Several years ago, I played my first game of Mahjong. I was immediately hooked on the game. I've always wanted to play it again, but there was one problem: it's near-impossible to find a digital version of the game in the US. Most game sites that claim to offer Mahjong actually just have Shanghai instead. While that uses the same tiles, it's not even close to the same experience. It would be like a site advertising Free Online Poker and when you go to play, they give you a game of Solitaire. Well, it uses the same cards...

At any rate, I began hunting down Japanese video games because I noticed there are a LOT of Mahjong games out there in this format. There's just one problem with Japanese games of these sort. They're either one-on-one or perverted (usually both, actually).

Well, here I finally found what seems like an honest to goodness four-player Mahjong game to give me the true Mahjong experience. It didn't seem to be adult oriented initially either. Most other games make it very blatant what the game is for.

I initially played the Normal Mode (first option that you start on in the mode select). I played several hands before finally stopping, because it seemed like you just keep playing until you're tired of doing so any further. It didn't look like it had a definite end, anyway. I even sent one of the opponents into the negative points. There was nothing suspicious or really suggestive about the game at this point. I did think it was a little odd that all the opponents you can select were female, but I shrugged that off.

Later, I tried the Pro mode (the other option). To see what that was all about. I played several hands of this as well (and for a 'pro mode', it seemed a lot easier than 'Normal mode'). Eventually, the game suddenly ended with a score tally, proclaiming I had won. The next thing I know, the game presents me with a picture that I didn't expect. I guess this game isn't just about the Mahjong after all. At least it seems like you can have fun playing a regular game in Normal mode, anyway.

There aren't a lot of graphics to speak of in this game. You have the tiles and dice (which are hard to mess up) and then the player mugshots. There are also random pictures of women here and there that appear to be based on real people moreso than standard game drawings. The quality on most of the mugshots are decent... but there are a few that clash due to the style being inconsistent. This is most noticeable on the glasses-wearing girl that's the second auto-picked character in Pro Mode. That portrait is kind of an eyesore mixed in with the others, honestly.

Sound effects are about standard for TG16. I've heard worse, really. Same goes for the music quality. The actual music tunes are pretty good. The main one that plays doing matches is really catchy despite being extremely simple and repetitive.

To wrap it all up, this can be a fun proper (as in 3 opponent) Mahjong game that isn't too difficult if you know how to play. Just don't play the Pro Mode unless you're a pervert.