Lucha Chess Review

An Autochess Roguelike Wrapped In Lucha Libre And Tacos

Lucha Chess, from solo developer Jorge T.V., entered Steam Early Access on June 1, 2026 after roughly eight months of free demo builds, and its pitch is simple: recruit a roster of Mexican wrestlers, equip them with items, and let them fight it out automatically in an autochess-style roguelike where positioning and synergy matter more than reflexes. At $8.99, it's built a small but lopsided English review pool, 24 reviews, 23 positive and just 1 negative, comfortably clearing this review's minimum threshold, and an even larger all-language pool of 62 reviews sitting at 87% positive, "Very Positive." For a one-person Early Access project built around a specific cultural theme, that's a strong opening reception, even if, as this review will get into, several of the positive reviews come with the same asterisk attached.

The Lucha Libre And Mexican Food Theme Is The Star

Almost every review in this pool, positive or not, leads with the theme, and almost every one of them means it as a compliment. "If you love Mexican culture and cuisine, this game is for you. A ton of love has been poured into designing characters and items," wrote one reviewer, a sentiment echoed by others who specifically called out the masked wrestler character designs and the decision to make items themed around Mexican food rather than generic potions and scrolls. "This is some great auto chess with some great character designs and I love all the Mexican themed wrestlers and food!!!" read another. One reviewer, writing partly in Spanish, called it simply "el mejor auto battler que he jugado," the best auto battler they'd played. This isn't a shallow skin slapped over a generic autochess template; reviewers consistently describe the theme as baked into the game's identity, from the roster to the shop to the item pool, and it's clearly the single biggest reason this small Early Access project is finding an audience at all.

The Autobattling And Meta-Progression Genuinely Land

Underneath the theme, reviewers describe a competent, satisfying autochess loop. "Quite a fun autobattler - lots of variety in upgrades and units to play with," wrote one reviewer with over 12 hours logged, praising the depth of item and character combinations even without the crutch of boss fights driving the pacing. Several reviewers specifically praised the difficulty modifiers players can toggle on for harder runs, and the meta-progression, unlocking new characters and items across attempts, drew consistent praise as a reason to keep coming back. "Meta progression is really good, never found myself being bored of the game," wrote a reviewer who also singled out the developer's continued free updates as a mark of good faith. One reviewer wished for the ability to combine duplicate items into upgraded tiers, a small, specific piece of missing depth rather than a structural complaint, and another flagged the total absence of PvP or multiplayer as the one obvious gap in an otherwise complete-feeling core loop.

Early Access Thinness Is The Pool's Real Fault Line

The pool's single negative review is also its most substantive one, and it's echoed, more gently, by several of the positive reviews. "There are only three bosses and a handful of units. For the price it's hard to recommend despite being a decent game. I've already seen everything the game has to offer in two hours and there isn't enough enemy variety or challenge to justify replaying," reads the negative review, which explicitly acknowledges the Early Access tag while still finding the current offering thin. A positive reviewer with under two hours logged made almost the identical point in a friendlier tone: "it's insanely short to beat all the bosses and I can't see myself replaying just to max level all the characters for achievements." A third reviewer, more measured, put it plainly: "To make this game great, it needs to have more characters and items." None of these reviewers are describing a broken or abandoned game, they're describing a promising skeleton that hasn't yet grown into the game its theme and mechanics suggest it could be, which is a fair and common critique for software still in Early Access four months after launch.

Difficulty Swings Between Trivial And Sudden Spikes

A second, more mechanical complaint recurs across several reviews: the game's difficulty curve doesn't ramp so much as lurch. "About once a run, the enemy is way way overtuned. You can be wiping the floor for 10 battles straight, and suddenly, you get completely mopped in 8 seconds," wrote the pool's most detailed reviewer, who also noted the run-ending stakes are oddly inconsistent, since only the fifth loss and the final boss loss actually end a run, making most individual defeats close to meaningless. Other reviewers described the opposite problem, finding the game too easy overall once its permanent unlock scaling kicks in: "I love how a lot of the effects in the game scale permanently, but with that comes the problem of the game becoming too easy." Read together, these aren't contradictory so much as evidence of exactly the kind of uneven balancing an Early Access autobattler with a small enemy roster would be expected to still be working through.

Verdict

Lucha Chess is a small, charming Early Access autochess built almost entirely on the strength of a theme its reviewers can't stop praising: lucha libre wrestlers, Mexican food-themed items, and character art that reviewers describe as genuinely loving rather than a marketing gimmick. The autobattling itself holds up reasonably well, with real synergy depth and a meta-progression loop reviewers found satisfying rather than grindy, but the current content is thin enough, three bosses, a handful of units, a couple hours to see everything, that even happy reviewers are flagging it as the game's biggest limitation, alongside a difficulty curve that swings unpredictably between trivial and brutal. At $8.99 with a developer visibly still shipping free content updates, it's an easy recommendation for autochess fans drawn to the theme who are comfortable buying into an Early Access project's growth curve rather than a finished game.