Let's see, a review of an abstract strategy game that's hundreds of years old. Where to start. Normally you kick these things off with a discussion of the quality of the rules and the bits, but whether or not you even get rules and the quality of the bits will obviously depend on the set you get.

Next, I'm tempted to relate the game to chess, but I'd rather review it on its own merits. Thus, I'll refer you to the compare-and-contrast with chess below.

So I start with the basics. Two players marshal identical armies of 20 pieces each onto a 9 x 9 square grid and do battle. Here's how it works.

In the center of the back rank is your king. Protect him; checkmate your opponent's to win. It moves one square in any direction. He's flanked by two gold generals, which move one square in any orthogonal direction or diagonally forward. Outside of them are two silver generals. They move one square in any diagonal direction or straight forward. Outside of them are two knights, which can move to either of the two squares that are two spaces forward and one space to the side of its current square, leaping over any pieces in the intervening squares. On the corners are two lances, which move forward any number of squares.

Only two pieces start on the second rank, a bishop (on the second file) that moves any number of squares in any diagonal direction and a rook (on the eighth file) that moves any number of squares in any orthogonal direction.

The third rank consists of a row of nine pawns. Pawns move one square forward only. All pieces capture enemy pieces by moving onto a square occupied by an enemy piece.

Ownership of the pieces is not determined by color, rather by the direction that the pieces point. This is important because pieces that are captured can be turned around and dropped back onto the board onto any vacant square (subject to three restrictions beyond the scope of this review) in lieu of moving a piece on your turn.

A second interesting feature is that all pieces except the king and the gold generals can promote into more powerful pieces. The seventh, eighth, and ninth ranks are the promotion zone. Whenever a piece begins or ends its move in the promotion zone, it may promote. Promoted pawns, lances, knights, and silver generals all move like gold generals. Promoted rooks gain the ability to move one square diagonally. Promoted bishops gain the ability to move one square orthogonally. All pieces in the game are pentagonal tiles; promotion is indicated by flipping the tiles over. All pieces lose their promotion when captured.

So how does it play? First, as any good abstract war game does, the geometric nature of the pieces pushes them forward into conflict during the opening. You can, and should, set up your defenses, but make no mistake, this is not a game for turtlers. In the middle game, the tactical situations can be quite delicious. Attack and defense are going on all the time on different parts of the board in games-within-the-game. Captured pieces (pieces "in hand") are a wonderful wild card that add a great deal of complexity to the decision making.

The end game is wild and wooly and all about initiative. The focus goes squarely to the kings, preserving the safety of your own and bringing down the defenses of your opponent's, and both considerations are in play simultaneously. An assault on the king usually has to be well planned and initiated with plenty of pieces in hand. You move your forces in and either drop in reinforcements or use the threat of drops to scuttle the position of your opponent's defenses and/or capture the pieces. In many cases, you'll make a lot of inferior trades, letting your opponent capture more powerful pieces of yours than you are capturing of his. Because the pieces that you capture can be dropped right back in to join the attack.

But you have to keep the heat on, because the moment you let your opponent's king out of danger, he's usually in position to do the same to you, using the spoils of the last fracas to move in on your defensive position. Checkmate (threatening capture of the king such that the opponent cannot make a play that removes the threat) is often achieved with a drop, and frequently when the king has several of his safe moves blocked by his own defenders who have had to come in to capture threatening pieces.

Is it fun? I love it, but much like many abstract games, it's largely a geometric puzzle, a feature which may or may not appeal to you. It can move at a pretty deliberate pace, and it can take a while. And it's a vicious game by nature. Weigh those features as you will. If you're put off by the mastery factor; daunted by games that have had volumes of strategy and analysis written about it, where there are legitimate masters out there and there's a whole lot to learn. You've got that here, too.

Having said all that, you probably know whether this sort of game is your thing. For my money, shogi is seriously cool.

Now, compared to chess. For myself, I've studied chess, and even though I've tried to be good at it, I never quite got there. I still like it. But I can't imagine ever in my life choosing to play chess when a shogi game is available again. Is shogi better? I'm not prepared to make so bold an assertion, but it's different in ways that appeal to me.

Compared to chess, the pieces are 'slower'. In chess, five of your eighteen pieces have range that spans the board. In shogi, only two of your twenty pieces span the board. Further, the board is 27% larger. This is what creates the dynamic of a number of distinct skirmishes going on simultaneously, compared to chess where no part of the board really feels disconnected from another. On the strategy vs. tactics scale, shogi is clearly more tactical (which is not to say that it isn't strategic; quite the opposite). This would be the first thing that I would say to the chess player. If you love 'seeing the board' and making that rook sacrifice to win a queen five moves out and mate two moves later, you may care to stick with chess. The way shogi plays out in two theatres dampens that some.

Second, the game tends to go longer than chess. This is due not only to the slower pieces and larger board, but the recycling of pieces back into play. The same piece can be captured half a dozen times or more, and in the case of forward-only pieces (pawn, knight, lance), they can be recycled to the back ranks and begin their trudge across the board anew. Again, how you feel about this is a matter of taste.

One thing that piece drops achieve that, I believe, highly recommends shogi, is that stalemates, while theoretically possible, essentially cannot happen, and draws are incredibly rare (roughly one game out of 50 between professionals, or so I've read). Nice to get a winner at the end of your efforts.

Another difference between shogi and chess derives from the pawn moves. They don't get a double-move from the start rank, as they do in chess, and they capture forward, rather than diagonal. This, among some other factors, can make the opening more of a solitaire game than chess. In chess, from the opening move, you can start dictating play to your opponent. In shogi, both players can basically pick the opening they want to play, and do it without much harrassment. Again, people can disagree about whether this is a positive feature.

So there are my thoughts. I feel like the court jester in front of kings offering my two cents on this ancient and beautiful game as though my opinion counts for anything, but there you have it anyway.

A postscript on getting a set. The pieces are depicted by Japanese characters written on the tiles. Harder to find are English sets, but I wouldn't recommend one. It doesn't take long to learn the pieces, and it looks so much nicer and more authentic in Japanese. The gee-whiz factor on this game is high.

Good review. It pains me to say, after a lifetime of studying chess, that Shogi has elements that may make it a better game.