so, i always wanted one of these mahjong games and figured this would do, so i downloaded it, now here are my impressions:

The menu us nice and clean, if a little confusing for the first time, the game sends you directly to this screen, no "licenced by" and wasteful stuff like that, i like that.

You can select from 50 different layouts (10 easy, 10 medium and 30 hard), you can also play memory and matching, in three difficulty levels each, too.

The game itself. You start with two different views of your board, a 3D one in the upper screen and a basic 2D one in the bottom screen, you can change the screens, but the upper screen is always the contrary of the bottom screen, i mean, the upper screen shows the pieces you have already discarted and the bottom screen shows the pieces still in play.

I personally found the game easier to play in 2D (for bigger designs, smaller ones are easier to play in 3D), even if the pieces are smaller, the 3D pieces are harder to look at because its harder to notice if they are in a lower row or not, but i guess others may disagree with that.

Every time you pair two pieces there is a wait time for the next move, so you cant really go on a speed frenzy or something like that (this gets a little annoying in the matching game), and sometimes you need to tap twice to select a piece.

Memory is harder than your usual memory game, because of the complicated designs the pieces have and matching is more about speed than brains, but what ever.

The controls of the 3D camera are kind of awkward but they work i guess.

You can select 6 different backgrounds and piece designs, one of which (aptly named "easy") is very easy to look at, there are also other cool ones like egypt and poker. those are nice options that may help keep the game fresh.
You can also change from the +control pad and buttons to the stylus at anytime.

There seem to be only 2 different slightly long songs which play one afther the other, i like them. other sounds include taps and clicks.

The mahjong designs are also nice, and they save your best time for each one, you can save and quit, reshuffle the pieces and stuff.
This a quality pick and play game and its very nice, i like it, i dont know if others may like the 500 price tag but i think it is fair for what the game is.

i give it a -----drum roll
79/100
+1 point for the animated icon

I download as well and its a good game to play givin it 8/10

Official Trailer:
http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/R8dK8iV65kuAa_yNlDXbK83B...

I also agree that the price point is fair.

I just never understand mahjong games.

@hunklol123456789: i heard these kind of games arent the "real" mahjong, but theyre very simple to understand, you have a layout made of several layers of pieces and you must find matching pairs, theres a catch though, only pieces with one or both of its sides (left or right) free and no pieces on top of them may be selected. Matching pairs are removed, and thus they let other pieces to be selected, and you repeat that until there are no pieces left!

oh yeah, i forgot, usually, pieces with flowers and stations may be matched with any flower or station (flowers with flowers and stations with stations, so if you have a piece with winter and another one with spring, they are a match!). though these pieces seem to be absent from this game... or i havent seen them o.o

AWESOME GAME... I am a huge Mahjong fan and am loving this. So far, I give it a 9/10. In places the graphics are fuzzy but overall it's a wonderful cheap ($5) 3d puzzling experience... and the gameplay is fun too

http://dsiware.nintendolife.com/reviews/2010/08/3d_mahjong_ds...

the review is up, 7/10!

so whats your favourite layout?
i think square and square on the easy ones is perfect for a (really) quick game

Love playin this game!

@ Abgar .... I think I have more games in common with you than anyone else on this site. We must have similar tastes

Since it's a 500-point game, I'll mention a few nitpicks

It seems to be designed for DSiXL. The icons are too small and the audio is too quiet. Haven't even noticed if there are sound effects yet. With volume up all the way in game and on my DSi I haven't noticed that there's more than one song yet. I can use headphones and hitting the wrong tile isn't really a problem, but it's just not as fun as it should be.

You can only zoom the 3D board, and zooming also changes the vertical angle which makes it almost useless for me.

It's great that they used both screens, but using the top screen as an inverse table seems almost useless to me. I would've preferred the different tile icons with a number indicating how many remain on the board. But even an identical display of the table would've been better. You could possibly use the inverse table to memorise the vertical layers as you remove them, but I think a different viewing angle would be more useful. Could've also split the table formation across two screens so the tiles could be bigger. Or use one screen for zooming and another for full view.

The fade out animation on the 2D board is really slow (when you remove tiles,) I think they would've been better there with no animation at all. Keep the 2D simple and the 3D realistic.

Maybe I'm just playing bad, but I'm finding myself using the tile shuffler a lot more often than I'm used to. And the ten second penalty I think is too weak.

I'm surprised there isn't an option to highlight selectable tiles (all tiles that aren't sandwiched between two others, or covered.) Was expecting that to be the default.

I like that they kept the gameplay simple, the included clock (that's why I bought this ) and the way they did the time high scores. The six tile sets are great; the backgrounds are below average but they don't really matter. Also, you only need a few good table formations, so having 50 is a ton of variety.

I think the matching minigame is for younger users like mentioned in the review, or to get used to all the pieces in a tile set.

@victoria: i know we have good taste for games.

@jdarrell:
i know, there are just no sound effects like i mentioned in my impressions, and i have noticed 2 songs.
i also end up shuffling a lot, but you could just go back in time with the undo button and try a different way.
i also thought the tiles were too small at first, but now im used to them! and yes, the 3D camera is poorly made.
yet i have been playing this game more than i originally expected.

greatness.

Ohhh right.. I was expecting to see those Summer/Spring/Winter/Fall tiles, too, but I haven't. Do they appear at any point futher in the game? I am loving this game still, though. Not gonna argue because the good outweighs the bad imho, but yes, for geeks sake, lets tear it apart its fun

@grumblegrumble: i already found them! they are the ones with a _{very small} "S" or "F" on the corner, i couldnt tell them apart because of the rather similar designs they have with each other (most games use drawings, this game uses japanese characters), also, any difference completely disappears in the easy piece set, which i use.

I'll buy a mahjong game when it isn't mahjong solitare but the real thing.

I hate that these are even called mahjong. It's like trying to sell a checkers game by calling it chess. Real mahjong is not like solitare. At all.

Solid dsiware game.

They should really distinguish Mahjong from Mahjong Solitaire.
Let this be a learning experience for all who read this thread but, real Mahjong is up to 4 players and Chinese people would barf in your face to hear that its been transformed into a tile matching game. Here is the real deal and I suggest everyone learn how to play it, cause its an awesome game. They even have Nintendo Mahjong in japan that stars Mario and the gang. 2 links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/amjj/expert/index.html

If Mario gets to star in this, then it must be awesome. . and it is!!

Post of the year.

is there any way we can get off the semantics of 'Mahjong' and focus on the DSiWare game at hand, please? none of us here can help that that's what it's called; if you don't like it, get in touch with the developers and complain.