Play Chessmaster, The (Europe) Online

Chessmaster on the NES is the kind of game that makes you forget you're playing on a console—it just feels like chess. The board is clean, the pieces are simple 8-bit sprites, and there’s no fluff to distract you. I remember booting it up for the first time and thinking, "Wait, that’s it?" But then I lost three games in a row to the AI and realized how sneaky it could be.

It’s got this weirdly satisfying clunkiness to it—moving pieces with the D-pad isn’t as smooth as sliding them on a real board, but there’s something charming about the way the cursor snaps into place. The tutorials are surprisingly decent if you’re just starting out, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t skip them and immediately get wrecked by the computer’s opening moves.

What’s cool is how stripped-down it is compared to later versions. No fancy animations, no commentary—just you, the AI, and that faint hum of your NES in the background. If you’ve got a soft spot for old-school strategy or just want to see how well a 30-year-old chess AI holds up, this one’s worth dusting off.