Like a Dragon: Ishin! Shogi Guide, Part 1: How to Play and Get the Three Wins

Like a Dragon: Ishin! Shogi Guide, Part 1: How to Play and Get the Three Wins Shogi is one of those activities where the game can put a whole board in front of you before you understand what any of the pieces do. You can learn it properly, but if you're here for Ishin's completion requirement, you can also get the three wins through the first Challenge Match. Head to Shogi Parlor Ikoma in Rakunai, east of the blacksmith. This guide covers the rules, the first challenge, and the owner's friendship in the 2023 remake. What you're trying to do Trap the other king so it is under attack and has no legal escape. That's checkmate. You cannot make a move that leaves your own king under attack, either. The board is nine squares across and nine down. The direction a piece points tells you which player owns it. When I say forward below, I mean toward the opponent's side of the board. What each piece does • King: one square in any direction. • Rook: any distance along a row or column. • Bishop: any distance diagonally. • Gold general: one square forward, backward, sideways, or diagonally forward. No backward diagonals. • Silver general: one square straight forward or diagonally in any direction. No sideways move or straight backward move. • Knight: two squares forward and one sideways. It jumps over pieces, but it cannot jump backward like a chess knight. • Lance: any distance straight forward. • Pawn: one square straight forward. It captures straight forward too, not diagonally. Except for the knight's jump, you cannot move through another piece. Landing on an enemy piece captures it. Landing on one of your own is not a legal move. Promotion The three rows nearest your opponent are your promotion zone. Most pieces can promote after a move that starts or ends there. The king and gold general never promote. Pawn, lance, knight, and silver gain the gold general's movement. The promoted rook keeps its long straight moves and adds one-square diagonal moves. The promoted bishop keeps its long diagonals and adds one-square straight moves. A pawn or lance must promote when it reaches the farthest row. A knight must promote on either of the last two rows. Otherwise those pieces would have no move left. Promotion usually helps, but read the movement change. A silver loses its backward diagonal moves when it becomes gold-like. Promoting without looking can change the move you were planning next. Captured pieces come back This is the part that makes shogi very different from chess. Captured pieces become yours. Instead of moving a piece already on the board, you can use your turn to drop one of those captured pieces onto an empty square. It returns unpromoted, even if you captured it promoted. Dropping it into the promotion zone doesn't immediately promote it. There are three restrictions worth learning right away: • You cannot drop a pawn into a column where you already have an unpromoted pawn. • You cannot drop a pawn or lance onto the last row, or a knight onto either of the last two rows. It would have no legal future move. • You cannot deliver immediate checkmate by dropping a pawn. A pawn already on the board can move to give checkmate. That last rule doesn't ban every checking pawn drop. It bans the drop that leaves the opposing king with no legal answer. Before you move, check what your opponent is holding off the board. An empty square beside your king isn't necessarily going to stay empty. If you're only watching the pieces already in play, a dropped piece can catch you completely off guard. Challenge Match 1: the completion shortcut Choose the Challenges option and select the first match. Count rows from the top of your screen and columns from the left. Wait for the opponent's reply between your moves. 1. Take your right-hand bishop, which starts on the third row from the bottom. Move it diagonally to row 3, column 3. Promote it. 2. Move your other bishop to row 3, column 7. Promote that one too. 3. Move the promoted bishop on the right diagonally up-left to the top row, column 5. 4. Take the lance on the left, initially on the second row from the bottom, and advance it straight to the second row from the top. Promote it. That finishes the first challenge. Repeat the same challenge until the Completion List records three wins. They do not have to be three different opponents or three different challenges. The promotions matter. If the board stops matching those directions, restart Challenge Match 1 and check the earlier moves rather than trying to force the next instruction onto a different position. The owner's friendship Playing matches advances the Shogi Parlor Owner's bond. You don't have to become an expert: even starting a match and conceding advances the friendship. Eventually the owner offers his own game. Accept it and finish or concede to complete the bond and receive a Tear of the Dragon. Conceding is useful for the friendship, but it is not a win. Do the three challenge victories separately and check both records before leaving this activity behind. If you're learning full matches, keep your king protected, avoid giving away pieces without getting something useful back, and look for threats from captured pieces before committing to an attack. A clever attack doesn't help much if the opponent can drop a piece beside your king and finish the game first.