Archon

Your knight has reached the enemy’s square. Now he has to survive the fight. Archon mixes a fantasy strategy board with direct, one-on-one battles, making every attempted capture a chance for the defending piece to change your plans.

Light and Dark armies bring different creatures and spells to the NES battlefield. The color of the square can alter the balance of a duel, and an injured winner may need time to recover. A strong move on the board still leaves you with a fight to win.

Platform: NES

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Moving onto an enemy square feels like a declaration of confidence. In Archon, it is also an invitation to prove it. The board gives way to a combat arena, and you take direct control of your creature against the piece you were planning to capture.

Different creatures change the encounter. A slow, powerful fighter and a nimble projectile user need different approaches, so the stronger-looking piece is not an automatic winner. Injuries can follow the survivor back to the board, making another immediate challenge a risk instead of a free continuation of the last success.

The board’s light and dark squares add another reason to choose the moment carefully. Creatures gain strength on their own side’s color, and some squares shift over time. Spells give the Wizard and Sorceress additional ways to interfere with the arrangement, while holding all five power points offers an alternative to destroying the opposing army.

The NES manual is useful for comparing the creatures before you commit one. Against another player, the combination of considered moves and hurried duels can be excellent. It can also sting when a promising plan collapses because you simply lost the fight that was supposed to complete it.

Archon: the Light and Dark armies face each other across the NES battlefield.

Graphics

The board is framed by bright red brickwork, with the two armies arranged across blue, black, and pale squares. The tiny creature portraits are distinctive enough to give the opposing forces a little personality, even when several pieces are crowded together.

Combat moves closer to the creatures. The Wizard and a green dragon face each other across a vivid green graveyard, with small headstones scattered around the arena and a red ornamental border outside it. The colors can be loud, but the larger figures make the confrontations more appealing than the small board pieces suggest.

Archon: the Light wizard fights a Dark dragon on a light square in the NES game.

Story

Light and Dark are fighting for control of a battlefield. A Wizard leads one army and a Sorceress commands the other, with mythical creatures taking the place of ordinary soldiers.

That makes the individual confrontations an entertainingly unlikely gathering. An archer can find himself facing a monster, while a magical creature may turn an apparently favorable meeting into a dangerous one. Each army has a rather more colorful roster than a conventional set of chess pieces.

The spellcasters are valuable participants in that struggle. Keeping one safe preserves options for later turns, but leaving the rest of the army to do the work can become harder as pieces fall.

Overall Experience

Archon’s great attraction is the uncertainty that remains after a good-looking move. Planning still matters, but a capture is never merely a piece being lifted from a square. You have to take that creature into the arena and make the result happen.

The mixture will not suit everyone. A patient strategist can be frustrated by the demand for quick movement, and an eager fighter still has to think about the board before charging into the next duel. Enjoying both halves is the best route to enjoying the game.

With a willing second player, though, there is plenty to argue about and plenty to come back for. The changing squares, different creatures, and wounded survivors make each rematch a little less predictable than the starting arrangement suggests.