Archon

Archon is an obscure gem from the NES era. This board game somewhat resembles chess, but it's a whole lot more fun. You play as either the Light side or the Dark side, and each has its own unique units. Each also has a "king" of sorts, though the object isn't to kill them. Those are powerful spell-casters, though, so killing one greatly enhances your chances of victory.

When one unit moves onto another, it doesn't simply take it. No, sir, that would be too quick. You have to fight! Action takes place on an overhead field with terrain and such that may affect movement. Depending on the characters involved, the fight could be quick or take a few minutes. (Wizard vs. Grunt is over in about 2 seconds.)

The object is to control five special points on the board, or wipe the other army out. Spaces on the board affect combat. If you fight on a white space, the Light character will be stronger and the Dark weaker. Of course, fighting on a black space has the opposite effect. There are shades of gray as well, and some spaces cycle between shades.

The Light gets things like the ridiculously fast (and annoying) unicorns that are very hard to hit and have a fast, ranged attack. (They shoot their horn, of course!) They also get the powerful Phoenix, which attacks by bursting into flame, making it invulnerable for a time and horribly burning anything close to it. Not a great idea to attack it with a Grunt. The Dark has many cool units as well, though my favorite is probably the Shapeshifter, which turns into whatever it fights, guaranteeing a fair fight, no matter what.

Is this out on Virtual Console, because if it were, I'd have it, even though I already own the cartridge. It's just great two-player fun! (Yes, you can play the CPU, but where's the fun in that?)

It's not out on VC yet, but my memories aren't good. Some of the worst sound effects and music. In fact, I don't even remember there being any music. Playing this one player was a bad idea as the computer was very predictable. And if you're looking for 2 player action there are much better ways to spend your time than with this one. The characters looked decent but everything else was blah.

I sound like a grumpy old man, sorry. It's just not for me.

You ARE a grumpy old man. Neither the graphics or sound effects were good at all. It really didn't matter, though, because the combination of strategy and action were unique, and still remain pretty unique. I've always wanted to see an updated version of this game with 3D battlefields.

How many other games can you name that are actually great games despite their bad graphics and sound? It's not unheard of. In fact, when compared to PS3 and XBox 360, that pretty much covers every top Wii game. (Well, except for sound.) Graphics do not a good game make. They're just icing. Icing on dog crap is still inedible, and a good cake can still taste great without any icing at all.

FIVE stars!!!

The gameplay to me was slow with not enough going for it to keep me interested. I should give it another shot since I was much younger when I played it and in my juvenile mind graphics and fast action played a bigger part in how much I liked a game. Part of the reason why I like going back to old games I haven't played in two decades. Some turn out to be a lot worse than I remembered but sometimes I return to a crapper and find out it has a lot going for it. But as it stands....1 star.