Oyaji Hunter Mahjong

Overview

Oyaji Hunter Mahjong is a mahjong game developed and published by Warp for the 3DO platform. Players assume the role of the Oyaji Hunter, a superhero of sorts who protects women in the streets of Japan from lascivious older men who attempt to harass them. The only way the men can be put in their place, however, is through mahjong matches.

Gameplay

Unlike many mahjong simulators employed in other Japanese games such as the Yakuza series, matches in Oyaji Hunter Mahjong consist of only two players rather than the standard four, although cardinal directions still otherwise factor into the game. The fundamental rules of Japanese mahjong still apply in terms of the types of tile combinations that can be used to win individual rounds, although there are two major twists unique to the game that are designed to make it easier and quicker to win matches and proceed with the game's storyline. These changes consist of the following:

• If the player calls riichi/reach, but fails to attain the final tile needed to complete the last set or fails to call riichi/reach and doesn't acquire the final tile that they need, they're offered one more opportunity to acquire the tile that they need via a bonus minigame where the tile in question is shuffled face-down among a range of other tiles that are useless. Once the tiles are shuffled, if the player chooses the correct tile, they'll win the round as normal. Otherwise, gameplay will continue as normal with their hand being declared tenpai and both sides beginning a new round from scratch.
• Similarly to standard Japanese mahjong, both the player and the opponent start each match with a set amount of points, although after the first opponent, the player's starting score will remain at 50,000 points each round while the opponent will have a higher amount. At the end of each round in which one side wins, hand values are calculated as normal based on the standard scoring criteria. However, rather than have the point amount deducted from the losing side as normal, a multiplier can be applied either via a roulette wheel if the player wins or through shuffled cards if the opponent wins. The first side to reach 0 points or less loses the match. Good luck with the roulette wheel when the player wins a round and careful card selection when the opponent wins a round can maximize Oyaji Hunter's damage output while minimizing the amount of damage taken from the opponent.

Should the player lose a match outright, they can spend a continue in order to try again. Otherwise, if they win the match, the story resumes with the woman in peril being saved and turning the tables on her harasser, at which point the game transitions into the next chapter and the basic gameplay loop begins anew.