If you’ve never played a game of Mahjong before, you’re in for a treat. Pure Mahjong on the Nintendo Switch is perhaps one of the best Mahjong games we have seen for a long time, and it also happens to be one of the best-looking games for a long time. These great looks and the depth of play make this a great addition to your Switch collection.
It’s not often that a game blows us away with its variety, but here you not only have hundreds of levels to grapple with, you also have the added delight of a game that lets you play through seasons of the year. Pick up the game at any time, and the title will have chosen the right mood for the season. So in winter, for example, you’re looking at backgrounds that have a truly wintery feel. Summer brings you bright and vibrant colour backgrounds that perfectly match what is (probably) going on outside your window.
Then there’s the music. It’s simply beautiful, and unlike most game music is entirely enjoyable all of the time. Atmospheric and sweeping soundscapes are always there, so you become immersed in the game. In fact, we recommend that you simply turn the volume up while hooked up to your TV. The images and music are breathtaking.
That’s all well and good, and the imagery and music will be attractive to many players. However, how does it fare when it comes to playability?
First up, you get ‘special event’ games every day of the year. We played it and found that it had four a day. They’re different to what has come before too, so you’re never bored. However, to add even more variety to things, you can access a special area called the ‘Teahouse’. Here, you can play a ton of levels at any time of the year.
There is a variety of difficulty settings, so if you’re new to Mahjong the game will ease you in gently. Also, a multitude of options (it’s almost as if the developers wanted to make the most user-friendly game ever) ensure that you can change imagery, sounds and so on.
A neat feature we really enjoyed is the comparison feature. Every game you complete, you’re given a clear idea of how you’ve done compared to other players. The result comes as a percentage, and it can be either incredibly heartening (or not) to see you’re better than 90% of the players for example.
No game is perfect, and we thought that there was some work needed in one certain area. The only thing we found lacking came about when the screen was full of tiles. Unfortunately, there was a little bit of slow-down when the tiles really started to explode during the more involved games we played. Maybe it will be fixed in the future, we don’t know, but it takes a little of the shine off the end product. Not a lot, but enough to notice.
That’s a minor quibble off the back of an excellent game. It isn’t going to turn us off the game, and we think this particular Switch title will become an essential part of every gamer’s collection.
One of the best things about this game on the Switch is the depth of play. There are literally hundreds of levels to play through, and they all present you with an amazing beautifully UI. We cannot stress enough just how good-looking this game is. And then the sheer size of the game hits you.