67 people found this review helpful
5 people found this review funny
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 7.2 hrs on record (2.0 hrs at review time)
Posted: Jan 22, 2015 @ 10:23am
Updated: Jan 23, 2015 @ 6:36am

Pros:
- The only riichi (Japanese) mahjong game available on Steam localized into English
- There are different characters, and each CPU comes with a set playstyle. Also, different voices!

Neutral Remarks:
- Only those who already know at least the basic rules of Japanese mahjong can play this game, yet it still translates some of the terms these players should be familiar with into English which IMO puts me off. ALTHOUGH the translations of the winning configurations (yaku) are welcome.
Examples:
  • Call → Riichi
  • Pung → Pon
  • Chow → Chi
  • Win (appears if you draw the tile) → Agari/Tsumo
  • Also the names for Mangan, Haneman, etc.


    Cons:
    - No multiplayer! ← EMPHASIS ON THIS!
    - The interface itself is clunky and not smooth as compared to other games.
    - It's missing a lot of features already present in other games (albeit those games are in Japanese):
  • Showing what tiles you're going to win with
  • Identifying if a person's tiles are discarded right after draw (tsumogiri)


    Essentially, the game is single player mahjong on a PC platform. I don't know about you, but for me playing against CPUs gets considerable boring over time. If you want to practice playing, I guess you could buy this game, but in terms of features, it is a bit pricey (considering there are free web versions of this).

    All in all, this feels like an old Japanese mahjong game that has just been ported to Steam. It's lacking features for its price.

    If you're a veteran: just stick with web clients like Tenhou.
    If you're trying to get into this game: I would also recommend the above as you'll probably improve more playing elsewhere.
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