Single Comment

Omega Chess has 2 interesting new pieces that fit together well tactically
with the original pieces as well as each other. That is its strong point.

The Champion turns out to be the much stronger piece compared to the Wizard
which loses value as the game goes on. The Champion turns out to be one of
the strongest pieces at the end of the game, but its a bit dull to use at
the start like the knight which needs an extra move to attack.

While the 10x10 board makes the Wizard an interesting piece to use, Omega
Chess also suffers from not having enough tension between pawns and
fighting for control of squares as compared to variants that maintain the
same distance between the pawns.

Having more space between the pawns (2 rows) leads to more complex
situations, but having that much space also makes the game a little boring
when pieces are just setting up with apparently no reason for doing so.

If pawns are the soul of chess as Philidor said, then Omega Chess pawns are
not at the soul of the game. The pawns simply don't push away key pieces
often enough creating a space advantage for one player who is moving its
pieces in the right order. So while extra space may seem like a good idea,
it hurts the tactical considerations of pawn move that normal Chess has.

I believe Omega Chess is a step in the right direction in terms of the
evolution of Chess, but its unlikely that a game without enough tension
between pawns and a fight for control of the center will gain that much
popularity among the general population.

The fact that certain options rules in Omega Chess Advanced like temporal
knight have been suggested which gives the knight more range suggests that
the original setup of the pieces is not quite ideal.

The knight and the champion just aren't exciting enough soon enough. With
rooks, bishops, and the queen becoming even more powerful, the short range
jumping pieces need to be in better positions to create more interesting
interaction between sliding and jumping pieces. The wizard is also a little
far away from the action. Even after moving to its general development
square, it still doesn't seem to be that much closer to doing something
interesting except along the right or left flank.