Mahjong... didn't think I would start my first review on TA with this game, but honestly, I enjoyed it a lot.
If you know how to play Mahjong, and you enjoy it, then I would recommend getting this game. For first time players of Mahjong, it is pretty simple, all you have to do is match two of the same tiles together in a large board of randomly generate puzzles. Simple.
Some of levels can be a bit confusing if you're a first time player to Mahjong in regards to what tiles (especially if they are flipped over), you can use. The tiles required have to be "free", for example, if you have 4 tiles at the base height, you cannot click the 2 middle tiles as they are blocked by the 2 outer tiles. However, if you have 4 tiles again, but the inner 2 tiles are an extra tile above the outer 2 tiles, you can use them, as they have no tiles blocking them. Selecting those 2 tiles as a pair will then make them disappear revealing the 2 tiles underneath them, which are now blocked by the 2 outer tiles.
In Mahjong Adverture DX there are a total of 7 Boards which all contain 9 levels to complete, so if my calculations are correct, that should be 63 levels! Each level has a timer countdown to achieve either a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal. To unlock the next level/board in the game, you have to basically get a medal. It doesn't matter whether you get Gold, Silver or Bronze medal to progress. So fairly straight forward in that case. Getting a Gold medal gives you more coins at the end of the level to spend on perks that are in the game;
- Undo (100 coins) - Returns the last removed pair of tiles back to board.
- Shuffle (1000 coins) - Shuffles all remaining tiles on board if you have no more possible combinations.
- Hint (50 coins) - Highlights available matching pair.
- Dragon's Breath (1500 coins) - Allows you to remove all identical tiles of your choice.
- Time Bonus (500 coins) - Gives you an extra 45 seconds.
- Lucky Charm (150 coins) - Highlights all free tiles for 30 seconds.
You also get some of these perks once finishing a level as well.
Mahjong is a fairly quick completion for a puzzle game, averaging around 5-6 hours here on TrueAchievements, and for the price of £6.69, I would say that is fair, however, I would like to see additional content released for this game as it is just nice to sometimes just chill, listen to some music and play a puzzle game.
Achievement wise, Mahjong has 23 achievements. 6 achievements related to using each perk once. 7 achievements for completing a board, and 10 achievements for getting gold medals.
The achievements are pretty easy to unlock, and you have more than enough levels to easily get 45 gold medals. I was able to get 45 Gold Medals by the end of the 5th Board (I achieved Gold on every level), and was pretty easy. What I recommend is buy a few of the Time Bonus Perk. That way if you are close to completing a level but you miss Gold buy a few seconds, you can just activate that perk and still get a Gold Medal, which is what I did on a few levels.
Anyway, I've rambled a lot on what I hope is a useful review. I enjoyed the game a lot, I just sat down for a few hours over the past few days, listened to music and relaxed. I personally think it is nice to just step back from some games that I've been playing at the moment (GTA, Titanfall, Cyberpunk etc), and enjoy some of the more simple, puzzle games which are on Xbox.
Overall, I'm going to give Mahjong Adventure DX 3.5 score. As I've said, I found it a fun game just to chill to, but unfortunately it just didn't last long. If more content (either free updates or small DLC) is released then I will definitely come back to this review.
Thanks for reading :)
Ducksss
If you dislike my review please let me know why, and let me know what I can improve on if I ever do future reviews. Thanks!
EDIT -
1) Checking over the forums, a few players have had issues with unlocking the achievement for completing the 6th board. I had no issues personally as I did board 6 in one sitting, might be just worth looking out for. If you have this issue check over the forum, or try deleting/reinstalling the game or clear the game cache.
2) Also on the forum I've seen a few people state (this also happened to me as well), that they have been able to get the achievement for completing the 7th board with one level remaining.
3.5