Update this is one of the most played games for me since purchased, approaching 30 hours. The controller movement being slow and the online mode seeming to be mostly bots that have a very dumb play style to start then get perfect towards end sometimes is very noticeable and they blunder the same to my simple traps. I just like playing this between other games for a few matches.
I was looking for a chess game I could play on Xbox, there are a few apps but most of these are extremely limited and seem like abandonware. Found this one “Chess Battle” which cost me $3.99 USD, the board is very similar to Chess.com and Lichess styles. Anyway the game started me at elo 800 I’m at 869 as of now with over 50 online matches. Since playing mostly online I have noticed some things, read below.
- The game has four online game presets, Bullet 1+2, Blitz 3+2, Blitz 5+0, Rapid 10+0. I pretty much just play Rapid 10-0, 10 minute timer no increment once your first move starts.
- 500 elo rated opponents have been the toughest for some reason, one hitting 98% accuracy to all my basic tactics. This was very suspicious for that rating.
- During a match around the 4th move the opponents will all pause almost processing my opening with guest(099009) names. I do not believe these guests are real players.
- The controller movement is a bit slower, if you get low on time where it becomes a move race it’s not easy to keep up. This is also very suspicious as the guests move very quick during this.
- Using the left joystick on controller is quicker than d pad.
- The game lacks inviting friends to play which is weird for Xbox app.
- The game uses stockfish and you can enable 10 difficulty settings for it.
- I have mostly just been playing the Free Berlin location, it has a coin feature which just seems like an internal ranking.
- Puzzles, daily puzzle, computer play, online, leaderboards, coins, multiple ranking methods.
- I have really enjoyed playing the game even if it is mostly bots in the online play.
- One thing I just found out is the Online ELO is for all game Bullet/Rapid modes, they do not have individual ratings.
- The online rank mode like Pawn, Knight, have a timer that lasts for 5 days. Not sure exactly how it works or why it has a timer, thought it was for when you rank up but not sure from what stat.
- The game resets the “Full Statistics” when you enter a new rank, I started in Pawn and had around 90 games, then went to Knight and all my stats like games played/wins/losses/draws were reset. The ELO and Coins do not reset though.
- I rated this game a 3/5, has nice features even local play and split screen not used by me yet. Having only faster paced games for online seems like a bad fit with controller.
