Taisen Hot Gimmick Cosplay Mahjong, to give it its full title, is not a game for the mahjong novice, as I learned that night in Harajuku. At the same time it’s not a game for the mahjong master, but that I’ll go into later. Available on PS2, I had preordered it, awaiting, finally, my chance to beat Tomoko Shimizu and, essentially, regain my manhood. My interest was further peaked by learning from the website that the result of a win was ‘scenes of humiliation’. Along with the CERO 18 rating I began to wonder what I was getting myself into.
But, by the time I finally got the package in the mail, I’d practiced Mahjong enough to learn what I was going to have to do, and after a few, enraging but exciting games, I finally beat Tomoko, to be greeted with a menu – the choices A-C being a choice of clothing (PE uniform, swimsuit, skirt) and D being the option to not humiliate, which I originally believed was only in there so it appears you’re playing a quite innocent game of Mahjong against a schoolgirl. Selecting C on a whim, I was presented with the scene of Tomoko bent over in her skirt.
No nudity, slight animation of the tears in her eyes, not even a glimpse of panties or scandalously loose socks. Holding the controller motionless in my hand, mouth agape – I asked myself – “I fought so hard for that?”
Surely not.
My next game against Setsuna Yasui, the girl who won’t eat her carrots, proved more fruitful. Selecting the quite odd ‘Cat’ option from the humiliation menu, I found myself staring at the character covered in a mound of stuffed toys and wearing some cat ears. And I realised that yet again I’d forgotten a rule of the game. “The player may humiliate the opponent by repeated pressing of a tile key” as the literature claims – and battering a button like I was playing Track and Field, I forced the toys to fly away, revealing, quite disturbingly, Setsuna’s underdeveloped breasts.
Of course, they’re not all creepy. The older girls such as April Ogain have more amusing ones, bashing the buttons making her ridiculously oversized breasts jiggle lewdly, at times they seem more the level of a "Carry On" film than anything else, and you can see why the designers originally thought to include them in the game – they provide an amusing reward and break from what is a relentlessly quick game of Mahjong. And it’s easy to appreciate Jun Tsukasa’s art.
That can’t be said for all of them, however. Several characters, most notably Aoi Sanjyo, have punishments that seem a little too close to abuse for my liking, and the brief excitement of seeing something lewd on screen tires once you’ve seen all the images, so I tend to play it without ever choosing to humiliate the opponent, making one of the main selling points of the game somewhat moot.
And it’s there that the flaws of the game become apparent. The PS2 version Taisen Hot Gimmick Cosplay Mahjong has flaws more in common with the recent reissue of Street Fighter 2 than it does to a traditional port of a new arcade title. The fact is, Hot Gimmick is a port of a title that’s more than 7 years old, and that has had 2 sequels using the same technology. To present simply a port of the original arcade game with an extra girl is unforgivable, particularly given the ease in which the games can be sampled in their original form in MAME – an illegal option which is still the only way to play the superb “clean” story mode from Taisen Hot Gimmick 3: Digital Surfing – Jan Boy, in which Jan Boy fights a motley crew of weirdoes for… Some reason. It feels like River City Ransom with Mahjong, almost. The provided ‘extras’ – secret characters, two-player mode and the ability to unlock and view Jun Tsukasa’s artwork outside of the game are to be expected rather than to be considered bonuses. The absolute laziness of the port is yet another upsetting sign that Japanese game developers are really only paying lip service to their history in an attempt to make an easy buck - most noticible in the limited edition version of the game offering an art book in return for an increase in price - something I couldn't afford and something which probably only removes any need to play the game, anyway.
Above all, outside of the arcade, this game offers nothing to a person who is already a seasoned Mahjong player. To a novice like myself it offers a worthwhile challenge when learning the game and continues to offer a fair challenge even now, but there’s no obvious personality to the girl’s playing styles or even what feels like an increase in ability as the game goes on – more the cheap tactic of giving the girl more points to gamble. Indeed, for a complete beginner, the fact that the game adheres to the strict rules of what kind of mahjong is possible without ever notifying the player of exactly why makes the game feel frustratingly unfair when you are denied a winning hand due to having no "Yaku" or having "Furiten" [5]. After a while, the game just feels like something to boot up when bored and play a few rounds to keep your hand in rather than an enjoyable gaming experience in it’s own right – certainly any open minded pervert will be better served by the internet than the (mostly) tame scenes they can unlock here.
The game offers a shop of sorts between girls in which you can buy items to make your hand better using the points you gain from wins, but which add no tactical depth or interest to the game, only really serving to decrease the challenge slightly.
So, this game’s only possible market is fans of Jun Tsukasa who’d consider themselves good, but not great, at Mahjong. Of which I consider myself one, but if you aren't, don’t bother.
Mathew Kumar
eventually got a little 'alone time'
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