Mahjong Journey Review

The fun thing about casual games is that they can manage to combine a story about finding your lost parents alongside a good old fashioned game of Mahjong Solitaire. That's precisely what Mahjong Journey has managed to do. No, I don't know how either, but odds are you'll mostly be focusing on the Mahjong side of things rather than how the story unfolds.

Fortunately, there's a ton of Mahjong stages to play through. Over 120 in all, with more promised at a later date. In each case, you'll be trying to piece together matching tiles in the hope of clearing them all – or at least reaching the all important gold ones at the bottom. A timer dictates how many stars you'll gain for such success, with three stars actually proving quite tricky to gain after a time.

There are power-ups available to help you along the way, mostly by displaying matches or shuffling the board, but the satisfaction is in figuring things out for yourself. Mahjong Journey is the kind of game you can sit back and relax with as you play along before moving onto the next, fairly similar stage. Yes, Mahjong Journey isn't overly exciting, but it is satisfying for the casual gamer. Each stage is quite big, meaning there are plenty of potential matches, as well as plenty of strategies that you can employ. Chipping away across the board often works equally as well as focusing on one side.

There are in-app purchases around, allowing you to buy more power-ups, but they're not forced upon you in any way. Instead, what you see is what you get here. Odds are you won't care too much about saving the young girl's parents, but you'll enjoy taking your time in this genteel fashion. Mahjong Journey might not be for the adrenaline junkie, or even the half-hearted adrenaline enthusiast, but it should still scratch that traditional gaming itch. It'll last you a long time, too.