Asahi Shinbun Rensai: Katou Hifumi Kudan Shougi: Shingiryuu

Asahi Shimbun Rensai Katou Hifumi Kudan Shogi Shingiryuu (“Asahi Shimbun Series: Hifumi Kato’s 9th Dan Shogi Mind Flow Technique”, roughly) is a 1995 shogi game for the Super Famicom. The game features two endorsements: The first is from the Japanese national newspaper Asahi Shimbun, which helped produce the game as part of their multimedia “rensai” or “series”, and the second is from professional shogi champion Hifumi Kato (or Katou), who also lent his name to the 1997 SNES shogi game Katou Hifumi Kudan Shogi Club.

The game purports to teach players the titular technique that helped Hifumi reached 9th Dan, the highest normal rank in competitive shogi (10th Dan is reserved for special cases). As well as tutorials, the game has a number of CPU opponents that the player can pit their skills against as well as a mode where the player can set up a shogi board with a customized configuration of pieces for testing techniques.

While the game is clearly published by Varie, the game’s developer is presently unknown: the game lacks a staff roll and the information wasn’t made apparent anywhere in the game’s literature. A credit for Hect is present, though whether this is due to them contributing to the game or the game simply licensing the shogi AI tech from an earlier Hect game is unclear.