MahJong: DS

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Alienblue

MahJong: DS

Postby Alienblue » November 4th, 2007, 12:39 pm

MAHJONG QUEST EXPEDITIONS/ Nintendo DS/ D+

For those who haven't played Mahjong solitaire, it is sorta like japanese concentration; you must clear a stack of tiles by matching pairs which are removed from the "set". The set is stacked four high and you must remove edge and top tiles before you can remove bottom ones. The tiles themselves have very detailed, complex patterns indicating a combination of numerals and pictures or Haiku characters.

This DS version takes that concept and unfortunately makes it darn near unplayable. First, there is a silly story "quest" about a young monk split into his yin/yang male/female halves and must restore balance by beating 12 sets(shades of RANMA 1/2!). Later puzzles have hidden bonus balloons and stuff and it adds nothing to the game. Give us a plain ol' puzzle mode!

The REAL big problem here though is that the WHOLE SET is pictured on the bottom DS screen! Do you have any idea how hard it is to SEE these complex patterns when they are 3 pixels high?!
This could easily have been solved by A) scrolling the board or better yet B)using an AMERICAN picture set; the old Gameboy Mahjong did just that, letting you use the albhabet or numbers instead of the near-impossible to read original tiles. I have 20-21 vision but after one set my eyes were watering. And you CANNOT SAVE THE GAME without losing a life-WHA!? Who thought THAT "feature" up!?

Lets just say I'm glad I didn't buy this game (my gal-freind did); Me, I'll stick to the PC freeware version!

Zenzerotron

MahJong: DS

Postby Zenzerotron » November 6th, 2007, 12:02 am

It's too bad that you don't consult me about your game purchases anymore. You KNOW I got you perfectly figured out! Unlike your clueless "gal friend"

Alienblue

MahJong: DS

Postby Alienblue » November 6th, 2007, 4:28 am

Zen: Where did I say I BOUGHT this? I advised her from doing so but she did anyway and I BORROWED it so I could review it and warn others! I think I've got me figured out too. I'm pretty careful with game purchases now. I'm not ragging on you or anything Zen, you know good games too, I'm just pointing this out. (I took your advice and stayed away from YOSHIS)

Julio III

MahJong: DS

Postby Julio III » November 6th, 2007, 10:46 am

I have a Japanese DS game called Shanghai DS which I was also very dissapointed by. Seeing such tiny tiles is annoying. This game featured many many different tilesets and tile layouts and various modes (not so sure on the difference though, its all in Japanese) but overall I found it lacking to the online version I used to play on the DigitPress Forums, probably to the high score feature of that version.

Alienblue

MahJong: DS

Postby Alienblue » November 6th, 2007, 12:52 pm

This sites GOTTA come up with another Grinning face input than
":" and "D"! Every time I write about the DS this happens!

Maybe !D?

The absolute best Mah Jong game I ever played was the freeware AMIGA version. I played that as much as TETRIS back in the 90's!
MJ is fun but not if you can't see it. And again, it was totally unfair to take one of your 3 lives on the Quest everytime you saved it! Who wants to play more than one or two sets at a time?!


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