Title: Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye (NA) Super Shanghai: Dragon's Eye (JP)
Release Date: 04/28/1992
Developer: Genki
Publisher: Activision (US) Hot- B (JP)
Well here we are; 100 entries into this blog. To mark this occasion, we are covering that Mahjong spin off game that everyone had on their old PC computers on default. Yeehaw.
Background
Mahjong is the competitive tile game that I have tried to learn to better accomplish my personal goal of getting a platinum medal in all the Yakuza games. Shanghai, though, I am much more familiar with, as it was installed on my Mom's old work computer in her home office. Whenever I was using her computer, as a kid, to type up school papers and the like, I would sometimes pull up Shanghai, also known as Mahjong Solitaire, when I was bored.
Mahjong solitaire is pretty simple to pick up, and takes very little strategy. The game constructs an almost ziggurat of Mahjong tiles, utilizing all 144 tiles. These arrangements may take different forms depending on the level of difficulty you are going for in a round of the game, which makes sense as in a Solitaire style game you are really playing a puzzle that you set for yourself. You are then looking to match tiles that share the same symbols, the only catch being that the tiles can't be under any other tiles, or blocked by a tile on the left/right. When you match a set, those tiles are removed from play, and the ziggurat slowly shrinks. That is the entire game in a nutshell.
Weirdly, this was published by Activision in the US. Warcraft, Call of Duty...Mahjong. Humble beginnings I guess. Development wise, the game was developed by Genki, which is really not known for much at all, though was fairly active up until a couple of years ago.
Gameplay
The game plays like a Mahjong Solitaire game. Very similar to as you would play on a computer, but made a bit more awkward with a traditional controller than a mouse and keyboard. This version has only a few music tracks, some animations for when you match tiles, and some other presentation flourishes (looking at you intro Chinese dragon), but that is really it.
The game thankfully lets you know when there are no more possible moves, and is very generous for helping you out by highlighting pairs if you want to move the game forward a phase. Honestly, though, it is a pretty barebones game, similar to the Shogi games we have covered thus far.
Music
The game starts with chopsticks...wow.
Final Verdict
I'm sure there is a better version of this game hiding on your PC somewhere, and if not I am sure it is available on Steam. This is a game that is best enjoyed elsewhere or in better formats. Also, aside from being our 100th entry in this blog, it is also the end of April 1992. What will we encounter in May?!?
