Saikyou Shogi Bonanza for PSP

So today I got a copy of Saikyou Shogi Bonanza for the Playstation Portable. I had already played AI Shogi for PSP and also Minna no Shogi for Gameboy Advance, so I was excited to see what it was like.

Firstly, Minna no Shogi is an excellent game. If you have the chance to get it, do so. Even for a player who doesn't speak Japanese, the game is easy to navigate and has a good selection of difficulty levels as well as 150 good checkmate problems. It also features a cute minigame of Rounding Shogi, which was described by Hidetchi in his video Non-Tactical Games Played with Shogi Instruments.

AI Shogi was a bit disappointing. From what I could tell, all it featured was an explanation of Shogi's rules and a bland game mode. The game mode had multiple difficulties, but I felt that sometimes it moved a bit too fast, especially when the computer and I make a rapid series of moves, and it takes some time for the game's notater to catch up to the current move. On the whole it's not a bad game, it's just not a very good one.

Saikyou Shogi Bonanza, however, is a very good shogi game for PSP. It is made by Success, the same company that made Minna no Shogi, so I had high expectations. Luckily, those expectations were met. The first and most important thing is, of course, that it has a good AI system to play against. It's challenging and I enjoy playing against it when I don't have a person to play against. My favorite part of the game system (it also appears in other parts of the game) is that it lists the whole notation for the game on the lefthand side

Like Minna no Shogi, Saikyou Shogi Bonanza also has many checkmate problems. Although it has less problems than Minna no Shogi does (it has 100), it has more challenging problems. Minna no Shogi featured 150 problems, divided into fifty 1-move-to-mate problems, fifty 3-move problems, and fifty 5-move problems. Bonanza is separated into ten 1-move problems, ten 3-move problems, twenty 5-move problems, twenty 7-move problems, twenty 9-move problems, and twenty 11-move problems. Much more advanced than Minna no Shogi! It will definitely help someone read out long mating lines. My only complaint about Bonanza is that, unlike Minna no Shogi, when you make a wrong move in a mate problem, it simply tells you that you failed and asks if you want to try again. Minna no Shogi had an excellent system where it showed you why your move failed. However, it is still excellent.

Another fantastic part of Saikyou Shogi Bonanza is that it features josekis for various openings. It has commentaries on the openings, but I can't read them very well since I can't read much Japanese. Even without the commentaries, though, it is nice to see various openings played out, and it is nice for both learning and refreshing one's memory about shogi strategy. The openings it discusses are Climbing Silver, Static Rook Anaguma, Yagura Opening, Tateishi's Fourth File Rook, Reclining Silver, Side Pawn Picker, Central Rook, Double Anaguma, Fourth File Rook, and Twisting Rook. This is a very good number of openings to study, especially for beginners.

The best part is that PSP doesn't have region lock-outs, so you can play games from any part of the world on your PSP. If you're interested in playing this game, you can buy it from Play-Asia.

I was going to include an English-speaker's guide to navigating through the menus, but this post is getting too long so I'll end it here. Thanks for reading!