Overview
Game no Tetsujin: The Shanghai (loosely translated to "Iron Man of Games: The Shanghai") is a mahjong solitaire game developed and published by SUNSOFT (under license from Activision) for the Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Super Famicom in Japan on October 13, 1995.
A spin-off of the board game collection Game no Tatsujin, The Shanghai features three single-player games based on the game of mahjong solitaire:
- Shanghai - Based on the Shanghai series. Traditional mahjong solitaire, where players are given a multi-layer tile formation and must attempt to remove all pairs from the board.
- Rong Rong - Based the 1994 arcade game Puzzle Game Rong Rong. The "nikakudori" variant of mahjong solitaire, where all tiles are "open" and can only be matched if a path of 1-3 orthogonal line segments can be imagined between them that touches no other tile. Unlike most "nikakudori" variants, tiles are stacked and players can only match tiles on the same layer.
- Shikinjou - Based on the 1989 game of the same name. A block-pushing game similar to Sokoban, Shikinjou has players moving their character (a hopping jiangshi) around the board while pushing mahjong tiles to find a path to the exit. When a pushed tile touches one-or-more tiles of the same type, all of these tiles vanish. However, if a pushed tile instead touches an immovable "honor" (dragons and winds) tile, it too becomes that immovable tile (which may cause an unwinnable state).
In addition, the game includes a Story Mode that cycles between all three modes.
The PS1 version was later re-released as part of the budget Value 1500 series on May 2, 2000, split into two games: The Shanghai (including both Shanghai and Rong Rong modes) and The Shikinjou (including Shikinjou mode). The Shanghai version was later digitally re-released for the PlayStation Network (as an Original PlayStation Archives title) on December 7, 2011.
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