Ultimate Board Game Collection for PSP

Hi everyone, this weekend I got my hands on Ultimate Board Games Collection for PSP, which is available in English. The version I got was released in 2007, though I heard there was one released on the Playstation Network a few days ago. When I'm able to, I will get a copy of it.

Ultimate Board Games Collection (2007) contains the following games: Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, Chinese Checkers, Reversi, Anagrams, Dice, Kakuro, Sudoku, Word Cubes, Concentration, Enigma, Jigsaws, Mahjong (Solitaire), Tic Tac Toe, Naval Battle, Parcheesi, Quattro, Snakes and Ladders, Dominoes, Igo, Mancala, Gomoku (Five in a Row), and Shogi. Being a shogi blog, I will focus on the shogi aspect of this game.

Shogi players of Clubhouse Games for the Nintendo DS will be happy to hear that you do not need to unlock any games. You can access shogi as soon as you load the game; it is under the Strategy Games category, with Dominoes, Igo, Mancala, and Gomoku.





Although it's nothing important, I don't like that Sente and Gote were translated as Attacker and Defender. This makes it sound like Gote isn't supposed to be attacking. I would much prefer if they had kept with the standard international names, Black and White.



The AI in Ultimate Board Games Collection is very weak. It seems to be primarily aimed at people who have never played the game before. As a person who has been playing shogi for only 3 months, I don't consider the hardest difficulty in Ultimate Board Games Collection to be a challenge at all. However, I do feel it would be good for beginners. In addition to being good practice for beginners, you can only play multiplayer with friends with only one copy of the game.

I have three major complaints about this game: 1) The pieces move too slow. When a ranging piece is moved, it feels like it takes forever to finish its movement. 2) You have to play using the analog nub. I think using the D-pad for a board game collection would be much better. 3) The pieces in hand are confusing. Not only do they put your pieces in hand on the LEFT side of the board, they retain the other player's orientation until they are dropped on the board. Pictured above you can see my playing Double Wing Attack with the AI, and he has just dropped his pawn. On the left is the pawn that I captured with Rx2d, still pointing in the direction it was on the board when it belonged to White.



The best feature of this game for beginners is that you can freely change between Japanese and Western pieces just by pressing Square at any moment in the game. Not only does it give the international notation style letter for the piece, it also displays its movements on the piece. Being able to change back and forth, I think, is a very good way to help someone get used to the Japanese pieces.

On the whole I'd recommend this game if you've either never played before or aren't confident enough to play against real people or a more advanced game like Saikyou Shogi Bonanza. In addition to shogi it also has the other great games in it, so it's nice to have on, for example, a long trip when you have nothing else to do.

You can buy the game here.