- JP release: 3rd April 1998
- NA release: N/A
- PAL release: N/A
- Developer: Seta
- Publisher: Seta
- N64 Magazine Score: N/A
A sequel to Strongest Habu Shogi, this looks a lot more basic, with a completely 2D interface instead of the 3D tiles and viewpoints of the previous. There are less modes and features as well, however it does have a few advantages.
While it still doesn’t highlight possible locations for moving tiles, trying to move them will move them directly to the next legal position, so you don’t need to be told off for trying an illegal move.
The other significant feature isn’t one I can test. The game cartridge came with a built-in modem, enabling online play against other players in Japan.
As I don’t quite understand the game of Shogi and struggle to remember which tile is what, I can’t really judge this one properly.
?
Remake or Remaster?
Clubhouse Games on Switch does the job.
Official Ways to get the game
There’s no official way to play Morita Shogi 64
Europe
Japan
North America
N64 Games by Date
1997: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1998: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1999: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2000: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
Very interesting little anomoly of a game… and one of the very few N64 games to use a custom cartridge!
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I imagine that it must’ve originally been in development for the 64DD (which also had a built-in modem), before being shoved onto the cartridge format; because adding online play with custom hardware in 1998 is a ridiculously ambitious move for such a small publisher!
Speaking of which… Seta are also the developer/publisher responsible for the Japanese only Tetris 64; a game that I won’t go into too much detail about here (lest I steal Cube’s thunder), but it too came with a rather interesting hardware accessory!
Seta really liked using weird and custom hardware didn’t they? They were also responsble for Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi 2 for the SNES in 1995… which came with a custom-made ARM7TDMI CPU (in fact, it’s an earlier version of the same CPU archtecture that would later go on to power the GBA; albeit running on the Ver 3 instruction set, rather than the more advanced Ver 4 instruction set used by the GBA) that that was orders of magnitude more powerful (and expensive!) than the console’s own CPU, or any other custom cartridge chipset ever made for the SNES! In fact, it wasn’t even emulatable at all until it was finally added to the cycle accurate BSNES emulator in 2012!