Game: Legendary Mahjong
Genre: Casual, Indie, Puzzle
System: Steam (Windows) (also available on iOS & Android)
Developers | Publishers: IP Izmailov Vladimir Yurievich | HH-Games
Controller Support: No
Price: US $5.99 | UK £4.79 | EU € 5,99
Release Date: October 25th, 2017
Review code used, with many thanks to HH-Games.
Legendary Mahjong is a single-player puzzle game published by HH-Games. Though it may be called Mahjong, it differs slightly from a Mahjong game played with four players on a tabletop with Mahjong tiles. Let’s see what it is like.
Storyline
Long ago, the people who bowed before the ancient gods became careless, and they forgot about them and stopped visiting the temples and saying their prayers.
Wouldn’t you know it, but the ancient gods flew into a fury and decided to punish them. However, one of the more excellent gods felt sorry for the people and wanted to help them avoid punishment. Unfortunately, the little blue god can’t involve himself personally in mortal affairs, so it’s up to you to support him and restore the dilapidated temples. While the game has a storyline, it is relatively thin and could have been more interesting.
Match Tiles
In Legendary Mahjong, tiles are placed on a board and arranged in a four-layer pattern with their faces upward. A tile is said to be open or exposed if it can be moved left or right without disturbing other tiles. So your goal is to match the open pairs of identical tiles wherein they are removed from the board. Removing tiles exposes the tiles underneath for play, and you keep matching tiles until the board is cleared.
Different Modes of Play
Legendary Mahjong has six game modes, each with its unique rules. As you move through each Temple, playing the levels, you collect a key which opens up the next Temple allowing you to move forward.
There is Classic mode, where you get the usual pairing challenge from a typical mahjong game. In addition, Match mode is where tiles are shown at the bottom of the screen and task you with making matches.
Furthermore, in Slide mode, you must slide the tiles around the board until it reaches their matching tile. Then in Numbers mode, you get to match numbered tiles. Finally, there is Triple mode, where you get to match three-of-a-kind tiles, and Rivers mode, where you make matches by a line linking the tiles.
Tutorial
When you move to a new temple and a new mechanic is applied, you are shown a short tutorial to get you started. Each tutorial explains all you need to know to play the following levels.
While the gameplay and the added mechanics in each Temple are fun when you first start to play them, it gets rather dull matching tiles after a while. The music is good, but it’s on repeat, so even it gets repetitive.
Visuals and Controls
Graphically, Legendary Mahjong gets the job done. Though I have played games that are much better presented to the player, it’s passable. A nice touch the developers have incorporated into the game is that you customise the tiles and background to your liking. You can change the shape and the set of tiles, the colour and the background of the board.
Playing the game is done using the keyboard and mouse, and it all works as it should; I’ve no complaints about the controls.
Conclusion
Overall, if you are a massive fan of Mahjong games, you will probably find all you are looking for in Legendary Mahjong. There are over 300 levels of tile-matching to complete to keep you busy for hours on end. As for me, while I liked Legendary Mahjong, the game didn’t provide a challenge for me, and it was all too easy.
Final Verdict: I Like It 