Mahjong Solitaire Refresh

The best, most polished, most extensive mahjong solitaire game on Steam, and worth the admittedly high price point if you like the genre.

This is an excellent implementation of Mahjong Solitaire. The ability to refresh the setup of tiles is a welcome one, a good fix for setups that might not have a solution. One feature that might be welcome is a clear indication in text that hitting escape is how to exit the program. People that do not use computers that often might not be aware of this feature that is common in many programs. The game offers a variety of challenges that can satisfy both novice and experienced players. The tiles and text are easy to see even for those without perfect vision. Anyone that likes Mahjong Solitaire will like this game, which runs without any issues.

Mahjong Solitaire Refresh presents the classic tile-matching puzzle formula in a colorful and relaxing package that favors accessibility over unnecessary complexity. Rather than using the rules of traditional four-player mahjong, the game revolves around mahjong solitaire, where the objective is to locate matching pairs of available tiles and remove them until the entire arrangement has been cleared. The concept is immediately understandable, making it welcoming for newcomers, while the increasingly complicated layouts provide enough room for careful planning and observation. Developed and published by SUNSOFT, the game offers an impressive 256 stages to complete. That quantity is one of its strongest qualities because the simple central mechanic benefits greatly from having many different layouts. Each arrangement changes which tiles are accessible and which are blocked, forcing players to think about the consequences of their choices. Removing the first matching pair that catches the eye is not always ideal, since another pair may need to be cleared first to expose important tiles. This creates a modest but satisfying strategic layer beneath the otherwise casual presentation. A…

Pretty sure this is about to become my first refund ever. The time trials are obnoxious and require memorizing the board, totally against the whole point of the game. The progression map looks like fun, but if you examine it carefully you'll see it's very similar to others like it, just not as linear. You still don't have freedom to jump around and try out different difficulties. Or take your time with them. As near as I can tell, there is [i]always[/i] a timer counting down, or up, behind the board, which becomes more and more visible as you clear. I would not normally give bad music such a large strike because you can just turn it off, but it's nauseatingly bad, and the game teases some system of music unlocks which I simply do not have the patience to discover. The progression map doesn't tell you where to look for them. Somewhere out there are a bunch of music rewards, but having now heard quite a few tracks on the main levels, I can tell you that [i]all[/i] of them are as bad as, or worse than, the music in the trailer. If you love the music in the trailer, feel free to disregard. You're going to get a whole lot of fun educational software music with a pinch of Sonic the H…

Me shuffling difficult levels over and over until I get a configuration I can solve makes me think of those videos of boomers spamming slot machine buttons like Pavlovian zombies, so make of that what you will.

It's probably because I'm a lousy player but there seems to be a lot perhaps too many Dead Ends in the series of games, a few less would be more encouraging. To regularly reach a dead end after investing 15 minutes of your life in a game is a bit frustrating. On the plus side the design and graphics are very good.