Unfortunately, the performance of this product on paper is completely at odds with it's performance in reality. The biggest single problem with this version of Fritz is that the level algorythms are inexcusably buggy. It is all but impossible to make Fritz think for more than around 80 seconds in the middlegame (except in extremely complicated situations), even if the playing level is set to one move in 23 hours and 59 seconds! And if the playing level is set to something like 40 moves in 2 hours, then Fritz DS will move extremely fast within seconds infact. At the default Blitz levels even when set to 2320 ELO, the program moves rediculously quickly and barely uses any time at all. Anyone who is knowledgable about chess computers will tell you that using a tiny fraction of the playing time available will severely weaken the playing strength of a chess program, simply because the program is unable to examine as many moves as it would otherwise be able to.
And this is the crux of Fritz's problems on the DS platform. In the endgame, things get far worse again. Even when set to make one move within a day, Fritz still moves literally within seconds when in an endgame situation with a minor piece and pawns on the board. Given the program does not appear to utilise hash tables, this makes it's endgame incredibly weak indeed. In some games against my Mephisto Miami dedicated computer (which is known itself to have a weak endgame), Miami could simply pick off Fritz's pawns almost at will. Quite simply, Fritz does not give itself anywhere near enough time to come up with a competent move. Even if it's excellent middle game tactical ability confers some advantage going into the endgame, the endgame is so poor that any advantage often rapidly evaporates.
This is why I say that Fritz DS is a missed opportunity. There is no denying that the actual playing engine behind this product is extremely competant. I would go as far as to say that if it actually used the correct amount of time as per the level settings chosen by the user, then its playing strength might well approach 2320 ELO. But because it moves extremely quickly, it's playing strength is far below this. In the endgame where it cannot think for more than a few seconds, I would estimate it only plays around 1400 ELO pathetic for a product that is advertised to play at 2320 ELO and which has some pretty decent hardware to run on.
To add insult to injury, there are other, irritating flaws in the program. The resignation function is rediculous. In one game I set the program to resign "at the first sign of trouble". It was down a rook and two pawns for 25 moves with zero compensation, but it still did not resign. It only resigned when mate was inevitable. If that is an "early" resignation, I would hate to see a "late" one. Secondly, the drawing contempt factor is unfathomable. In the aforementioned game, when I was a rook and two pawns up and about 5 moves away from queening a pawn, I offered it a draw. It told me I must be joking and that it wanted to play on. At least Fritz was correct when he said that I must be joking.
Other problems with the game include the cumbersome menu structure as mentioned by another reviewer. None of the stylus "buttons" in the menus seem to have auto repeat functionality (i.e where you keep the stylus pressed down). This made changing the number of moves extremely cumbersome for example, since changing it from 40 to 20 meant pressing the stylus down 19 times.
I was also disappointed to discover that it is not possible to change playing levels once a game is in progress. The only way to change levels is to start a completely new game. Additionally, it is not possible to save a rated game you can only save practice games. And even when you save a practice game in progress, if you have the playing level set to a very slow one (due to the afrementioned bugs in the level algorythms), then it will not retain that time control setting when you reload the game later. This means it is rather pointless saving a practice game where the thinking time is genuinely more than 20 seconds, since when you reload the game, it isn't going to be able to think for much more than 20 seconds, regardless of what level you had set previously.
Overall, I cannot find any reason to recommend this program. The playing strength is nowhere close to that of the advertised 2320 ELO, with the endgame in particular being absolutely pathetic beyond any redemption. The levels are so buggy that they might as well not have existed at all. There are far to many other choices on the market if you want a decent portable chess game. For the Nintendo platforms, the best chess game thus far is Chessmaster for Gameboy Advance, which of course also runs on the Gameboy Micro. At least that program has only one minor openings book bug and it plays a consistently strong and human-like game with no relative weaknesses (approximately the same playing strength as the Mephisto Amsterdam dedicated machine from the 1980s). For other platforms, given that there are numerous very strong programs that run on modern mobile phones (and which genuinely do play at master strength), I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to compromise and buy this product.
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I bought Fritz looking for an alternative to which till now was the only pda size chess game recorder you can get (and it @$#%^). I had hoped that Fritz could replace it but not quite at least not for tournaments. Otherwise it beats MonRoi hands down and is 1/20th the cost!Good Stuff:
Lots of help and hints for training.
Supports Chess 360 and giveaway as well.
Thousands of great historical games.
A Chess clock available.
Cool dual and single DS multiplayer support with a demo so you can do it even if you only have one card but two DSs.
A clearly rendered board with lots of style options.
Rates your play.
Fritz can kick your butt or let you win. By default it matches your strength.
Chess notation supported.
Lots of good problems to solve.
Great for kids and beginners!
Whacky Stuff:
Menus are kinda wierd you set Fritz strength under the historical game menu instead of the game play options.
Only supports stylis functionality and forces you to play it sideways (but it supports left or right-handed users.)
You cannot remove fritz from the game even with all help off and playing a multi-player game on one DS this makes it unsuitable for tournament game recording.
When doing practice games it has an annoying habbit of talking with you, flashing a red light to get your attention. I could not see how to turn this off.
The menus force more clicks and take much more space than necessary I don't see why this was done. In fact, the menus are so big that they force you to scroll to see all the selections I missed the scrolling at first and couldn't find all the options.
Although there are 2000+ historical games on the machine, you can only store two of your own games named Game1 and Game2 really lame.
Minimal profile information first name and rating. And no support to store the other player's name or date or event, etc. if you save a multiplayer game.
There is no variation or comment support on your games. This program could be a full PGN editor.
The game does not teach you chess. You will just figure it out by the legal move restrictions and hints.
No endgame training here and fritz is pretty crummy at mating with a King and a Rook against a King unless it is jacked way up.
Doesn't rate a position, just your record of play.
Here are the features I would add:
Allow tournament mode where fritz is inaccessible and you are simply recording a game. Use an alternate background to indicate this mode clearly from a distance this will put MonRoi out of business!
The DS needs a printer! This would enable fritz to print out the game record for you. Or alternatively, some way to store and dump the games to a PC.
Fix the menus man they are really lame.
Support PGN and annotations and interface with PCs or something outside itself for game up/downloading.
Support variational analysis.
Get 4 DS's together to support Saiamese, Kreigspeil and other variations.
It's definitely worth the $ but I hope v2 comes out soon so I can record my tournament games on this thing.
Best Deals for Fritz Chess - Nintendo DS
What can a video-game developing company possibly do with a DS version of chess that hasn't been done already? The answer is pretty simple, variety that keeps you interested and not being bored to death by the same repetitive things, and that's exactly what Deep Silver has designed for what I am labeling the best chess game on DS so far.Some of the first chess games I had a go at where the ones included in the multiple games cartridges, such as "101 in 1 games" & "100 All Time Classics" in which IF you are a decent enough, or maybe 'advanced', chess player, then you may enjoy those titles, but you will not get much more of an option other then 'easy' 'medium' and 'hard difficulties'. There are also other decent Chess titles on the DS like "Chessmaster", as well as some real stinkers like "super fun chess"... and the rest of the chess games seem to be a tool to teach you how to play chess, in which this one here has that features too, but so much more as well.
What separates this particular title from the rest, is variety. Now I don't mean it has a variety of games to choose from, no, what I mean is it has what surprisingly no one else had thought to do with a chess game on DS before, and that is, to be able to change the colors of the board and the pieces. Not only can you select the colors of the boards, like standard black and white, brown and white, or something unusual like green and white, or even blue and darker blue, you can also select between graphics of wooden boards, marble, stone, metal etc... but it doesn't just stop with the color and texture layout of the board, it also has options for the chess pieces themselves, everything from wood, marble, gold & silver and what not, but also features a few different things like Egyptian pieces and a whole heap more. This really is so refreshing to finally have an option to change the same old things around and keep it feeling fresh. It's something ALL chess games should come with, and not force you to be limited to what colors are common or the game designers chose.
A few reviews here mentioned the "fritz" character, which is something like that head in "Brain Age" only this one teaches you, or lightly insults you in audio format during game play... however, if those reviewers say that the Fritz thing is just annoying, they should have also told you that you can easily go to the options and turn him off completely! You can also turn on or off "possible moves", a danger thing, and a heap of other options that will allow you to either be taught how to play chess, informed what is a good or bad move, or just turn them all off and play as you wish, without any guide telling you what to do.
although I found the mini-game of "Puzzles" to be slightly better on "Chess(E)/Schach(E)", because you can play the chess puzzles where you try to figure out how the displayed board set-out is supposed to check-mate in 2 moves, on Chess(E) you also get the choice to play it in 2, 3, or 4 moves, maybe 5 too, but on this one it seems it's all just 2, and no 3,4,5 etc... however, that games Chess game is not customizable much more then just if you want a timer or not... this one here is the game to go for so far (of chess anyway, if you want one)
Unlike most other chess games on DS, on here, when you select the easiest difficulty stetting, it really IS easy. And when you select hard, it does get much harder... I read another reviewer who had the calculations and aspects of why this version was supposedly too easy or something, but I suspect he is a master player of chess, and has forgotten that this games concept is to teach or help improve chess players who want to learn, while also giving a fun and decent game for the casual gamers... I don't think you will ever see a game advertised like this that says on the cover, "Great for learning, improve your skills, oh by the way, mastermind players will be highly challenged too", it's not what the game was going for when they designed this, as most mastermind players either play professionally in the world or against non AI opponents, so the DS was not really expected to be the ultimate AI opponent was it?
Also, there is a type of challenge mode in the game here, which can keep you more occupied then other games that are just more an exhibition feel, this one kind of has a tournament/career sort of option to go with it, with a final boss like thing which is this Fritz person him/itself. There seems to be a few too many reviews say something bad about this game, but seriously, what more do you want from a chess game? The complaints are not that noticeable, and this version here definitely has left any other chess game on the DS for dead. Until newer titles come along this year, such as "Battle Chess", "something VS Chess" and I forget the 3rd one, and one of those happens to be the ultimate define version of Chess, then till then, this one here is the best one you can get on DS. And those who say it's "Chessmaster"... read up on how many reviews say they wanted to learn chess, and the AI was too darn hard on 'easy' settings for them to learn any more then simple frustration.
Honest reviews on Fritz Chess - Nintendo DS
You can play at 12 different difficulty levels ranging from Elo ratings of 400(beginner) to 2320(expert). If you play rated games you earn your own Elo rating. Or you can play practice games that also include the chess variants of Chess960(backrow pieces are random) and Giveaway Chess(win by losing all your pieces). In the practice games you can use help options like show threats, legal moves, best move, last move, and standard opening lines. Also you can use blitz or tournament time controls, and can change the board and pieces.Pros:
* Often plays different openings at the same difficulty level.
* Has many challenging mating and best move puzzles.
* Has 2000 historic games that you can play through(no commentary though)
* Has a left-handed option(DS is always held like a book)
Cons:
* Under blitz and long time controls, the computer makes its moves much more quickly than necessary which substantially lowers its playing strength below that of its stated rating to the point where it is not worth playing. To play against a playing strength that is considerably closer to its stated rating, I recommend that you use the no-clock time controls which still usually will have the computer use not much more than about 5-20 minutes for the whole game depending on the difficulty setting.
* Multiplayer is only for those in the same location with you ie no online multiplayer.
* Only has two save game slots and it only saves up to the first 60 moves even if you played more.
* You have to reset your difficulty level each time you turn on the DS system.
Comments: Aside from the noticeably-weakened chess strength when using time controls, this is a good game for intermediate players to enjoy a game or puzzle on the go. If you are a beginner and want a portable DS chess game then try Chessmaster: The Art of Learning.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Fritz Chess - Nintendo DS
I picked this up because it seemed to me that a chess program was a must-have for any game (artificial intelligence) system. I like chess well enough, used to play a lot as a kid, but don't have a whole lot of time and mental energy as a working adult.Not only does Fritz Chess have the best ELO capability for any DS game, but I love the fact that you don't have to commit yourself to playing an entire game. The "best move" and "checkmate in three" mini-games are ideal for someone who has only 10-15 minutes to play at a time, the only drawback being that you're liable to get hooked and find yourself on it for 30-45. The historic matches are also interesting if you want just to sit back and enjoy.
I like to occasionally pick up Fritz Chess during the workday for a little mental pick-me-up (I'm my own boss) but it would also be great if you travel to work via public transit or carpool and need something to pass the time.
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