Popular board game manufacturer USAopoly has once again gone above and beyond showing its love for The Legend of Zelda series with a beautiful custom chess set.
Taking its main inspiration from Ocarina of Time, the pieces all resemble the main characters - with Link as King for the heroes and Ganondorf as the Dark King for the villains. You then have Zelda as Queen against Twinrova on the opposite side and more fan favorites like Epona, Impa and Darunia as Knights, Bishop and Rooks respectively.
The description for the set reads as follows:
The Legend of Zelda Chess set features prominent hero and villain characters from The Ocarina of Time and pits them against each other in a battle of wits and good vs. evil!
You may also remember that USAopoly previously created a custom monopoly board in the style of Zelda. Currently the set is only for sale only in the United States and Canada, with no evident current plans for a worldwide release. There is always the option to import, or players elsewhere can keep an eye out for a release down the line.
[source usaopoly.com]
Comments (55)
I want it! Too bad it's not available here.
Link's pawns are all Navi?
I would lose from being compelled to sacrifice the lot of them every game!
Shame no one in my family likes playing Chess.
I enjoy when franchises are brought outside of the game like this, but to me this set is a little dark and eerie.
I think I would prefer them to look more vibrant and cartoony instead of the gothic vibe from this set. It is well designed, but just not to my taste.
The reviews on Amazon are pretty mixed. The base is a thick board stock and the pieces are vinyl. From the look of it, I'd hoped that the pieces would at least have been metal. It seems terribly expensive for the materials they used.
@Luna_110 Really? It's the best strategy game ever invented! How can they not enjoy that?
I think a lot of people don't like how long it takes to play sometimes. I setup a set in the kitchen and we just play when we talk by. Keeps it casual.
Chess is a great strategic game but I prefer Magic the Gathering more, maybe even Risk
Wtf is the queen on the villain side?
@AirElephant Assuming it's like the Mario chess set USAopoly put out, then yah very vinyl affair all around. Quality is still quite good (a touch below Amiibo quality).
I too though would prefer if they were metal of some sort.
I'm more of a Draughts fan
@G0dlike Twinrova I think
@Kid_Sickarus ah yeah, that makes sense!!!
Awesome! They'll probably be super expensive though.
Seen it. It's so much more expensive in Europe than the US. And then there's a couple of more things. A few pieces don't make sense and the board itself is cheap by comparison to the chess pieces. For that kind of money I'd expect better.
From what I've read, the materials and quality do NOT warrant the $90 (CAD) price tag. If the pieces actually were metal, then they might've had something...
Their Mario Chess set got some flak as well. It's a shame, because I like Chess, and this is a good idea for an adaptation. Just not well executed.
Way too much money...
too pointy
Novelty chess sets are annoying as it's rarely obvious what piece is what.
This is beautiful, it's too bad it's not available in the UK (yet), not to mention that I don't play chess...
@Nik-Davies there's no reason why you couldn't use it as a draughts/chequers set as well.
£75 from Amazon.com with all duty covered, people say it's expensive for what it is but as someone who's had many pewter sets of chess, metal pieces just bend easy and look tacky.
Vinyl works for what they've went for, Triforce gold vs black.
If you want a real quality chess set, you buy wood, not metal. And you can't get gold wood and doing gold metal would ya know, add a couple grand to the price, so vinyl makes sense.
I just wish Twinrova was Twinrova, it's Kotake and Koume on the piece, 2 people as one piece only makes sense if they were actually in the Twinrova form.
I'm still waiting on the FF7 monopoly. Announced last summer for release April 14 2017, nothing yet
While I love chess and zelda, the price vs quality of materials makes this a pass.
Well, it doesn't make me angry.
Technically, Link should have been a knight... but this is badass
@RadioHedgeFund How would you double up the tokens to become a king?
Aaaahhh, but I just got more money, can't I just wait a little lon-
(Inner Triforce Voice) NO!
@Kid_Sickarus How very dare you! Navi is life, Navi is love! <3
Welp thank you Amazon one click (I'm going to have to work so much extra over the next month...sigh)! Going to have to design a better board though. Ugh why do I collect chess sets...what is wrong with me?
No Ruto..but Zelda (rightfully) gets to be Queen? LMAO somewhere a Zora princess is TICKED THE FRICK OFF.
For 90 bucks I can get some mahogany Stauntons on a wood board.
These are molded plastic with a cardboard board right?
You cant play novelty sets really they are more for looking at. And when you look at these you realize instantly these are plastic made to look like metal. Then you say to yourself , "Ok it's just plastic. I guess if it was real metal it would cost like 90 bucks."
This is much more "classy" than my Mario chess set. I would buy it, if anyone I knew liked playing chess. No point in having multiple sets that never get used.
Does anyone play shougi? Im teaching myself that. I got a SNES shougi game.
@NaviAndMii awww... now things went and got awkward 😳
61.99 with Amazon prime. Not a horrible price point for what you get.
@Kid_Sickarus s'all good! ..she knows she's not universally loved! **Listen!**
This looks nice. I want this one.
@Kienda
You are so right on!!! I want a vibrant cartoony less gothic dark eeire look also. I think If you give me 60-90 bucks worth of sculpey and a couple hours Im gonna make something so much cooler.
@NaviAndMii at least she's in one of the best games ever. I hope she negotiated a good royalty deal
@Kid_Sickarus
you win the game by knowing when to sacrifice your pawns.
( ~_^)b
I am also disappointed that the pieces are made of plastic, but after searching around for a bit, metal chess pieces are surprisingly expensive.
I found a set with roman inspired figures and it cost twice as much as this. Adding the novelty factor of a Zelda chess set the price would probably be around 200 $.
On the other hand, you can get a set completely made out of high quality wood for much less than 80 $. So it would have been nice to at least include a wooden board.
@Utena-mobile if only I could master that, I wouldn't be losing three games simultaneously right now on SocialChess
Call me crazy, but I don't like this set. I'd prefer for the pieces to be less character based anyway. I like armos as rook, though. I guess I really need both sides to use the same design for the same piece or else it bothers me to see it as different designs like this (king and queens can be unique, of course).
I guess this isn't something you'd really use for serious play, but then I don't collect sets just for display. I'd actually use it if I bought it.
I need to know the specs.
I like the idea but the execution leaves something to be desired.
Don't really like it. But i think because i don't reallu feel it for ocarina of time. An original inspired zelda chess set maybe ...
But what's even the point if I don't have a fish waifu bishop?
Got to have... someday.
This got me thinking… wouldn't it be swell if the Nintendo-themed Monopoly boards made it into the Monopoly game on Switch?
Never liked Chess… mainly on the account of not knowing how to play it. =P
@Gingadreadman where do you live? North Korea? I live in Germany and mine arrived two weeks ago.
@Kienda except for the board, the chess set is very nice and looks good. Could be cheaper, but I am satisfied.
Very nice.
Too bad they restricted it to OoT... would have been great if they'd used Lynels for the black knight pieces.
@Priceless_Spork I play. Still pretty terrible at it but I try to get in a game or two a day. I'm hoping they port the wiiu game to the switch...only reason I haven't imported it yet.
@setezerocinco Very funny. It's just i read that it's only for sale in US and Canada.
@Ryu_Niiyama
I copied the symbols and moves on grid paper as a reference guide to help learn. The problem I have is the martian symbols on the tiles. I cant tell them apart easy since I dont read that. It confuses me. I wish one of the SNES games made an english friendly set. I dont need the moves on the front cause I just look at my notes, I need symbols on the front so I can tell them apart. Like pictures man I need pictures of horses and castles and emperors and stuff. I think the game itself is really cool. Im not sure if I like drops though.
Next to learn is mahjong. The real one. I think there might be variations I'm not sure. I want to get down on this game to play some imports I have. I also like to get all these pachinko type games. Gotta learn Japanese. I just got learn japanese coach for DS so I can try to play these games.
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