dirtbag MAHJONG

Absolutely adore this game. It's a single-player Riichi Mahjong game with characters who really are dirtbags (affectionate,) but goes beyond just being an excuse to play Riichi Mahjong against CPUs- even though you totally could just play normal Riichi Mahjong with CPUs if that's what you wanted to do, as the game has a Normal Mahjong mode for that. The Cool Stuff You Should Know: Writing - Every character has their own story mode to go through with fun cutscenes and high-energy dialogue. - Despite the cutesy, quirky aesthetic, the writing is really good at not being annoying. If you've played other stuff in this style, you'll have a pretty good idea of what I mean. - It is GENUINELY funny. Great comedic timing, and fantastic pacing that avoids dragging dialogue scenes on for too long. Gameplay - Every Chapter in a character's storyline features a unique mission you have to complete during the match in order to advance further into their story. It's not always about winning the match. Sometimes the goal is to manipulate the game so that you rank below another character while avoiding being KO'd out of the match entirely. - As someone who has played a lot of Riichi Mahjong (to win obviously,) having to apply what I know about winning in order to orchestrate some other win condition is AWESOME. I feel like I'm being challenged to prove my mastery of the game in fresh and interesting ways. This is one of those things that I didn't realize I wanted out of a Mahjong game until I had it. Now I want way, way more of stuff like this. - The Kicker: Every character you can play as has a set of unique abilities you can use to affect the board state and other players. Every one has HP and MP, and if you lose all your HP, you're forced to skip a turn to revive. - This DRASTICALLY changes the typical strategy you might employ when building your hands or completing missions. - Abilities are kept low-to-the-ground, but when paired with the complexities of Mahjong, you end up with more than just one way to utilize them. - As an example, as Rhea, you can goad players into discarding mid-range number tiles to avoid your attacks early in the round, and then use her second ability to shuffle the discard piles and potentially throw them into furiten by laying traps inside your own discards BEFORE you shuffle. - That's just ONE strategy you can use with the character that's focused more on putting pressure. There's more. A LOT more you can do with that setup. - I think what I like about this game the most is that it is STILL Riichi Mahjong. It's not a roguelite with some mahjong elements, although I do like Aotenjo as well. It's riichi mahjong with a couple of extra features that work REALLY well with its traditional ruleset and general gameplay. I highly, highly recommend Dirtbag Mahjong if you like mahjong and are looking for a fresh take on the game that isn't super far removed from the actual rules of mahjong. This, to me, is what the ideal single-player mahjong game should play like. The ONLY thing I wish this had was a multiplayer component, and that's because I firmly believe that a multiplayer game of Dirtbag Mahjong, with four human players who can strategize with their character abilities, would go super hard. If you like mahjong, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. Period.