiplayer appears to be turn-based instead of real-time so you might have to wait a bit for your friends. There are many different settings here and you can adjust the difficulty accordingly. The computer becomes almost impossible to beat at higher difficulty settings so I would recommend sticking to the lower ones. However, this isn’t the best part of the game.
Apart from these standard features, Pure Chess features a lengthy tutorial that teaches you everything you need to know about chess. In the Learn to play mode, you’ll get a detailed walkthrough of every single piece and their movements. You’ll also be taught about special moves like the Bishop and Rook switching that many people don’t know or don’t utilize. It’s through and I really appreciated it even though I’ve been playing chess for almost twenty years now. The game welcomes newcomers and that’s always important. It increases the audience of a product.
For me the highlight of the experience has be the bonus games and tournament functions. The bonus games are basically challenges where you have to checkmate an opponent in a set number of moves. It’s very hard and you have to think about where you want to move each piece. This forces the player to think in ways they haven’t already and adopt strategies which are designed to trick their competitor. I adopted a riskier playstyle because in order to win, I had to sacrifice tempting pieces that no one would forgo. It’s tense and demanding.
The tournament is exactly what you want when you’re playing the game in single-player. Pure Chess has three such events which are tied to easy, medium or hard difficulty settings. I would recommend playing each tournament in order because the difficulty ramps up gradually and you learn new moves as you progress. Plus, it’s good practice.
As I said, the game is a clinical chess simulator which would be exceptional had there been more personality. Maybe having certain personalities to fight against, or even adding parameters simulating how some of the developers played would be advantageous. Better yet, why not have a special mode where you take on the virtual representation of an actual competitive chess master or historical figures? There’s a lot the developers could do with this but sadly they took the more standard approach. The standard approach is fine but it left me disappointed.
Summary
Overall, Pure Chess: Grandmaster Edition is a great game which teaches you how to play chess and gradually builds up the difficulty in its single-player modes. It’s a lot of fun on your own and it’s even better with a friend. I just wish the creators had incorporated some new ideas rather than giving the same generic chess game we’ve come to expect from others. The gorgeous visuals and technical perfection make up for this because mobile titles lack such finesse. However, I still desperately want that human element in there and maybe some of my suggestions might make it into their next chess-related project.
Asher and Xian is a shared byline ICXM used for 18 articles co-authored between 2015–2017 covering game reviews, and Xbox news. See the individual contributor profiles for the writers behind these collaborations.