Dengen Tenshi Taisen Janshi Shangri-la

The story for this game is minimal. Arcade mode has you battling five different girls (computer firewalls) with your mahjong skills to save a computer system. CG cutscenes interspersed between battles tell you what’s going on, if you won or not, and what your next opponent will be like. You can’t select a character so as far as I can tell there are no multiple endings.

The tiles are well done, the tables are snazzy, the menus intuitive and fast-loading, and the girls look pretty. The only real 3D graphics are in the semi-informative cutscenes. That being said, the normal cutscenes are mediocre with almost no animation and poor voice acting. Some cutscenes, however, are absolutely breathtaking. Full motion video and lovely voice acting almost makes you think they were real people. The contrast in cutscene quality within the game rather puzzles me, actually.

Excellent tracks bounce around in the background, and the smooth house/techno music fits the cyber style of the game nicely. Sound effects are adequate and fulfill any actions needing auditory enhancement.

Marvelous entertainment somehow thought that a two-player mahjong game was needed. I have never played or even seen two player mahjong before this game. Even googleing the phrase brings up very little useful information. The rules are similar enough to regular Japanese of Hong Kong mahjong however, to pick up on the game rather quickly. I like quirky different games that veer off the mainstream path, and this was right up my alley. The game only offers you two modes to play, the arcade mode which has five levels (with four difficulty settings) and original mode which is slightly longer. Should you suck and lose and have to continue, the game offers to help you a bit by giving you some tools to get an edge over that girl who keeps beating you down. These items range from a timer extender to give you more time to think, to actually showing you your opponent’s entire hand.