A. M. DeWitt wrote on Thu, May 23 04:14 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
When I first saw this game, I didn't think much of it, since I was more focused on larger Shogi variants, especially Tenjiku Shogi. However, now I have a few games against Jocly under my belt, and wow, this game completely blew me away. It is an absolute joy to play, despite its size and complexity (which melts away after a couple games). However, it is not completely flawless.
Some rules, such as the King Baring rule (Uses Shatranj version, K+G vs. K is mentioned in historical sources) and repetition rules (borrowed from Xiangqi) that are currently played by are modern contaminations from other games and/or are warped versions of things mentioned in the historical documents, but I am willing to include these two rules, as they help with decisiveness without being redundant or overly complicated.
However, I am not willing to play by the "Okazaki" rule, and I would never recommend using it, which allows recapture of a Lion after another Lion has just been captured, if said Lion is unprotected. There is no evidence that it was a part of the historical game, and it kind of defeats the purpose of the rule against indirect Lion trading, so why did someone think it would be a good idea to have this? All it does is add confusion and increases the chance of a simplified game, detracting from the playerr experience.
It is also not clear whether a Lion taking a Pawn/Go Between and then a Lion is allowed if the enemy Lion is undefended after taking the Pawn. Both sides have evidence arguing for them (the hidden protector example for yes, a tsumeshogi in Dr. Eric Silverman's Chu Shogi Part II article, explained in the An interesting quirk in the Lion-trading rules section, for no). Personally, I prefer that is is allowed, since no recapture is possible after the move, and there is no specific mention of this situation in the historic rules.
However, despite these problems, Chu Shogi is still easily among the best games of its kind. If you like Chess variants, you should give it a try.
Addendum - An attempt at a drops-playable Chu Shogi variant
Chu Seireigi is an attempt to combine elements of Chu Shogi with the ruleset of modern Shogi. It also has the benefit of not needing any special rules to preserve its quality, fixing all the problems with the modern "innovations" for Chu Shogi that I mentioned above. Players are disincentivized from trading off the most powerful pieces in many cases because they would just go into the player's hands, making them even more dangerous. The repetition rule is simply that of Shogi (draw, except perpetual check loses), and the drops make King-baring extremely rare. However, this comes with the unfortunate downside of having to remove all the multi-move abilities from the game, as otherwise the balancing would be thrown off.
When I first saw this game, I didn't think much of it, since I was more focused on larger Shogi variants, especially Tenjiku Shogi. However, now I have a few games against Jocly under my belt, and wow, this game completely blew me away. It is an absolute joy to play, despite its size and complexity (which melts away after a couple games). However, it is not completely flawless.
Some rules, such as the King Baring rule (Uses Shatranj version, K+G vs. K is mentioned in historical sources) and repetition rules (borrowed from Xiangqi) that are currently played by are modern contaminations from other games and/or are warped versions of things mentioned in the historical documents, but I am willing to include these two rules, as they help with decisiveness without being redundant or overly complicated.
However, I am not willing to play by the "Okazaki" rule, and I would never recommend using it, which allows recapture of a Lion after another Lion has just been captured, if said Lion is unprotected. There is no evidence that it was a part of the historical game, and it kind of defeats the purpose of the rule against indirect Lion trading, so why did someone think it would be a good idea to have this? All it does is add confusion and increases the chance of a simplified game, detracting from the playerr experience.
It is also not clear whether a Lion taking a Pawn/Go Between and then a Lion is allowed if the enemy Lion is undefended after taking the Pawn. Both sides have evidence arguing for them (the hidden protector example for yes, a tsumeshogi in Dr. Eric Silverman's Chu Shogi Part II article, explained in the An interesting quirk in the Lion-trading rules section, for no). Personally, I prefer that is is allowed, since no recapture is possible after the move, and there is no specific mention of this situation in the historic rules.
However, despite these problems, Chu Shogi is still easily among the best games of its kind. If you like Chess variants, you should give it a try.
Addendum - An attempt at a drops-playable Chu Shogi variant
Chu Seireigi is an attempt to combine elements of Chu Shogi with the ruleset of modern Shogi. It also has the benefit of not needing any special rules to preserve its quality, fixing all the problems with the modern "innovations" for Chu Shogi that I mentioned above. Players are disincentivized from trading off the most powerful pieces in many cases because they would just go into the player's hands, making them even more dangerous. The repetition rule is simply that of Shogi (draw, except perpetual check loses), and the drops make King-baring extremely rare. However, this comes with the unfortunate downside of having to remove all the multi-move abilities from the game, as otherwise the balancing would be thrown off.