Jantei Monogatari

~ JANTEI MONOGATARI ~

Renovation / Telenet / Atlus

CD-ROM

1990

In Jantei, you play a "cool" detective guy whom a truly cool detective guy like J.B. Harold would probably kick the living shit out of. It's up to you to solve a kidnapping. Of course, the only people who can help you are girls...

...and, of course, they won't tell you what they know until you've beaten them at mahjong.

Once you've crushed them, all of their dignity is forever lost, so they spill their guts freely.

It's an incredible journey, featuring three things most dudes love to find in video games:

ACTION

WOMEN

MOTORCYCLE RIDES

Actually, it's pretty horrible. The mahjong screen is as dull as can be, and with a lot of hands, losing seems unavoidable. The premise is ridiculous, the story is goofy and dull and just keeps getting worse as it goes along, and many of the girls are very weird-looking (and yes, this matters--if a mahjong game is going to feature a mostly female cast as one of its main drawing points, the girls should not be awkwardly drawn messes). Better things were yet to come for this series, but this first chapter is a dud.