Mahjong Fight Club (PS3) Guide by Barticle at hotmail.com - Ver. 1.01 - 18/01/10
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01 INTRODUCTION C O N T E N T S 11 STATS
02 FEATURE LIST =============== o Basics
03 BEGINNING PLAY o Yaku Distribution
04 MAIN MENU 08 OPTIONS o Match Log
05 PLAY MODES 09 CONTROLS o Orbs
o Fight Club Mode o Joypad Controls o Pro Players
o Pro CPU Mode o Mouse Controls o Detailed Info
o Free Rules Mode 10 GAMEPLAY o Events & Records
06 RANKINGS o General 12 JAPANESE MAHJONG
o Kyuu Ranks o Scoring Sticks 13 MANUAL REFERENCE
o Dan Ranks o Side-Bar 14 GLOSSARY
o Kouryuu Levels o Status Windows 15 CONTACT
07 RULES o Score Display 16 THANKS
------< INTRODUCTION >-------------------------------------------- [Section 01]
This is a guide to the 2006 PS3 Japanese DS video-game Mahjong Fight Club* where
you play the modern Japanese version of the traditional Chinese four-player
game of Mahjong (not to be confused with the tile-matching computer solitaire
programs using Mahjong tiles which are sometimes given the same name). This is
one of a number of games in the Mahjong Fight Club series which includes the
networked arcade machines (with updated versions each year since 2002) and
retail editions for the Nintendo DS and Wii and for the Sony PSP. This guide
specifically relates to the PS3 version - which I'll refer to hereafter as "MFC"
- but it might be of use/interest if you're playing one of the other versions.
I discovered Mahjong earlier this year through the minigame in the PS2 game
Yakuza 2 (the English-subtitled version of the Japanese game 'Ryuu ga Gotoku 2')
and pretty soon I was hooked! I went on to play Mahjong in the samurai offshoot
from the Yakuza series ('Ryuu ga Gotoku: Kenzan!') and in Mahjong Taikai IV.
I've previously written guides for all three of these and also helped fellow
gamers translate the rule options in a further three Japanese Mahjong games.
Before all this I only knew a few basic spoken Japanese phrases and had no
experience of reading the language but I've been teaching myself to be able, if
not to read Japanese text easily, to at least be able to translate it given
sufficient time and resources! So, I'm very much a Nihongo novice and I welcome
corrections to my translations.
I've tried to use both Japanese (or original Chinese) and English Mahjong terms
throughout, in most cases giving the oriental term first and the English version
afterwards in brackets. I know that some purists will object to the use of
Chinese terms such as Chow, Pung, Kong and Fan in describing a Japanese Mahjong
game but these are the words I learnt from Yakuza 2 and they are used in English
books on Mahjong so I'm comfortable with their use here.
In many places where I've translated Japanese text I've given the original in
square brackets for reference; in some cases this will be "katakana English"
where an English word has been transcribed phonetically into Japanese. For
example "menyuu" is a katakana rendering of the English word "menu".
Obviously if you can read Japanese you'll be able to read the instruction manual
and the menus in the game so this guide is primarily aimed at English speakers
who, like me, wanted a full Mahjong game with rule options and player stats. (If
you're thinking about buying this game, check Section 02 for specifications.)
You shouldn't be daunted by the Japanese text as there are only a few short
menus and options pages. The layout of these is given in this guide so you
should be able to find your way around the game without any difficulty.
To limit the length of this document I've decided to omit full details of the
rules and equipment of Mahjong on the assumption that anyone buying this game
will probably already be familiar with them. If you are new to the game, or you
play a version other than the modern Japanese "Riichi" rules that appear in this
game, then you might like to read my complete guide to the terminology and rules
of Japanese Mahjong. It's available as a 74-page, illustrated, linked PDF and
can be accessed from the United States Pro Mahjong League download page.
http://www.uspml.com/site/downloads.htm (Barticle's Japanese Mahjong Guide)
If you want to discuss Japanese Mahjong then join the international community of
enthusiasts on Reach Mahjong's English forums. Hope to see you there. :)
http://www.reachmahjong.com/en/forum
This guide is designed to be viewed using a monospaced (non-proportional or
fixed-width) font, preferably Courier New. Some sections of the document will
display incorrectly if you are using a proportional font like Times New Roman.
Finally please note that I am British so I will be using the correct English
spellings of words like "centre", "grey" and "honour"! :9
*The Japanese title of the game is Maajan Kakutou Kurabu which, of course, means
Mahjong Fight Club; on the box cover this is also spelt using the katakana
script as Maajan Faito Kurabu. The word Kurabu is interesting - it's a trans-
literation of the English word "club" (Japanese has no L sound so this becomes
an R) but instead of being spelt in katakana in the main title, which would be
usual for a loanword, it's instead spelt out in kanji, using an older system
called Ateji. It's quite clever because not only do the three kanji spell the
Japanese rendering of the English word but they can also be loosely translated
as "together fun place" which could be taken as a definition of the word "club"!
The game's subtitle, given in red kanji beneath the main title on the cover, is
Zenkoku Taisen Ban which means "countrywide competition edition", a reference to
the game's online play option. The text above the main title is Nihon Puro
Maajan Renmei Kounin, or "Japan Pro Mahjong League (JPML) licensed".
------< FEATURE LIST >-------------------------------------------- [Section 02]
When I was thinking about buying this game I was unable to find any information
about the modes and options available (in English) so I've make a list to help
anyone in the same situation.
o three play modes - Fight Club, Pro CPU and Free Rules
o modern Japanese Mahjong rules including Riichi, Dora and Red Fives
o thirty-six user-defined rules in Free Rules mode (see Section 07 below)
o Dora and Riichi alerts
o Tenpai display to show your waits and which discard/s would make you Furiten
o option to auto-reject melds to keep hand concealed
o option to highlight Tsumokiri (a drawn tile discarded immediately)
o unlockable tile-sets and music
o hugely comprehensive player stats (see Section 11)
o Japanese language only
o online play in Japan only (I think!)
o no option for three-player games, Wareme, Yakitori or Shaanyuu
The graphics are presented in High Definition at 720p but all the tiles can
still be read easily on a 19" standard def monitor.
I decided to buy Mahjong Taikai IV as my first "proper" PS3 Mahjong game as it
has a realistic table display (which shows the full tile wall and taught me to
use the dealer marker to determine the Seat Winds) but now I prefer to play MFC.
The stats section is MFC is much larger and the ranking systems that constantly
track your progress encourage sensible, defensive play.
------< BEGINNING PLAY >------------------------------------------ [Section 03]
Each time you load the game you'll get a system message on the screen (in
Japanese) which mentions the auto-save [ooto sebu] function and the hard disk
access light [HDD akusesu ranpu]. Obviously this is just a standard warning that
the game uses an auto-save feature and you should not switch off the console
when the hard disk access light is on. You can press the circle button to
acknowledge this and the game will start.
(The auto-save function can't be turned off and the save file is copy-protected.
This is obviously to stop players from cheating by reloading after a lost game
or copying saves from each other, but it is unfortunate that you can't make a
back-up copy of your save file. It might appear at first that you can only save
information for one player, but multiple saves are possible - you need to create
a new User profile from the option at the far left end of the console's XMB
(Xross Media Bar) and login with the new profile before then running the disc.)
The first menu you're shown is a simple one with only two options.
1. Individual Matches [kojin taisen]
2. Countrywide Matches [zenkoku taisen]
As you might've guessed from the in-game diagrams, the first option lets you
play offline against computer-controlled players and the second one is for
online play against real people (PS3 and PSP owners). I've been told that the
online system requires a special subscription which is unavailable to anyone
outside Japan so I won't be covering it in this guide. It's no great loss to me
since my PS3 isn't connected to the internet anyways!
So, you should select the first option to proceed. You will need to remember
here and throughout play that the game uses the normal Japanese controls whereby
you press the circle button to accept an option and the cross button to cancel.*
It took me a couple of attempts to work that out!
Usually you'll be taken to the main menu (see next section) but on your first
play you'll need to set up a couple of things first - your name and region.
You can input your name using hiragana, katakana, English letters, numbers,
symbols or a combination of these. The three rows at the bottom let you input
dakuten, handakuten, sokuon, chouonpu and youon marks when using kana. When you
need to add a dakuten or handakuten you should select the kana first and then
the diacritic which will then be added to the kana character.
You'll notice that you can only input up to five characters for your name. This
seems a little short by western standards but since each kana represents a
syllable (or technically a mora) in Japanese you have enough for five syllables.
Even if you're unfamiliar with Japanese writing systems you might like to play
around with writing your name in kana. Look up "katakana" on Wikipedia for a
good conversion table.
Don't forget you need to press O to make your selections. If you press X you'll
delete a character, or if there are none it will quit back to the previous menu.
When your name is complete you can select the red button to proceed (or the
green one to delete the entry).
The second thing you have to do is to choose which part of Japan to represent.
There are two stages to this - first you pick a region and then a prefecture
within that region. The regions are presented to you in the form of a map, in
the following order (from bottom-left to top-right).
| | | number of
| colour | region/s | prefectures
---+------------+--------------------------------------+-------------
1 | pink | Kyuushuu and the Okinawa archipelago | 8
---+------------+--------------------------------------+-------------
2 | orange | Chuugoku and Shikoku | 9
---+------------+--------------------------------------+-------------
3 | yellow | Kinki (also known as Kansai) | 6
---+------------+--------------------------------------+-------------
4 | purple | Chuubu and Hokuriku | 10
---+------------+--------------------------------------+-------------
5 | lime green | Kantou | 7
---+------------+--------------------------------------+-------------
6 | dark green | Hokkaidou and Touhoku | 7
After you've made your selection you confirm with a Yes or No - in English. Make
the most of it since pretty much everything else is in Japanese thereafter!
I don't have any affiliation to any specific part of Japan so I chose Chiba-ken
as my prefecture since this is home to the Mahjong Museum. :)
Once these preliminaries are complete you'll be taken to the main menu and many
happy hours of Mahjong gaming pleasure await you!
*This is equivalent to the use of ticks and crosses in the West. In Japan a
cross is still a cross but a circle is used instead of a tick, i.e. to indicate
a correct answer or a positive response.
------< MAIN MENU >----------------------------------------------- [Section 04]
You'll see that the main menu* has ten options on it, laid out in two columns of
five as shown here. These are colour-coded: 1 to 5 are pale red, 6 to 8 are pale
green and the last two are a sort of tan colour.
.--------------------------------------.---------------------------------.
| 1. Kakutou Kurabu Ruuru (Ton-Puu) | 6. Jiyuu Ruuru (Ton-Puu) |
| | |
| Fight Club Rules (one-round game) | Free Rules (one-round game) |
|--------------------------------------+---------------------------------|
| 2. Kakutou Kurabu Ruuru (Hanchan) | 7. Jiyuu Ruuru (Hanchan) |
| | |
| Fight Club Rules (two-round game) | Free Rules (two-round game) |
|--------------------------------------+---------------------------------|
| 3. Puro CPU Taisen (Ton-Puu) | 8. Jiyuu Ruuru Settei |
| | |
| Pro CPU Match (one-round game) | Free Rules setting |
|--------------------------------------+---------------------------------|
| 4. Puro CPU Taisen (Hanchan) | 9. Kojin Shiryou |
| | |
| Pro CPU Match (two-round game) | Individual Data |
|--------------------------------------+---------------------------------|
| 5. Kakutou Kurabu Ruuru Kakunin | 10. Opushon |
| | |
| Fight Club Rules confirmation | Options |
'--------------------------------------'---------------------------------'
Options 1 and 2 on the menu let you play for ranking against three bots using
the standard MFC rules - see Fight Club Mode in Section 05 below for more
information.
Options 3 and 4 let you play for ranking against the Pro characters using MFC
rules - see Pro CPU Mode in Section 05.
Option 5 lets you check the fixed Fight Club rule-set - see Section 07.
Options 6 and 7 let you play against three bots using your own custom rule-set
and with no ranking won or loss - see Free Rules Mode in Section 05.
Option 8 lets you select the options for your own custom rule-set (Free Rules)
- see Section 07.
Option 9 is used to view your player stats - see Section 11.
Finally option 10 is used to configure various gameplay, sound and video options
- see Section 08.
You can also press X to return [moderu] to the previous menu.
*The manual describes the initial menu - the one where you select offline or
online play - as being the main menu. It calls this one - the one with ten
options - the Individual Match Menu [kojin taisen menyuu] but as far as we're
concerned it's the main menu!
------< PLAY MODES >---------------------------------------------- [Section 05]
This section explains the three different play modes available in the game. In
offline play you will always play against three computer-controlled players*
(colloquially "bots") although you will play different types of characters.
= Fight Club Mode =
This mode can be accessed from the first two (red) options on the main menu,
with the first giving you a one-round game and the second a two-round game.
Games are played using the fixed Fight Club rule-set, details of which can be
viewed from option 5 on the main menu, on page 20 of the manual or by pressing
the Select button during a game. The rules are explained in Section 07 of this
guide, with the Fight Club rule settings marked with asterisks. (If you want to
play with custom rules then it's the Free Rules mode you need! See below.)
Fight Club games are played for ranking, so you can win (or lose!) experience
points to rank up through the Kyuu grades, Orbs to progress in the Dan ranks or
golden Orbs to advance through the Kouryuu levels, depending on which stage of
the game you are at. This process is explained in full in Section 06 below.
Your opponents will usually have the same Kyuu or Dan grade as yourself with the
exceptions being the Pro characters who always have the same fixed Dan grades
(as shown in the manual) and the Kouryuu (yellow dragon) players - who seem to
start appearing after you get to the higher Dan ranks - who have no rank given.
Fight Club mode is the only play mode where random bonuses are applied during
games. These are announced before play commences and are also indicated in the
top-left corner of the screen when you press R2. There are three bonuses which
can appear during the Dan ranks (I've used my names for them below).
o "Double Orbs" - With this bonus the number of Orbs won or lost at the end of
the game is doubled, so for example whereas normally in a one-
round game the winner takes one Orb from the player in fourth
with this bonus in effect they would take two instead.
On the R2 display this is shown with three simple katakana
characters followed by "x2" and a complex kanji character.
o "Winner Takes All" - With this bonus the player who comes first takes Orbs
from all three other players.
This bonus is indicated with the same three katakana (it
says "oubu" which is the English word "orb" rendered into
Japanese syllables), two kanji, one katakana and one
kanji; I think it says "overall take" or similar.
o "Double P-Points" - This one doubles the number of (what I call) P-points
awarded at the end of the game.
This bonus is indicated with four kanji, then "Px2" (which
makes it pretty clear) and finally another kanji.
There is a fourth bonus which applies to all games played after you complete the
Dan grades and move up to the Kouryuu levels. I assume this just states that any
golden Orbs won now will be treated as such instead of being counted as normal
coloured ones.
Often one of your three opponents will be one of the Pro characters. If you
"defeat" them (again, my term) by coming first in a game where they come fourth
then they will now appear on colour in the Pro section of the stats pages and
you will also win stars from them which can be converted into a bonus Orb (see
Pro Players in Section 11 for details of both).
= Pro CPU Mode =
This mode can be accessed from the third and fourth (red) options on the main
menu, giving a one-round or two-round game respectively.
Pro CPU matches are always played using the fixed Fight Club rules and for
ranking, as with Fight Club mode above.
As you might expect from the name, you always play against three of the Pro
characters. You can "defeat" them to unlock them in your Pro collection (as with
Fight Club mode) but you cannot win stars from them in this mode.
For more information about these characters see Pro Players in Section 11.
= Free Rules Mode =
This mode can be accessed from the first and second (green) options on the right
side of the main menu, giving a one-round or two-round game respectively.
Matches in this mode are played with the custom Free Rules [jiyuu ruuru] which
can be set or viewed from the third green option on the main menu. See Section
07 for more information about all the rule settings available.
You do not play for ranking (or P-points) in this mode.
On several of the sections of the stats display you can choose to view data
either from your matches played with the Fight Club rules or those played with
your custom rule-set in this mode.
*I assume that the bots also appear in online play to fill empty seats when
there are insufficient human players available and that this is why they are
clearly marked with "CPU" - to distinguish them from real people.
------< RANKINGS >------------------------------------------------ [Section 06]
This section describes the various stages of the "career mode" encountered as
you play through MFC. There are three sets of ranks* used in the game - the Kyuu
ranks, Dan grades and Kouryuu levels - which are explained below, in that order.
*If you've had any involvement with any of the Japanese martial arts then you'll
probably be familiar with the Kyuu/Dan scheme used here. It's basically the same
as the system used in Karate, etc, so when you reach the Dan grades you're then
a "black belt" in Mahjong! :D
= Kyuu Ranks =
You start in the Kyuu ranks which have ten levels numbered from 10 (which is the
lowest) up to 1 (which is the highest). These grades are written with a Japanese
numeral followed by the kanji for Kyuu; the numbers for 1 to 9 are the same as
those on the tiles of the Craks/Manzu suit and the symbol for 10 looks like a
plus sign (+).
Each time you play a game in either the Fight Club or Pro CPU modes during the
Kyuu ranks you will either gain or lose experience points [keikenchi] according
to your performance. After each game you're shown a screen with one large circle
and ten smaller circles around it - the large circle shows your current Kyuu
rank and the outer ones show your progression through the ten levels, starting
at the right with 10th Kyuu.
The number at the bottom-left is the number of experience points won/lost in the
previous game and the number at the bottom-right is the amount required to
advance to the next level. When you go up a level you're shown a screen with a
red diamond that says Congratulations and if you lose enough points to drop a
level you get a blue diamond and a Down message. The number of experience points
(XP) needed to complete each Kyuu grade are as follows:-
Kyuu | 10th | 9th | 8th | 7th | 6th | 5th | 4th | 3rd | 2nd | 1st
-------------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------+------
XP required | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 150 | 150 | 150 | 200 | 250 | 300
-------------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------+------
cumulative | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 | 550 | 700 | 850 | 1050 | 1300 | 1600
The game is pretty generous with experience points - you get loads for a big win
and don't lose many even if you come fourth - so it shouldn't take very long to
get through all ten grades. As I recall it took me about six or seven games, and
I jumped from 9th up to 5th off the results of a single high-scoring match.
= Dan Ranks =
When you graduate out of the Kyuu ranks you move onto the eight Dan grades which
are numbered from 1 up to 8 (yup, it's the opposite order to Kyuu). The first
Dan grade is called Shodan, which means "beginning rank" and is written with two
kanji. The higher grades are just named after the Japanese numbers but you must
keep in mind that Nidan and Sandan (second and third Dan) are written using the
formal Daiji kanji for the numbers 2 and 3; the higher grades are written with
the normal number characters (followed by the kanji for Dan of course).
When you first become Shodan, the game assigns you an affiliation to one of the
Four Gods (which are going to need a little explanation) and it also logs the
date and time on page 7.1 of the stats (see Section 11 below).
The Four Gods featured in the game originate from Chinese astrology where each
of them presides over seven constellations. In Japan they are known as the Shi
Shin or Shijin, which literally means "four gods", and they are often included
in video-games and manga. In Mahjong Fight Club each of them represents a
different style or aspect of play.
Japanese name: Seiryuu
description: blue dragon (Azure Dragon of the East)
Chinese name: Meng Zhang
aspect: Luck (many Dora in winning hands)
Japanese name: Suzaku
description: red bird (Vermillion Bird of the South)
Chinese name: Ling Guang
aspect: Quickness (completing/winning hands quickly and therefore often)
Japanese name: Byakko
description: white tiger (White Tiger of the West)
Chinese name: Jian Bing
aspect: Attack (many Fan in winning hands)
Japanese name: Genbu (the literal reading of the kanji is "mysterious warrior")
description: green tortoise-snake (Black Tortoise of the North)
Chinese name: Zhi Ming
aspect: Defence (seldom giving an opponent their winning tile)
What's that you say? You want another one? Well luckily for you there is a fifth
god in this scheme too who comes into play later in the game.
Japanese name: Kouryuu
description: yellow dragon (Yellow Dragon of the Centre)
Chinese name: Huang-Long
When you advance into the Dan ranks, the game will assign you to one of the Four
Gods; this is based on your playing style up until that point (this will be
tracked on page 1.2 of the stats). So for example, in my case, I had a high
winning rate so I became affiliated with Suzaku. My initial rank was Suzaku
Shodan, followed by Suzaku Nidan, etc (see table of Dan ranks given later).
You advance through the Dan grades by winning Fight Orbs [faito oubu] in Fight
Club and Pro CPU modes (I will refer to these simply as Orbs to save on a small
amount of typing). For each Dan rank you will be given a set of Orb slots to
fill in order to advance up to the next Dan, but you can also lose Orbs and if
your slots are currently empty you'll be demoted back down to the Dan below. The
Orbs are coloured to match your God, for example with Suzaku they're purple.
You win or lose Orbs according to your position at the end of a game (and the
length of the game played) as shown in the following table which appears on page
9 on the manual. You are also awarded what I call "P-points" which track your
overall performance, so I've added these below too.
| 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place | 4th Place
Game Length | Orbs | P pts | Orbs | P pts | Orbs | P pts | Orbs | P pts
-----------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------
Tonpuusen | +1 | +2P | -- | +1P | -- | -1P | -1 | -2P
(one-round game) | gain | gain | none | gain | none | loss | loss | loss
-----------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------
Hanchan | +2 | +4P | +1 | +2P | -1 | -2P | -2 | -4P
(two-round game) | gain | gain | gain | gain | loss | loss | loss | loss
In a one-round game the Orb won by the player in 1st is taken from the player
in 4th, similarly in a two-round game the two Orbs won by 1st are taken from 4th
and the one for 2nd is taken from the player in 3rd (much like the Uma). That
might sound obvious but it has significant consequences (explained later) when
playing in Fight Club mode after you graduate out of the Dan grades.
You also get a bonus Orb each time you fill all your five Pro Star slots in
Fight Club mode (see Section 11) and one for making a Yakuman (Limit Hand).
(I should note that this is all written from the perspective of a follower of
Suzaku and different rules might apply if you're affiliated with another of the
Four Gods; I would assume that the basic rules are the same though and you get
Orbs for coming first (or second) in a game.)
Your primary goal should, of course, be to win Orbs in every game you play but,
if this looks unlikely, then you should at least strive not to lose any. For
example you might go out with a cheap one-Fan hand in the final Kyoku in order
to increase your score just enough to edge up into 3rd place if you're playing a
one-round game and thus narrowly avoid the loss of an Orb that comes with 4th.
Of the two choices available in Fight Club and Pro CPU modes I think it's better
to play Hanchan because (I find) it's easier to come 1st or 2nd (relative to 3rd
or 4th) than it is to consistently come 1st (relative to 4th).
There are also two bonuses which will be applied randomly to games in Fight Club
mode that have an effect on the Orb count. One is the "double Orbs" bonus which
means you win (or lose) twice as many Orbs as normal; obviously in this scenario
it's especially good if you win and especially bad if you lose so you might
choose to adopt a less risky play style to avoid losing. The other is the
"winner takes all" bonus in which the player in first receives one Orb from each
of the other three players; in this case, if you're not too worried about your
general stats, you might as well go for it as you will lose an Orb unless you
come first.
The number of Orb slots you are required to fill in order to complete each Dan
grade are as follows:-
Shodan (1st Dan) | 5 Orbs Godan (5th Dan) | 7 Orbs
-------------------+---------- ---------------------+----------
Nidan (2nd Dan) | 5 Orbs Rokudan (6th Dan) | 8 Orbs
-------------------+---------- ---------------------+----------
Sandan (3rd Dan) | 6 Orbs Nanadan (7th Dan) | 9 Orbs
-------------------+---------- ---------------------+----------
Yondan (4th Dan) | 6 Orbs Hachidan (8th Dan) | 10 Orbs
A little arithmetic shows that you need a total of fifty-six Orbs to complete
the Dan ranks; Orbs lost are not counted towards your total.
When you finally fill the tenth slot at Hachidan you advance to the rank of
Master [masutaa], so in my case my rank became Suzaku Master; I think this is
equivalent to the 9th Dan rank which is the highest grade seen in the Pro
characters. As a Master you continue to win or lose Orbs as usual but the game
also gives you a special Orb from one of the other Four Gods when you win. In my
case I got a Byakko (white tiger) Orb, then a Genbu (green tortoise) Orb and
then a Seiryuu (blue dragon) Orb (regardless of what sort of player I beat). I'm
not entirely clear on the process but it seemed like I had to win three
consecutive games in order to get all three special Orbs - if I lost a game then
I had to begin again.
Once you have all three special Orbs you're shown a congratulatory screen and
the game credits roll! So in one sense you've won the game, but in another sense
it's only just begun...
= Kouryuu Levels =
After the credits finish you're shown a big explanation about how you are now
affiliated to Kouryuu, the yellow dragon, the fifth of the "Four Gods" above.
You are assigned the rank of Kouryuu Level 1 and you now compete for golden
Kouryuu Orbs as well as the normal kind. You have a set of ten Kouryuu Orb slots
to fill but the game gives you five golden Orbs to start you off (so you need to
win five to rank-up).
(To give a rough indication of what to expect, it took me about three weeks of
play to become a Kouryuu player, although I spent a good chunk of that time
working on translations... oh and playing Dead Space on rental!)
Now when you win Orbs, the type of Orb received will depend on the type of
player you capture them from. You can win golden Orbs (which will count towards
levelling-up) from both Pro characters and other Kouryuu players but you just
get the standard coloured Orbs (which won't!) off Master players. Conversely the
type of Orb taken from you when you lose them is dependent upon the type of
player that takes it, e.g. if a Master comes 1st and you come 4th you will only
lose one or more normal Orbs. (phew!)
In Fight Club mode you will usually play against one Shijin-affiliated Master
player and either two Kouryuu players or one Kouryuu and one Pro, so on average
you might expect to receive one normal Orb for every two golden Orbs you win and
sometimes you can spend 10-15 minutes fighting hard to win a Hanchan only to see
the Master in 4th give you two normal Orbs which won't advance your level. :6
Consequently you might prefer to play in Pro CPU mode where all Orbs won will be
golden; also you can avoid the double-edged sword of the random Orb bonuses and
you can improve your chances of adding to your collection of Pro defeats too.
When you fill your five empty golden Orb slots you'll be promoted to Kouryuu
Level 2 and you'll have another five slots to fill; the same applies at Kouryuu
Levels 3 thru' 9 - each time you need five more golden Orbs. After you hit Level
10 you'll see that you now have ten golden Orb slots to fill - and the image of
Kouryuu appears more fierce too! (also he is now shown clutching an Orb of your
original God's colour, for example purple if you were a Suzaku player) Kouryuu's
appearance changes again when you get to Level 20 and now you have to fill
twenty golden Orb slots for each level!* :6
And so it continues... you can keep playing to advance your level. You might
also like to work on improving your stats, bettering your records (for example
most consecutive game wins), adding to your Yaku (and Yakuman!) collection and
getting more Pro defeats.
NB: At any stage during the Dan ranks, Master rank or Kouryuu levels you can
check your current status and Orb total on page 4 of the stats. (see Section 11)
*It's not quite as bad as the infamous grind on Warcraft, but once you get to
Level 20 (and need twenty golden orbs to advance each rank) levelling-up becomes
quite a slooow process.
------< RULES >--------------------------------------------------- [Section 07]
The first rule of Mahjong Fight Club is you do not talk about Mahjong Fight Club
and the second rule of Mahj... sorry, it's an obvious joke! :)
There are thirty-six separate rule options in MFC. In both Fight Club mode and
Pro CPU mode the game uses the fixed Fight Club rules which can be viewed by
selecting option 5 from the main menu. In the Free Rules mode it uses your own
custom settings which can be configured from option 8 off the main menu.
In both of these displays the rules are listed over six pages which you can move
between by using the R1 and L1 shoulder-buttons. The listing below gives the
rules in the sequence they appear in the game along with a description.
When you change one of the rule settings in your Free Rules you'll notice that a
little red dot appears next to it - this indicates that you have a rule setting
other than the default. You'll also notice that the default settings for the
Free Rules are the same as the fixed rules in the Fight Club rule-set; these are
also given on page 20 of the manual. You can also view the applied rule settings
during a game by pressing the Select button.
You'll see that several rules (such as the first five) have the same two
options, these are Ari (with) and Nashi (without). If you play Japanese Mahjong
then you should recognise these terms; if not, their usage is simple - for
example Kuitan Ari means the Kuitan rule is used, Kuitan Nashi means it ain't!
For reference, the default option on Free Rule 1.1 is Ari (on) and the default
for 1.2 (unfortunately!) is Nashi (off).
Once you've made changes you can press the blue OK button to confirm and exit.
You can press the red Cancel [kyanseru] button (or just press X) to exit without
saving your changes. Pressing the green button restores the options to their
standard initial settings [kihon shoki settei].
Page 1 - Basics [kihon]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1.1 Name: Kuitan (open Tanyao)
Options: Ari* (on) / Nashi (off)
Info: When Kuitan is Ari the game allows the scoring element Tanyao (All
Simples) on an exposed hand.
1.2 Name: Kuikae (no melding restriction)
Options: Ari / Nashi*
Info: When Kuikae is Ari you can break a complete concealed set (a Chow or
a Pung) in your hand to make a meld with an opponent's discard and
then immediately discard the third tile from the original set on the
same turn.
If you are playing a game with Kuikae Nashi (for example under the
Fight Club rules) and you try to make an illegal discard, the game
will block the move and give you a warning message - this appears
immediately above your hand of tiles and takes the form of a yellow
triangle followed by ten red characters and two exclamation marks!!
The text is pretty small but I think it says Kuikae Wa Dekimasen
which means "(you) cannot do Kuikae".
1.3 Name: Ryan Han Shibari (conditional two-Fan minimum)
Options: Ari / Nashi*
Info: Normally the game is played with a one-Fan minimum - you need Yaku
worth at least one Fan in order to go out and win a hand. With this
rule in effect, a two-Fan minimum is applied when the Honba counter
shows five or more (i.e. after five dealer wins or draws).
Fan from Dora bonus tiles are not counted when checking if a hand
meets the one/two-Fan minimum requirements.
Ryan is the Japanese pronunciation of the Mandarin Chinese counting-
number two, Han is the Japanese version of Fan (doubles) and Shibari
means "binding". The name is sometimes shortened to Ryan Shi.
1.4 Name: Agari Yame (the "quit while you're ahead!" rule)
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: With Agari Yame Ari if the player at East (the dealer) wins the final
hand and is leading on points then they have the option to end the
game (and collect the Uma and Oka) rather than risk losing in the
Renchan (extra hand) that would usually be played after a dealer win.
Instead of giving you the choice of whether to stop the game, MFC
automatically stops if you win a hand as the last dealer.
I've used the common name for the rule here but in the game the full
title for this option is Saishuu Kyoku Agari Yame which means "final
hand winning stop". The last two characters can be read as Todome
which means "finishing blow" (a term which is popular in samurai-
based fiction) but it's also the core of the word Yame(ru) which is
the verb "to end" or "to stop" - although I prefer the samurai term!
1.5 Name: Ta Cha Hou (multiple win)
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: The kanji for this option say "many person win" so this would allow
Double Ron - when two players can both win on the same discard.
If this rule is Nashi then only one player wins, the one closest to
the discarder working counter-clockwise around the table (this is
known as Atama Hane).
If two players win on the same tile and only one of them called
Riichi then only the one who "reached" gets the benefit of the Ura
Dora (and any Kan Ura Dora).
Double Ron is a not uncommon occurrence, but Triple Ron is. The
latter would be covered by the following rule option.
1.6 Name: San Cha Hou Ryuu Kyoku (draw when three players win)
Options: Shinai* / Oya Nagare Nashi / Oya Nagare Suru
Info: This is the first of the five situations which can force an abortive
draw (the other four are listed as Free Rules 4.4 to 4.7 below).
The draw occurs when three players declare a win on the same tile.
This - fairly rare - occurence is known as Triple Ron.
The three settings for this rule are as follows:-
o Ryuu Kyoku Shinai [no draw]
o Ryuu Kyoku Oya Nagare Nashi [new hand played with same dealer]
o Ryuu Kyoku Oya Nagare Suru [new hand played with new dealer]
(I think the second and third translations are correct. The default
setting for the Kyuu Shu Kyuu Hai draw (Free Rule 4.7) is Nashi and
on one occasion I accepted the draw (passing up an opportunity to go
for Kokushi Musou!) and the Seat Winds didn't move for the re-deal.)
1.7 Name: Buttobi (bankruptcy)
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: This is essentially the rule otherwise known as Dobon. When Dobon is
Ari the game ends if someone's score drops below zero. In this case I
think a zero score might end the game too - I saw it happen once but
it might've been the final hand anyways.
If this happens to you then the outcome will be recorded with the
word Buttobi (written in hiragana characters, as on the options page)
and a skull in the Match Log section of the stats pages.
My Japanese friend tells me that the word "Buttobi" is a casual term
that describes "jumping from one place to another significantly". In
Mahjong this is sometimes shortened to Tobi.
Page 2 - Points Calculation [tensuu keisan]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2.1 Name: Mochiten (Tonpuusen) (starting score, east-only games)
Options: 20k* / 21k / 22k / 23k / 24k / 25k / 26k / 27k / 28k / 29k / 30k
2.2 Name: Mochiten (Hanchansen) (starting score, east-south games)
Options: 20k / 21k / 22k / 23k / 24k / 25k* / 26k / 27k / 28k / 29k / 30k
Info: These two options are used to set the players' starting scores in
either a one-round match [tonpuusen] or two-round match [hanchansen].
2.3 Name: Oka (winner's bonus)
Options: Ari / Nashi*
Info: Technically players always buy into a Japanese Mahjong game with
30,000 points - this is called the Genten - but they often start the
game with a lower amount, known as the Haikyuu Genten, for example
25,000 (as specified with the rule options 2.1 and 2.2 above). In
this case the excess points can be paid to the overall winner of the
game as a bonus called the Oka.
For example if players start the game with the standard amount of
25,000 pts then each of them puts 5,000 pts into the pot and the Oka
would then be 20,000 pts.
You'll notice that the default starting score for a one-round match
is only 20,000 pts (see Free Rule 2.1 above) so, if you have the Oka
option on, each player would pay 10,000 pts into the pot and the
winner would receive a very tasty 40,000 pts as the jackpot!
I've used the common name here (Oka) but in the game this rule is
listed as Toppu Shou which means "first-place award". (In the
Nintendo DS version of Mahjong Fight Club it's listed simply as Oka.)
2.4 Name: Uma (1st place) (score adjustments)
Options: 0 to 30k (default is +5k*)
2.5 Name: Uma (2nd place)
Options: -10k to +30k (default is zero*)
2.6 Name: Uma (3rd place)
Options: -30k to +10k (default is zero*)
2.7 Name: Uma (4th place)
Options: -30k to 0 (default is -5k*)
Info: These four options can be used to specify the Uma - a final exchange
of points at the end of the game. Unlike other games, MFC lets you
tailor all four values to suit; you can specify the amount that each
of the four players will gain or lose. With the default settings, the
player who is in 4th place pays 5,000 pts to the player in 1st (and
there is no change to the scores in 2nd and 3rd places).
I've experimented with the settings in the game and it seems to apply
the following rules: the Uma for 2nd cannot exceed the Uma for 1st
(otherwise it might make 2nd the winner), the Uma for 3rd cannot
exceed that for 2nd (same reason), the minimum value for 4th is -30k
and consequently the maximum value for 3rd is +10k. Since the Uma
involves sharing points between players, the total of the four
settings must always sum to zero. The game lets you adjust the values
for 1st, 2nd and 3rd and alters the amount for 4th to balance them.
I've used the common name here but in the game the rule options are
listed as Jun'i Ten No Settei which means "setting of position
points". Uma is sometimes known as Jun'i Uma. Uma means "horse". :)
Page 3 - Dora (bonus tiles)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3.1 Name: Ura Dora (under-Dora)
Options: Nashi / Tsuujou Dora no Uranomi / Kan Ura Mo Subete Yuukou*
Info: The Ura Dora indicator is the tile under the standard Omote Dora
indicator and is applied when someone wins with Riichi. A Kan Ura
Dora indicator is a tile under any Kan Dora indicators (following a
Kong) which again come into play when someone wins after reaching.
The three options translate as follows (from left to right):-
o Off (no Ura Dora and therefore no Kan Ura Dora either)
o Normal Dora with Ura Dora only (Ura Dora but no Kan Ura Dora used)
o All Dora with Kan Ura Dora also valid (Ura and Kan Ura Dora used)
3.2 Name: Akago Pinzu (Red Fives in Dots suit)
Options: 0 / 1 / 2*
3.3 Name: Akago Manzu (Red Fives in Craks suit)
Options: 0 / 1* / 2
3.4 Name: Akago Souzu (Red Fives in Bams suit)
Options: 0 / 1* / 2
Info: These three options let you set the number of Red Five [akago] tiles
in each suit. Each Red Five in a winning hand adds an extra Fan
(double), just like normal Dora. As with other Dora, these cannot be
used to meet the one (or sometimes two) Fan minimum for going out.
Some folks like to play with one in each suit while others like to
play with just two in the Dots/Pinzu suit so, to cover both bases
(and to fill a full row in the box), Japanese tile sets usually come
with four Red Fives and often people play with all four, hence the
default settings in the game.
Page 4 - Drawn Hands [ryuu kyoku]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4.1 Name: Renchan no Shurui (types of continuance)
Options: Agari Renchan* / Tenpai Renchan
Info: A Renchan is a continuance - an extra hand played without the Seat
Winds moving so the dealer "stays on". This is counted in addition to
the standard four hands which make up a round.
o Agari Renchan - a Renchan occurs only when the dealer wins a hand
o Tenpai Renchan - a Renchan occurs on a dealer win or in a hand
which ends in an exhaustive draw in which the dealer is Tenpai,
i.e. they have a "ready" hand, one tile from being complete
See also the following two rules.
4.2 Name: Keishiki Tenpai (Yaku-less Tenpai)
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: When Keishiki Tenpai is Ari a hand can be counted as Tenpai even if
it contains no elements which give it a Yaku (scoring combination).
4.3 Name: No-Ten Bappu (draw payments)
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: The No-Ten Bappu is the payment of 3,000 points paid in the event of
a hand ending in an exhaustive draw (when the Wall is depleted). The
players that are Tenpai (see above) each receive a share of the 3,000
points, which are paid by the players that are No-Ten (not Tenpai).
With No-Ten Bappu set to Nashi, no points are exchanged on a draw.
The following four options (4.4 to 4.7) relate to four of the conditions which,
along with San Cha Hou (see Free Rule 1.6 above), make up the five different
situations which - optionally - can force an abortive draw in Japanese Mahjong.
There are three possible settings for each, in this order:-
o Ryuu Kyoku Shinai [no draw]
o Ryuu Kyoku Oya Nagare Nashi [new hand played with same dealer]
o Ryuu Kyoku Oya Nagare Suru [new hand played with new dealer]
4.4 Name: Suu Cha Riichi Ryuu Kyoku (four-person Riichi draw)
Options: Shinai* / Oya Nagare Nashi / Oya Nagare Suru (see above)
Info: This occurs when all four players call Riichi in the same hand.
The default setting for this is Shinai which is the informal negation
of the word Suru which appears in the third option. Suru is the verb
"do" so Shinai is "don't do" - therefore with the default setting a
draw is not applied.
4.5 Name: Suu Kan Nagare (four Kong re-deal)
Options: Shinai / Oya Nagare Nashi / Oya Nagare Suru* (see above)
Info: This occurs when four Kongs are declared in the same hand by two or
more players (if one lucky player gets four Kongs in a single hand
then they can get the very rare Yakuman of Suu Kantsu).
In his book Teach Yourself: Mahjong, David Pritchard describes this
as a "curious rule" but actually it's a logical consequence of the
internal structure of the Dead Wall in modern Japanese Mahjong. There
are only four tiles available as supplement tiles (drawn after a Kong
is declared), the other ten are all potential Dora indicators - one
Omote Dora, one Ura Dora, four Kan Dora and four Kan Ura Dora.
4.6 Name: Suu Fon Renda Ryuu Kyoku (four Winds discard draw)
Options: Shinai / Oya Nagare Nashi / Oya Nagare Suru* (see above)
Info: This happens when the first discard of all four players is the same
Wind tile. The name Suu Fon Renda means "four wind barrage"!
4.7 Name: Kyuu Shu Kyuu Hai Ryuu Kyoku (9+ Terminals & Honours draw)
Options: Shinai / Oya Nagare Nashi* / Oya Nagare Suru (see above)
Info: This one happens when a player begins a hand with nine or more
different Major tiles (i.e. Terminals and Honours) after their first
self-draw, although they have to choose to accept the draw.
If you start a hand with nine or more Terminals and Honours then the
game will give you the option to declare this and accept the re-deal;
it does this in the form of a black message bar above your tiles
which says Kyuu Shu Kyuu Hai (four kanji, the first and third are the
number nine) and buttons marked Yes and No - you choose Yes to accept
the draw, but of course in this situation surely you will want to try
for the Kokushi Musou (Thirteen Orphans) Yakuman instead...! I'm yet
to see a computer-controlled player declare one of these draws but I
have seen one make Kokushi Musou so they must be choosing to play-on
in this situation too (this is in stark contrast to Koei's Mahjong
Taikai IV game where your opponents seem to always take this draw).
The name Kyuu Shu Kyuu Hai means "nine types, nine tiles".
Page 5 - Yaku (scoring combinations)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5.1 Name: Pinfu Tsumo (self-draw Pinfu)
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: When Tsumo Pinfu is Ari you can claim the scoring element Pinfu on
a Tsumo (self-draw) win. Pinfu is defined as a "no points" hand, with
no Fu (minipoints) other than the basic 20 or 30 for going out. A
Tsumo win is normally worth an extra two Fu but with this rule you
waive the two Fu and take the extra Fan (double) for Pinfu instead.
5.2 Name: Riichi Ippatsu ("one-shot win")
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: This simply turns on/off the Ippatsu scoring element.
5.3 Name: Nagashi Mangan (all Terminal and Honour discards)
Options: Baiman / Mangan* / Nashi
Info: When Nagashi Mangan is Ari, if a hand ends in an exhaustive draw, all
of your discards are Terminals and Honours and none of these have
been taken by other players then you can claim Nagashi Mangan.
By default this scores as a Mangan hand (12,000 points for a dealer
or 8,000 pts for a non-dealer) but you also have the option to set it
to Baiman (24,000 pts for the dealer or 16,000 pts otherwise).
5.4 Name: Dai Sharin Yakuman ("Big Wheels" Limit Hand)
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: When this rule is Ari the game allows the optional Yakuman called Dai
Sharin (literally Big Wheels) - a hand of 22334455667788 specifically
in the Dots/Pinzu suit.
Even if this rule was set to Nashi such a hand would still score big.
You'd have a good chance of making the thirteen Fan required for
counted Yakuman (see Free Rule 6.2 below) since Big Wheels always
gives you Chinitsu (Full Flush), Ryanpeikou (Twice Pure Double Chow),
Tanyao (All Simples) and Pinfu at least.
5.5 Name: Chuuren Poutou Manzu Gentei (Nine Gates is Craks limited)
Options: Ari / Nashi*
Info: The rare Yakuman of Chuuren Poutou (Nine Gates) - a flush hand
composed of 1112345678999 plus one duplicate - is sometimes only
allowed in the Craks/Manzu suit.
This rule lets you choose whether the hand is allowed in one suit or
all three; I think the default is all three.
Page 6 - Yakuman (Limit Hands)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(NB: The last two rule options on the previous page relate to Yakuman too.)
6.1 Name: Yakuman Choufuku (Yakuman stacking)
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: A Yakuman is a rare and precious thing but it is possible to get more
than one at the same time! For example you might get Tsuuiisou (All
Honours) with Dai San Gen (Big Three Dragons). When this rule is Ari
you can "stack" multiple Yakuman in one hand.
The theoretical maximum number of Yakuman on a single hand with
Double Yakuman allowed (see Free Rules 6.3 thru' 6.6 below) is seven!
This could be achieved with a combination of Dai Suu Shii (Big Four
Winds), Tsuuiisou (All Honours), Suu An Kou (Four Concealed Pungs)
with a Tanki wait, Paa Renchan (Eight Consecutive Dealer Wins) and
either Suu Kantsu (Four Kongs) or Tenhou (Heavenly Hand). I like to
dream of such things but in reality this would be impossibly rare!
6.2 Name: Kazoe Yakuman (counted Yakuman)
Options: Ari* / Nashi
Info: When this rule is Ari any winning hand with thirteen or more Fan
(doubles) will be scored as a Yakuman (Limit Hand).
Unusually my very first ever Yakuman was a counted one. I had a hand
with two Kongs and with Riichi, Tanyao and a staggering eleven Dora!
I wasn't even playing with Red Fives. I think this might be a world
record for most Dora ever! ;) (I'm sure it's not really.)
6.3 Name: Dai Suu Shii Hou (Big Four Winds win)
Options: Daburu Yakuman* / Yakuman
6.4 Name: Suu An Kou Tanki Machi (Four Concealed Pungs with pair wait)
Options: Daburu Yakuman* / Yakuman
6.5 Name: Kokushi Musou Juusanmen Machi (Thirteen Orphans with 13-sided wait)
Options: Daburu Yakuman* / Yakuman
6.6 Name: Chuuren Poutou Kyuumen Machi (Nine Gates with 9-sided wait)
Options: Daburu Yakuman* / Yakuman
Info: These four rules can be set individually to allow the four possible
optional Daburu Yakuman (double Yakuman) hands. These score twice the
normal Yakuman points, e.g. 96,000 pts for a dealer win! :D
The four possible double Yakuman hands are:-
Dai Shuu Shii - four Pungs of Wind tiles
Suu An Kou Tanki Machi - a hand with four complete self-drawn Pungs
won after waiting on the pair
Kokushi Musou Juusanmen Machi - one of each Terminal and Honour tile
waiting for a duplicate of any one of
the thirteen tiles to complete it
Chuuren Poutou Kyuumen Machi - a flush hand of 1112345678999 waiting
on a duplicate to complete it; this is
known as "Pure Nine Gates"
*This is the default setting for the optional Free Rule and the standard setting
in the fixed Fight Club rule-set.
------< OPTIONS >------------------------------------------------- [Section 08]
There are seventeen features available under the Options section, accessed from
the final option off the main menu. These are displayed over three pages which
you can cycle through using the L1 and R1 buttons.
Once you've made changes you can press the blue OK button to confirm and exit.
You can press the red Cancel [kyanseru] button (or just press X) to exit without
saving your changes. Pressing the green button restores the options to their
standard initial settings [kihon shoki settei].
The default setting for each is marked with an asterisk (*). Options which are
unlocked as you progress through the game are marked with a hash (#).
Page 1 - Game [taikyoku]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1.1 Name: Table Colour [taku no iro]
Options: Standard* [kihon]
Grey [haiiro]
Red [akairo]
Blue-Grey [aohaiiro]
Green [midoriiro]
Blue [aoiro]
Special [tokushu]
Random [randamu]
Info: This lets you change the background of the in-game display.
1.2 Name: Tile Colour [pai no iro]
Options: Standard* [kihon]
Grey [haiiro]
Green [midoriiro]
Red (dark pink) [akairo]
Blue [aoiro]
Gold Tiles# [kinpai]
Silver Tiles# [ginpai]
Lead Tiles# [doupai]
Random [randamu]
Info: This lets you change the colour of the tiles, or more specifically
the colour of the backs.
The three metallic tile sets became unlocked after I made my second
Yakuman hand. During play each discard makes an awful sound like a
girder being struck by a hammer. :6 Also they can make it difficult
to distinguish the Red Five tile in the Bams/Souzu suit.
1.3 Name: Discard Time Limit [dahai seigenjikan]
Options: On [ari] / Off* [nashi]
Info: This option applies a time limit to all your moves - both when it's
your turn to discard a tile and when you're given pop-up menu options
for example Chii or Pon. You have seven seconds to make your move.
If you fail to discard a tile by the end of the seven seconds then
the game will automatically discard your selected (raised) tile or,
if none is selected, it will discard your Tsumo (the tile you just
drew). When there are only three seconds left to make your move a
countdown will appear above the tile that will be discarded.
Once per Kyoku (hand) you can press the triangle button to be given
extra thinking time; you get about ten seconds.
Pressing the Start button does not pause the game or the timer!
1.4 Name: Cursor Movement Speed [kaasoru idou sokudo]
Options: Fastest [saihaya]
Fast [hayai]
Normal* [futsuu]
Slow [osoi]
Slowest [saioso?]
Info: This setting governs the movement speed of the arrow which is used
to select a tile to discard.
1.5 Name: Computer Discard Speed [CPU dahai sokudo]
Options: Fastest [saihaya]
Fast [hayai]
Normal* [futsuu]
Slow [osoi]
Slowest [saioso?]
Info: This option is used to set the speed at which the three computer-
controlled players take their turns in a game.
1.6 Name: Discard Discrimination [tedashi hanbetsu]
Options: On [ari] / Off* [nashi]
Info: A Tsumokiri is a tile which you draw and then discard immediately, as
opposed to drawing one tile but then dropping another from your hand.
When this option is On, all Tsumokiri are highlighted in red which
gives you additional information about the contents of the other
player's hands.
This option is particularly effective when used in conjunction with
the red table colour (see Option 1.1 above) since it makes the non-
Tsumokiri tiles stand out on the screen.
Page 2 - Sound [saundo]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2.1 Name: Voice Volume [onsei onryou]
2.2 Name: Effects Volume [koukaon onryou]
2.3 Name: Music Volume [BGM onryou]
Options: 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15*
Info: These three settings let you specify the volume of the player voices,
the sound effects and the background music respectively.
2.4 Name: Music Playback Mode [BGM saisei moudo]
Options: All On* [subete on]
In-Game Off [taikyokuchuu ofu]
All Off [subete ofu]
Info: With the In-Game Off option selected, music is played while you're
navigating the menus but no music is played during games.
The other two options turn the music on or off totally.
2.5 Name: Voice Type [onsei taipu]
Options: Male A [dansei A] / Male B [dansei B] / Female [josei]
Info: This gives a choice of three options for your own character voice,
used for declarations like Pon, Riichi, Ron, etc.
2.6 Name: In-Game Music [taikyokuchuu no BGM]
Options: Mahjong Fight Club* [Maajan Kakutou Kurabu]
Mahjong Fight Club 1# [Maajan Kakutou Kurabu 1]
Mahjong Fight Club 2# [Maajan Kakutou Kurabu 2]
Mahjong Fight Club 3# [Maajan Kakutou Kurabu 3]
Mahjong Fight Club 4# [Maajan Kakutou Kurabu 4]
Gradius# [Guradiusu]
Castlevania# [Akumajou Dorakyura] (literally "Demon-castle Dracula")
Legend of the Mystical Ninja# [Ganbare Goemon]
Life Force# [Saramanda]
Salamander 2# [Saramanda 2]
Nemesis 2# [MSX Guradiusu 2]
Info: When you first play the game only the standard MFC music is available
but additional music-sets can be unlocked during play. For example I
got one when I graduated to Shodan rank, another when I was promoted
to Sandan, another when I made my first Yakuman and one when I got my
first six-game winning streak (although the timing on any of those
could've been coincidental, I guess).
I've listed the sets here in the order they appear on the options
page; this is not the order in which they became unlocked.
The latter options on the list should please Konami otaku! These
music-sets are taken from historic Konami games (where appropriate
I've given the titles of the American versions above). When you
select the first Gradius option or the second Salamander one it not
only changes the music but it also replaces all of the in-game sounds
with retro shmup sound-effects. :)
Page 3 - System [shisutemu]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3.1 Name: Mouse Movement Speed [mausu no idou sokudo]
Options: Slow [osoi] / Normal* [futsuu] / Fast [hayai]
Info: As you might've guessed, this controls the speed at which the cursor
moves when you're using a mouse instead of a joypad.
3.2 Name: Display Method when High Definition [HD toki no hyouji houhou]
Options: Full* [furu] / Trimming [torimingu]
Info: I don't have an HD monitor at the moment but I guess this adjusts the
way the display appears.
3.3 Name: Screen Adjust [sukeriin ajasuto]
Info: This lets you stretch the display (using the d-pad) or move it around
the screen (using the shoulder buttons).
3.4 Name: Colour Adjustment [karaa chousei]
Info: This one just displays a colour chart which you can use to fine-tune
the settings on your monitor.
3.5 Name: Save Data Deletion [seebu deeta sakujo]
Info: This lets you delete save files from your console, not just for MFC
but for any other game saves on the hard disk.
I would suggest that you stay away from this one to prevent mishaps!
*This is the default setting for the option.
#These options are not available when you first begin the game; they become
unlocked as you progress through the game.
------< CONTROLS >------------------------------------------------ [Section 09]
Like any other PS3 game, MFC can be controlled using a joypad but - unusually -
it also gives the option of using a mouse [mausu].
= Joypad Controls =
Navigation through the menus is done with the d-pad to select, circle button to
confirm and cross button to cancel or quit out.
The following joypad controls are available during play:-
d-pad left/right - choose tile to discard (or tiles to meld into)
d-pad up/down - choose option from pop-up menu
- access pop-up menu for Kan or Riichi
circle button - discards selected tile [pai o suteru]
- accepts action listed on pop-up menu [kettei]
You need to press O twice in order to discard a tile. On the
first press the tile becomes selected (and appears raised
above the others) and on the second it is discarded. This is
equivalent to using a double-click action with a mouse.
cross button - toggle between selected tile and Tsumo
This lets you jump back and forth between your current
cursor position and your Tsumo (newly drawn tile). This
causes a tile to become "selected" (raised) such that only
a single press of O is required to discard the tile.
triangle button - request extra thinking-time [choukou]
This control is only relevant when you have the time-limit
option applied (see Section 08). You can use this option
once per hand to be given an extra ten seconds to make your
move. The on-screen control is labelled Choukou which means
"lengthy consideration" (literally "long think").
When this is used, three flashing green kanji characters
appear at the bottom-right of the screen. These say
Choukouchuu which just means "during lengthy consideration".
square button - calls allowed on/off
This toggles a mode which automatically rejects any offers
to steal discards to make sets (Chii, Pon or Kan), except
when you're Tenpai and can call Ron of course.
The two kanji on the on-screen button are an abbreviation of
Naki Nashi which means "without calls".
select button - confirm rule settings [ruuru no kakunin]
This shows the rule options in force in the current game,
either the Fight Club rules or your own custom rule-set as
appropriate. These are presented over six pages in the same
layout used in the rule options screens off the main menu.
start button - display option to quit game [taikyoku no shuuryou]
If you want to quit out of a game you can press Start and
then select Yes (in English). This isn't really a pause
option as such - it does not pause the game/counter if
you're playing with a time-limit on your moves.
If you do choose to quit you are automatically awarded
fourth place for the game.
And don't think you can get away with pressing the PS button
and using the Quit Game option either! When you next start
up MFC the outcome of your aborted game will be logged!
L1 - automatic win [outo agari] on/off
When the on-screen button is illuminated the game will
automatically claim a win for you at the first available
opportunity, regardless of whether it's by Ron or Tsumo, or
if you have the option of completing a higher-scoring hand.
L2 - hide/reveal hand
If you're the secretive type you can use this control to
hide your hand of tiles, effectively placing them face-down
on the virtual tabletop. When the tiles are in this position
they can still be viewed one at a time by selecting a tile
and pressing the O button (once).
Pressing L2 again then restores the normal view. One benefit
of this is that any Dora in your hand (including Red Fives)
will "glimmer" briefly when you do this, so it's a quick way
to check for Dora. Plus it makes a cool little sound! :)
R1 - cycle score display modes [tensuu hyouji houhou no kurikae]
There are three different ways in which the game can display
the four player scores in the centre of the screen.
In the default option the absolute scores are shown. The
score of the player currently in first place is given in
pale blue, the one in fourth is pale red and the other two
are white.
In the second option the player in first is indicated with a
yellow box (containing the word Toppu which means "top
position" or "first place"). The other three scores are then
shown relative to this as negative values in red; for
example -2000 is 2000 points less than the leader's score.
Finally with the third option your score is replaced by a
blue box (containing the word Anata which means "you") and
the other three players' scores are shown relative to yours.
If their score is less than yours it's given as a red
negative number or if they're ahead of you it's a white
positive number.
R2 (hold) - displays player information panels [jouhou paneru hyouji]
This control shows information about the four players on top
of the virtual tabletop. The display is explained in the
Status Windows subsection of Section 10 below.
Small tags in the top-left corner of the screen indicate any
random bonuses that are in effect in the current game when
playing in Fight Club mode (see Section 05).
= Mouse Controls =
If you connect a USB mouse to your PS3 it will be automatically recognised by
the console and will function in conjunction with the joypad - you can switch
between using either or both controllers as you wish.
You can move the cursor onto a tile and click the left button to select it. You
also use the left button to confirm a discard selection or an option from a pop-
up menu. You should note that it will perform this action whenever you click on
a part of the screen which is not an active button - if a tile or menu option is
highlighted then clicking on any neutral part of the screen will confirm your
selection (it's not limited to clicking on the tile or menu).
During play, the right mouse button is used to switch between your currently
selected tile and your Tsumo (like the X button above). When there is a pop-up
menu on the screen you can use it to cancel the menu.
If your mouse has a wheel, it can be used to move the cursor along your hand of
tiles (during play) or switch between options (when there's a pop-up menu).
Other functions during gameplay - for example setting Auto Win, changing the
score display mode or quitting the game - can be accessed by clicking on the
appropriate buttons on the side-bar on the right edge of the screen. The format
of the side-bar is explained in the following section of this guide.
------< GAMEPLAY >------------------------------------------------ [Section 10]
This section covers the actual process of playing a game, explaining things that
happen in every hand plus some things that only happen occasionally. There are
also four subsections below which explain the scoring sticks and various aspects
of the display.
= General =
When you start playing in a new game mode you get a black screen with animated
circles radiating from the centre and a text message which says "please wait for
a while" [shibaraku o machi kudasai]. I guess it's just loading the game. Maybe
when you play online it does this when the game checks for other players.
After your short wait the game counts out your scoring sticks according to the
current settings, for example 25,000 pts if you're playing a Hanchan under the
MFC rule-set. (see also the Scoring Sticks explanation later in this section)
Next the four players are shown - with a gong sound and a spoken introduction
from each Pro character (if any); you can skip the speeches by repeatedly
pressing the circle button although it doesn't save much time! Then the game
assigns the seating positions - moving the other three players relative to your
fixed position at the bottom of the screen - and selects the initial dealer,
indicating them with a glowing golden circle at the bottom-left of their window.
After this the game begins...
At the start of each hand the female announcer tells you which round you are in
("Ton" for East and "Nan" for South) and how far through it you are, for example
"Ton San Kyoku" for the third hand in the first/East round. This is also shown
in the centre of the screen as she speaks and in the side-bar on the right of
the screen throughout the hand (see below). The final hand of the last round is
given as "Ourasu" and accompanied by a short fanfare-type sound. After the Kyoku
count, the announcer gives the Honba count (if any) - counting any previous
consecutive draws or dealer wins - using the standard Japanese numbers, for
example "Ni Honba" if the counter is at two; this is also shown on the side-bar.
In the middle of the table display is the Dead Wall - it shows the full Dead
Wall with seven stacks of two tiles each, even though you don't really need to
see the first two stacks which are used as replacement tiles after a Kong is
declared. The third column shows the Omote Dora indicator and the other four can
be used for Kan Dora indicators as required.
.-------------.----. The text blocks for each player show their name (plus "CPU"
| N a m e |Wind| for your computer-controlled opponents) and their current
|-------------'----| Seat Wind on the first row. Beneath this is their rank and
| Rank S c o r e | their score (you can press R1 to cycle between the three
'------------------' different score display modes - see Section 09). The
initial dealer is indicated with the Chiicha marker which also shows the current
Round Wind (red for East and magenta for South). The current dealer in each hand
is shown with the pair of dice* used to break the Wall. When you are East the
announcer says "anata wa oya desu" meaning "you are the dealer".**
You can use the d-pad to move the red pointy cursor along your tiles and press
the circle button to select a tile and again to discard it (see Section 09 for
a full list of controls). The options to call for a discard, declare a Kong,
call Riichi or announce a win are given on a pop-menu at the right side of the
game screen.
There are two types of pop-up menu. If you are offered Chii, Pon, Kan (with a
stolen discard) or Agari (win) then the red cursor automatically jumps to the
menu and you can make your choice***; the bottom option on this menu (the red
button) is marked "Tsugi e" which means "to next" - so this cancels the menu and
play continues with the next tile. The other type of pop-up occurs when it is
your turn and you are in a position to either declare a Kong or call Riichi -
this menu will appear in the same position but you have to press up (or down) on
the d-pad in order to select it.
You will need to be able to recognise the labels on the pop-up menu so I'll
attempt to illustrate them here. Each button on the menu actually has two labels
- the button itself is marked with a kanji character (with a Pinyin reading to
match its function, i.e. "chi1" for Chii) and above this is a caption usually
given in the simpler katakana script as shown (roughly!) below.
__|__o \ / ----- _|__ \ /
| / __|__ ____ | | /
/ | \ / | | | /
' / / / / /
PON (call Pung) CHII (call Chow) KAN (call/declare Kong)
| | ----- \ /____ /\ _____ _|__ " | |
| | ____ __|__ / /\ ' / \ ./ | | | |
| | | | / \ \ | | | | |
/ / | / \ / / / /
RIICHI (call Riichi) TSUGI E (to next) AGARI (claim win)
(So, it turns out that small scale ASCII art isn't the ideal medium to use for
representing Japanese script...! Hopefully this is clear enough to enable you to
distinguish the different commands, if not check my Translation Chart for this
game which shows the various characters correctly.)
.-----. \ / \\ / ------- When a player makes a call or
| | / / | declaration you hear them say the
| | / / --+-- appropriate word and it also appears
|_____| / / |__ as text over their tiles (so you can
tell who did it, even if you have
RON (discard win) TSUMO (self-drawn win) the sound off). Pon is given in green
text, Chii in blue, Kan in purple and
Riichi and the two possible types of win (shown here) are given in gold. When a
discard tile is stolen by another player (by Pon etc) it is still shown in with
their other discarded tiles but it appears greyed-out; this is useful in deter-
mining if you - or your opponents - are Furiten on a certain tile.
The game applies the order in which calls can be made, working around the table
from the discarding player, and it also enforces the rule of priority on calls
(Agari > Kan/Pon > Chii) so often you will be offered a Pon or Chii and, regard-
less of whether you accept or not, another player will take the tile by Ron.
When you draw a Dora tile (including Red Fives) this is indicated by a short
"glimmering" effect when the tile appears in your hand. If you missed it, you
can press the L2 button at any time to hide your tiles and then again to reveal
them and you will see this effect on all your Dora. When you self-draw a tile
that lets you declare a win, this also has the glimmering effect but that does
not mean that the tile is a Dora. (although it could be if you're lucky!)
Each time you or another player discards a Dora this is accompanied by a sort of
"whiplash"-type sound to draw your attention to it. Sometimes it appears that
you have drawn a tile and it's made the same sound but it's actually just your
Kamicha (the player to your left) dropping a Dora.
When you are Tenpai (with a "ready" hand), the game displays several pieces of
useful information. Each time you select a tile which would leave your hand
Tenpai you are shown your waits - with pictures of one or more tiles above your
hand - and you can try several options before you finally choose which tile to
discard. Various pieces of information are shown around the wait tiles...
o The pale text to the right says Machi Desu which just means "it's your wait/s"
o If there is blue text to the left it says Yaku Kentei (I think) which means
"Yaku approved" - the hand already contains at least one Yaku. When you call
Riichi, an image of a 1,000-pt scoring stick appears next to the blue text to
show that this is giving you Yaku (where perhaps there was none before).
o If the text to the left is red and only three character then this says Yaku
Nashi or "without Yaku" which indicates that your exposed hand has no scoring
elements. You can get a longer version of this text when your hand is closed
- there are a further nine characters in brackets to indicate that you could
still win by Menzen Tsumo, i.e. a self-draw win would give you Yaku.
o The yellow text beneath a tile says Yaku Ari or "with Yaku" which shows that
it would give you Yaku, or complete the requirements of a Yaku. For example if
you are waiting on a 1 or 4 on a Tanyao (All Simples) hand then only the 4
would give you the Yaku, or if you are waiting on a pair of 8's and a pair of
Hatsu (Green Dragon) then winning on the Hatsu wait would give you Yakuhai.
o If red text appears over a wait tile this means that your current choice of
discard would leave you Furiten on that tile, unable to win by Ron.
o Finally if a red X appears over a tile this indicates that all four of that
tile have been played and no more are available; the game doesn't tell you how
many of each tile are available, only if all are gone. If none of your wait
tiles are available then an additional warning message is displayed.
When you call Riichi, selecting the option from the pop-up menu, the game will
highlight which tiles you can discard to give a Tenpai hand and the waits are
shown as above. You can press X if you decide to cancel the Riichi but you
cannot then change your mind again - if you want to reach you will have to wait
until your next turn! If you have less than 1,000 points at the start of a hand
(ouch!) then a message will flash on the screen to let you know that you are
unable to use Riichi in that hand.
If a hand ends in an exhaustive draw, i.e when the Live Wall is depleted, the
announcer says "Ryuu Kyoku" (drawn hand) and this is also shown in the centre of
the screen with two pale blue kanji. Starting with the dealer, each player in
turn then declares if they were Tenpai by saying "Tenpai" and laying their tiles
face-up on the table; a speech bubble next to the hand also shows their waits.
The remaining players then declare "No-Ten" (not Tenpai) and, if you are playing
with No-Ten Bappu (see Free Rule 4.3 in Section 07), the 3,000 pts are shared
between the players as appropriate.
If you make Nagashi Mangan (All Terminal & Honour Discards) this will be shown
as four kanji above your tiles after the final tile of the Kyoku.
When a hand ends in a win, the word Ron or Tsumo will appear over the winner's
hand and if the winner is a Pro character then an image of their eyes will flash
across the screen too. If the winning hand has scored one of the limits then a
column of fire will descend onto the table, either onto the winning discarded
tile (for Ron) or onto the Dora indicator on the Dead Wall (for Tsumo). The
length and intensity of the blast will vary according to the limit - it's fairly
small for a Mangan but if you see a big explosion with one of the Shijin (Four
Gods) in the middle then you better hope you haven't just been Ronned because
it's a Yakuman! You will come to recognise the different types of limits.
The score display (see subsection below) is then shown for the winning hand,
giving a breakdown of the features and score. After this the four players are
displayed and the changes to the points are shown, with gains in yellow and
losses in red. First the points for the hand are distributed, then for any Honba
points and finally for any Riichi stakes on the table.
When the game ends, either because the required number of hands have been played
or due to a player being made bankrupt under the Buttobi rule (see rule 1.7 in
Section 07), this will be indicated by two pale kanji in the centre of the
screen; the announcer does not say them aloud, but they read Shuuryou which
means "end" or "termination". The game will then show who is first (in gold),
second (silver), third (bronze) and fourth (erm, purple).
After this, the game distributes the points for the Uma and Oka (see Free Rules
2.3 thru' 2.7 in Section 07), again with gains in yellow and losses in red, and
it then awards the P-Points scored and - most importantly - the Orbs. Any Pro
characters in the game will then thank you and then you get a loading screen for
about five seconds. (you can tell it's an early PS3 title!)
Next you are shown a screen which displays your current rank (see Section 06),
your gains or losses of experience points / Orbs / Kyouryuu Orbs, and any
changes to your rank resulting from this. The game will then show your final
score as represented by your scoring sticks or, if you have none, it will just
show your score as a red negative number. (better luck next time!)
Finally you will be presented with two choices in the form of wide green buttons
on the screen. Your choices are...
1. End play [taikyoku o shuuryou suru]
2. Continue play [taikyoku o zokkou suru]
The first button takes you back to the main menu, while the second button is
used to play another game of the same type as your last one (i.e. the same play
mode and game length). Perhaps oddly, the default option is the top one.
*The dice in the game are the traditional Chinese dice used in Mahjong with an
enlarged dot on the 1 side; this is painted red as this is an auspicious colour
in China. Thinking about it, the larger dot probably improves the balance of the
dice too!
**The word Oya means both "dealer" and "parent" so the line "anata wa oya desu",
in addition to "you are the dealer", can also mean "you are the parent" which
could be a useful phrase to know if you ever find yourself involved in a
paternity suit in Japan!? ;)
***Often you will have a choice of several options on the pop-ups, depending on
the current situation. On one occasion, where I was Tenpai and had a group of
11123 tiles in the same suit, the player to my left dropped the fourth 1 tile
and, unusually, I had a choice of Pon, Chii, Kan or Agari at the same time.
= Scoring Sticks =
One nice feature of MFC is that it shows your scoring sticks before and after
each game. These work just like casino/poker chips and come in four different
denominations with standard Japanese markings as shown here...
| | | | | | | |
| o | black dot | | | | | |
| . | | | | | |. .|
|. .| |. .| | | |. .|
| o | red dots | o | red dots | o | red dot |. .| black dots
|. .| |. .| | | |. .|
| . | | | | | | |
| o | black dot | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
10,000 pts 5,000 pts 1,000 pts 100 pts
So for example if you play a Hanchan starting with the default amount of 25,000
points then you have two 10k sticks, four 1k sticks and ten 100 pt sticks, or if
you start a one-round game with the default 20,000 then you have one 10k, one
5k, four 1k and ten of 100.
If you are lucky enough to end a game with more than five of the 10k sticks then
the five will be shown in their normal position and the others will be displayed
raised above the others.
= Side-Bar =
The bar on the right side of the screen during play shows several useful pieces
of info and also has virtual buttons which can be used when using a mouse as
your controller (see Section 09). The buttons are also labelled with the joypad
controls so it functions as a reminder of these too.
The layout is as follows, with one button at the top, followed by a display
section with six parts to it and finally a column of six more buttons.
.====.
|St. | The top red button is used for termination [shuuryou] of the current
| | game; this performs the same function as pressing the Start button.
:====:
| | 1. This shows the type (length) of the current game - either a Hanchansen
| | (two-round game) in magenta or a Tonpuusen (one-round game) in green.
|----|
| | 2. This is the current Kyoku (hand) count, for example the first Kyoku in
| | the East round is "East one Kyoku" (written in kanji).
|----|
| | 3. This is used to indicate the final hand of the current game; it shows
| | the word "Ourasu" written in four cyan-coloured katakana characters.
|----|
| | 4. This is a counter showing how many 1000-point Riichi sticks are on the
| | virtual table (from both the current and previous drawn Kyoku).
|----|
| | 5. This is the Honba counter showing the number of consecutive previous
| | hands that ended in draws or dealer wins, shown with 100-point sticks.
|----|
| | 6. The last part of the display section shows the number of tiles left in
| | the Wall during play; the numbers turn red when they drop below ten.
:====:
|R1 | 1. This blue button is used to cycle through the score display options;
| | the same function is available from pressing the joypad's R1 button.
:====:
|R2 | 2. The second blue button displays the information [jouhou] panels which
| | can also be accessed by holding the R2 button. (see below)
:====:
|L2 | 3. You can use this blue button to hide/reveal your tiles [fu(se) pai];
| | the same function is mapped to L2 on the joypad controller.
:====:
|L1 | 4. This yellow button is used to toggle the Auto Win mode, also accessed
|AUTO| from the L1 button; when active the button is illuminated.
:====:
|[] | 5. This purple button toggles the "no calls" [na(ki) na(shi)] mode,
| ON | also accessible with the Square button; again it glows when selected.
:====:
|/\ | 6. When playing with a time-limit you can press this green button (or
| | Triangle on the joypad) to get extra thinking time [choukou].
'===='
= Status Windows =
Pressing and holding the R2 button (or clicking on the middle blue button on the
side-bar if using a mouse) will display the four player status display screens
[pureiyaa suteetasu kyouji gamen] as shown on page 5 of the manual.
While you (and your opponents) are in the Kyuu ranks the display panels will
have a plain grey border but once you advance into the Dan ranks - and become
affiliated with one of the Four Gods (see Section 06) - each player's panel will
have an ornate border which is coloured to match their God (for example purple
for a Suzaku player) and includes an image of their God in the top-right corner.
Similarly Kouryuu players have a golden frame with the yellow dragon in the
corner (and the secondary colour on the dragon shows which God you/they were
associated with during the Dan ranks). The Pro characters have a dark golden
frame with red jewels embedded in it (and no funny animals in the corner!).
Your panel shows more information than those of the computer-controlled players;
presumably when you play against real people online you see the full information
for them too. The layout of the info is shown below.
.-------------------. The first row gives the information you gave when you
| Name Home | started the game - your name and (in pink) the prefecture
|-------------------| that you chose to represent.
| Rank |
|-------------------| The next row gives your current rank - this could be a
| Winning % | Kyuu grade, Dan grade (with God name) or Kouryuu level.
| Yakuman count |
| Past five results | The bottom section has four rows. In the first is your
| XP or Orb count/s | winning percent [shouritsu] - the percentage of games
'-------------------' from your entire MFC history in which you came first.
This is split into three separate figures, for example if your win percent is
42.7% it will be shown as 4# 2# 7# using the three kanji: Wari, Bu and Rin.
The second row shows the number of Yakuman (Limit Hands) you've made. This row
will be empty if you haven't made any.
The third row shows your results from your past five matches [saikin go sen no
seiseki] with the most recent on the left. A 1 is given in yellow and a 4 is
shown in red. The two kanji say Kako which simply means "past".
The bottom row shows your current experience point or Orb total. If you're in
the Kyuu ranks it will give your XP [keikenchi] total and the overall number you
need to get to the next rank, for example if you completed 10th Kyuu with 100 XP
and are half-way to the next Kyuu it will say 150/200. During the Dan ranks it
will show your Orb total and after you progress up to the Kouryuu levels it will
show both your normal Orbs (on the right) and Kouryuu Orbs (on the left).
If you have completed fifty or more matches with the current rule-set then you
will also get two quadrilateral graphs on the right of the panel - these are the
same ones that appear on page 1.2 of the stats (see Section 11), although they
are the other way round here! The one on top shows your Luck, Quickness, Attack
and Defence ratings from all your matches and the bottom one shows the same from
your past fifty games, in both cases based on the current rule-set.
The panels for the normal computer-controlled players just give their name,
their rank and the word CPU in blue (in place of their home prefecture). I guess
when you play online you can use the latter to identify bots who are filling
empty seats in a game. For Pro characters you also get a photo of them, their
rank is prefixed with two katakana which spell Puro (pro) and it says Nihon Puro
Maajan Renmei (Japan Pro Mahjong League) under their name. In Fight Club mode a
Pro's panel also shows the number of stars you can win off them.
When viewing the information panels, the glowing gold circle on a bottom-left
corner denotes the current dealer. Inside the circle is the kanji Oya which
means "parent" or (in Mahjong) "dealer" (the non-dealers are Ko or "children").
If you are playing on a widescreen monitor then the four panels are also shown
permanently down the left side of the screen (in seating order with the starting
dealer at the top). You can therefore monitor the progress of the current round
by following the gold Oya marker as it moves down the screen from one player to
the next (as the seat-winds rotate around the table).
= Score Display =
At the end of every hand that ends in a win, the game shows a screen listing the
Yaku (scoring elements) present, Fan (doubles) count and points value. If two or
more players win off the same tile then the display is shown separately for each
hand, one after the other. The layout of the screen is illustrated below.
At the top of the display is the full winning hand. Any melded sets are shown on
the right while the concealed section of the hand is given on the left with the
winning tile separated by a small gap. The type of win - either Tsumo or Ron -
is given in small katakana characters above the winning tile.
The same word appears in larger golden characters at the start of the next row.
This is followed by the name of the player and their rank in small text; for a
Ron win the name of the player who provided the winning tile is also given. To
the right of this is the Dead Wall showing any Dora indicators in effect.
.------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ |
| | | | | | | | | | | || | ____| | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | || | | | | | |
| |___|___|___|___|___|___|___|___|___|___||___| |____|___|___| |
| __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ |
| | | \/ -------------------------------------------- | | |::| | | | | |
| |__| / Winner name / Winner rank (Ronned name) |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| |
| ----------------------------------------------------- |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| |
| |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| |
| Yaku #1 Fan for Yaku #1 |
| Yaku #2 Fan for Yaku #2 |
| Yaku #3 Fan for Yaku #3 |
| (etc) |
| Number of Dora (if any) L I M I T |
| (if applicable) |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |
| Fu count Fan total POINTS VALUE |
'------------------------------------------------------------------------------'
Beneath this on the left is a list of all the Yaku present in the hand and the
number of Fan awarded for each. Any Dora in the hand are listed under the Yaku.
The Yaku and number of Dora are read out by the female announcer, in Japanese of
course and including (for the five types of Yakuhai) "Chun" for Red Dragon,
"Haku" for White Dragon, "Hatsu" for Green Dragon, "Bakazehai" for Round Wind
and "Jikazehai" for Seat Wind. If you have only one Yaku (perhaps only a one-Fan
Yaku?) she will append the word Nomi which means "only". Dora are counted with
proper Japanese numbers (rather than the Japanese renderings of the Chinese ones
often used in Japanese Mahjong), i.e. Ichi, Ni, San, Yon, Go, Roku, Nana, etc,
so for example "Dora Go" means you got five Dora - lucky you! :)
If the hand achieves one of the limits, e.g. Mangan, Haneman, etc (see Section
12) then this is shown with two large golden kanji on the right. You can check
my Translation Chart for reference.
At the bottom of the screen are the Fu (minipoints) and Fan (doubles) totals for
the hand, both given in Japanese characters which use the same kanji as the
numbered tiles in the Craks/Manzu suit and + for ten, so for example =+ is
twenty. If you got Ronned on the hand then two red kanji (spelling Houjuu)
are
shown above this row.
Finally the points awarded for the hand contents are given in large (Arabic)
numbers at the bottom-right of the display. This does not include any points for
Riichi stakes or Honba bonuses - these are added afterwards.
If you make a Yakuman then a simpler form of the display is given. The name of
the hand (e.g. Dai San Gen) is given in the centre with two large golden kanji
spelling Yaku Man under it. The Fu and Fan counts are not shown.
------< STATS >--------------------------------------------------- [Section 11]
This is going to be a long section as the game has a fantastic array of stats.
The stats pages can be accessed from option 9 on the main menu - the fourth one
down on the right column. You then use the buttons on the right of the screen to
choose one of the seven sections (listed below) and then press L1/R1 to move
between pages within a section. If a page has a gold button you can press the
circle button on the joypad to view more/different information; if there is more
than one gold button on the screen (like on the Yaku pages) then you can use the
d-pad to select one and then press O to confirm.
I'll use a simple two-part numbering scheme to identify the stats pages, so for
example, page 1.2 can be viewed by going to section 1 and then pressing L1 or R1
to go to the second page within that section.
The seven stats sections are as follows - and each is described in full below.
1. Basics
2. Yaku Distribution
3. Match Log
4. Orbs
5. Pro Players
6. Detailed Info
7. Events & Records
It should be noted that only sections 1, 2, 3 and 5 are available at the start
of the game and the others only become available after you move up into the Dan
grades (see Section 06 above).
= Basics = (stats section 1)
It makes sense to start with the basic [kihon] stats. When you select this
option you have to choose to view the data for either your games played with the
custom Free Rules [jiyuu ruuru] or for those played in Fight Club and Pro CPU
modes using the Fight Club rules [kakutou kurabu ruuru]. Choose the button on
the left for Free Rules or the one on the right for MFC rules.
PAGE 1.1 (I'll put these headings in caps to make them easier to find) has two
boxes on it. The top box on the screen gives some very general information, with
these fields on the left...
1. Player name [namae]
2. Attribute [zokusei] - which of the Shijin (Four Gods) you're affiliated with
3. Rank position [kyuui] - your current Kyuu or Dan rank
4. Number of Fight Orbs [faito oubu] - your current total, with loses deducted
And these on the right...
1. Prefecture - the territory you chose to represent when you first started
2. Current P-points total
(Please check Section 06 of this guide if you need to know more about the
various systems of ranks, Gods, points, etc.)
After you complete the Dan grades, the rank and Orbs lines are merged into a
single entry which gives both your Kouryuu Orb count and level.
The heading for the prefecture row is Shozoku Chiiki which means "the region you
belong to" and the heading on the P-points row is Shozoku Chiiki Kouken where
the final word means "contribution" so I'm guessing that when you play online
all the P-points collected by players from the same prefecture are totalled?
In the bottom box there is a graph which shows your achievement in the past
thirty matches [kako 30 sen no sen seki] - it simply plots whether you came 1st,
2nd, 3rd or 4th in each match, with the most recent games on the right. First
places are marked with a crown (yay!) and fourth places - if you were bankrupt
under the Buttobi rule - with a skull (doh!). First place is shown in blue,
second in green, third in yellow and fourth in red - the same colouring scheme
used in Koei's Mahjong Taikai IV game.
Beneath the graph are three figures. On the left side is your total points
profit/loss [ruikei tenbou shuushi] from the past thirty games and on the right
is your average points profit/loss [heikin tenbou shuushi] which is just the
total divided by 30. Under those is your average position [heikin jun'i] which
is an arithmetic mean of your game placings, given to one decimal place. (so,
for example, if you'd played only four games and came 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in
them your average position would be (1+2+3+4)/4 = 2.5)
PAGE 1.2 displays both numerically and graphically your performance against the
four criteria of the Four Gods (again, see Section 06), each of which represents
a different aspect of your playing style.
This section is only populated once you have played fifty matches.
There are two tables on the left which have the same layout; the top one gives
your stats from your past fifty games and the one beneath it gives the data for
every game you've played. The five rows on each table are as follows...
1. Four Gods Index [shijin shisuu] - simply the sum of the four rows below
This is given as a number out of a possible total of 1000. (black row)
2. Luck [un] - Dora usage rate [dora shiyou ritsu]
This is Seiryuu's aspect, given as a total out of 250. (dark blue row)
3. Quickness [soku] - average hand win rate [heikin agari ritsu]
This is Suzaku's aspect, given as a total out of 250. (burgundy row)
4. Attack [kou] - average Fan per winning-hand rate [heikin agari han]
This is Byakko's aspect, given as a total out of 250. (blue-grey row)
5. Defence [bou] - payment rate [furikomi ritsu]
And this is Genbu's aspect, given as a total out of 250. (dark green row)
You'll notice that this page has one of those gold buttons I mentioned so you
can press the O button to change the display, in this case replacing the scores
with the fractions and percentages used to calculate them (and removing the
totals row at the top since it doesn't make much sense to combine percentages).
Luck is calculated as the average number of Dora (including Red Fives) in your
winning hands, e.g. if you had 83 Dora in 63 wins then the percentage would be
given as 132% (100% x 83 / 63) which represents an average of 1.32 Dora per win.
You need to have a Dora-use rate of at least 119-120% in order to even start
getting points here and something over 185-190% to get the maximum 250.
Quickness is based on the number of hands you won out of the total number of
hands played. You need a win-rate of around 32-34% to get the full 250/250 here.
Attack is the average number of Fan (doubles) in your winning hands. For example
an average of 2.8 Fan/win will only get you about 4/250 points and you have to
get an average of over 4 Fan/win to get the maximum 250 pts.
Defence is based on the proportion of hands in which you discard a tile which is
taken by Ron to complete another player's hand; obviously you're looking to get
a low percentage here. You'd need to get your Ron rate under 10% to get a very
high score here, probably under 9% to make the full 250/250 points.
Since you can score a maximum of 250 points on each of these four categories the
theoretical maximum overall score is 1000. After a streak of good luck I got my
highest score (over fifty games) which was 928/1000. :D
Defence As you've probably figured out, the right side of the page
Attack <> Luck gives your scores for the four categories in graphical form
Quickness with Defence at the top, Luck on the right, etc.*
The four scores are marked on four axes with a common origin and the points are
joined to form an irregular quadrilateral. In fact there are actually two shapes
on the graph - the flashing one colour-coded to match your God shows the stats
for your previous fifty games and the black / dark grey one (that's really hard
to see!) shows the figures from all games played. The grid is marked with lines
at 50-point intervals.
(The graph and score total (out of 1000) for both your past fifty games and your
whole career are also shown on the player pop-ups which can be viewed by
pressing R2 during a game. If you've played less than fifty games with the given
rule-set then they are not shown.)
If you visit this section while you are still working through the Kyuu ranks
(before you've played fifty games) there will be no numerical data but the graph
will be displayed (in red). This gives a visual indication of your play style
and gives you an idea of which of the Four Gods you will become affiliated with
when you reach the Dan grades. For example, in my case, my win-rate must've been
my highest scoring category so I became a Suzaku "disciple". Instead of the
usual labels, at this stage the four sides of the graph are marked with the
names of the Gods instead, e.g. Genbu at the top representing Defence*, etc.
I think the graph concept is very interesting and can be used to analyse your
own style of play - are you a "well-rounded" player or are you biased towards
certain aspects? Are there aspects of your play you might want to improve upon?
*You'll notice that the Gods and their aspects are given in the appropriate
places on the chart, for example Seiryuu is the Azure Dragon of the East and he
(and his aspect: Luck) is shown on the right (East) side of the chart.
= Yaku Distribution = (stats section 2)
This section gives your Yaku distribution [yaku bunpu], in other words it counts
the number of times you have made each of the different Yaku (scoring elements)
and Yakuman (Limit Hands) in your winning hands.
When you select this section you are given three options - the right button is
used to view data from your games played with the Fight Club rule-set, the
middle button views data from Free Rules games and the button on the left lets
you view a combination [setsugou] of both (i.e. data from all of your games).
There are three pages in this section and each has the same two numbers at the
top. On the left is the total number of Dora from your winning hands and on the
right is the total number of hands won [agari kaisuu].
PAGE 2.1 is the first of two pages listing your Yaku counts. The names of the
Yaku are given on the left and on the right are two columns which give the
number of times you've made each Yaku (in winning hands) and the percentage of
the total number of hands you've won. In the middle the relative numbers are
represented by a blue bar-chart. The Yaku are listed in this order...
1. Riichi
2. Daburu Riichi (Double Riichi)
3. Menzen Tsumo (Concealed Self-Draw)
4. Ippatsu
5. Pinfu
6. Tanyao (All Simples)
7. Yakuhai (which includes Dragon Pungs and scoring Wind Pungs - see below)
8. Ikkitsuukan or Itsuu (Pure Straight)
9. Rinshan Kaihou (After a Kong)
10. Chankan (Robbing the Kong)
11. Haitei (Last-Tile Tsumo)
12. Houtei (Last-Tile Ron)
13. Iipeikou (Pure Double Chow)
14. Ryanpeikou (Twice Pure Double Chow)
After you've played a few games and got some data in this section you'll notice
that several of the Yaku are marked with a gold button which can be selected to
get additional information.
If you select Yakuhai you're shown a breakdown of the five different possible
scoring Pungs...
a. Bakaze (Round Wind)
b. Jikaze (Seat Wind)
c. Haku (White Dragon)
d. Hatsu (Green Dragon)
e. Chun (Red Dragon)
When you select a Yaku which is worth one Fan less when exposed you get a break-
down of the two options...
a. Menzen (concealed)
b. Naki (exposed)
PAGE 2.2 gives the second half of the Yaku list in the same format as above and
in the following order...
1. Chanta (Mixed Outside Hand)
2. Junchan (Pure Outside Hand)
3. San Shoku Doujun (Mixed Triple Chow)
4. San Shoku Doukou (Triple Pung)
5. Chii Toitsu (Seven Pairs)
6. Toi-Toi Hou (All Pungs)
7. San An Kou (Three Concealed Pungs)
8. San Kantsu (Three Kongs)
9. Honitsu (Half-Flush)
10. Chinitsu (Full Flush)
11. Honroutou (All Terminals & Honours)
12. Shou San Gen (Little Three Dragons)
13. Nagashi Mangan (All Terminals & Honours Discards)
14. Yakuman (Limit Hands)
That final row, shown with a golden bar instead of the normal blue, shows the
total number of Yakuman that you've made; these are listed in detail on the next
page. In addition to the total number it also shows what percentage of your won
hands were Yakuman. I was lucky enough to make two Yakuman quite soon after I
started playing the game and for a while my Yakuman rate was something like 1.8%
:D but it's a lot lower now...!
PAGE 2.3 has the same layout as the previous two pages but it lists your Yakuman
wins instead of Yaku (and loses the bar charts). These are listed in this order.
1. Chinroutou (All Terminals)
2. Shou Suu Shii (Little Four Winds)
3. Suu An Kou (Four Concealed Pungs)
4. Ryuuiisou (All Green)
5. Kokushi Musou (Thirteen Orphans)
6. Tenhou (Heavenly Hand)
7. Renhou (Hand of Man)
8. Paa Renchan (Eight Consecutive Dealer Wins)
9. Dai San Gen (Big Three Dragons)
10. Dai Suu Shii (Big Four Winds)
11. Suu Kantsu (Four Kongs)
12. Tsuuiisou (All Honours)
13. Chuuren Poutou (Nine Gates)
14. Chiihou (Earthly Hand)
15. Dai Sharin (Big Wheels)
16. Kazoe Yakuman (Counted Yakuman)
The last two are optional Yakuman which can be set up on pages five and six
(respectively) of the Rules menu (see Section 07).
If you make Kokushi Musou, Suu An Kou or Chuuren Poutou then this is listed with
a gold button and pressing this shows if you made the special version of the
hand which can count as a Double Yakuman, i.e. Kokushi Musou with 13-sided wait,
Suu An Kou with pair wait or Chuuren Poutou with 9-sided wait.
a. vanilla version
b. special version
The fourth possible Double Yakuman is Dai Suu Shii which has its own entry in
the Yakuman list. You can specify whether each of these four hands has the
Double Yakuman option allowed - this is also on page six of the Rules menu.
Each Yakuman you make is logged and dated individually on page 7.1 of the stats
(see below).
= Match Log = (stats section 3)
This section is labelled Senseki which means "scores" or "results", or it can
also mean "military record" - a record of your Mahjong battles!
PAGE 3.1 has several rows which give the following information...
1. Number of games played
2. Average position / Firsts / Seconds / Thirds / Fourths
This give your average position in your games (as on page 1.1 above) and
a count of the number of times you've come 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
3. In blue is your total of gained points [ruikei kakutoku tenbou] and beneath
this in red is your total of lost points [ruikei sonshitsu tenbou].
To the right of these are your total points profit/loss [ruikei tenbou
shuushi] - which is the blue number minus the red number - and under that
is your average points profit/loss [heikin tenbou shuushi] - which is the
number above divided by the number of games played.
The other seven rows give a statistic on the left and the calculation used to
derive this on the right.
4. This is your win rate [agari ritsu] given as a percentage. This is based on
the number of won hands divided by the total number of hands played.
5. This shows your average number of Fan (doubles) per win [heikin agari han]
- the total number of Fan scored divided by the number of hands won.
6. Payment rate [furikomi ritsu] - the number of hands in which you got
"Ronned" by another player divided by the number of hands played.
7. Dora-use rate [dora shiyuu ritsu] - the total number of Dora in your
winning hands divided by the number of hands won.
8. Riichi win rate [riichi agari ritsu] - number of Riichi wins divided by the
number of hands won.
9. Tsumo win rate [tsumo agari ritsu] - number of Tsumo (self-draw) wins
divided by number of hands won.
10. Yakuman win rate [yakuman agari ritsu] - number of times you won with a
Limit Hand divided by the number of hands played.
There are eight gold buttons beneath the table which can be used to view the
above data for different types of matches, e.g. for your previous thirty matches
[koka 30 sen], for all individual (offline) games played [kojin taikyoku], for
games played with either Fight Club rules [kakutou kurabu ruuru] or Free Rules
[jiyuu ruuru] and for games played over either two wind rounds [hanchan] or only
one wind round [ton-puu]. The buttons are laid out as follows...
.------------------.------------------.------------------.-------------------.
| last 30 matches | all games played | all games played | one-round games |
| | | Fight Club rules | Fight Club rules |
:------------------:------------------:------------------:-------------------:
| two-round games | all games played | one-round games | two-round games |
| Fight Club rules | with Free Rules | with Free Rules | with Free Rules |
'------------------'------------------'------------------'-------------------'
NB: If you select the second button (to view data for every match you've played)
and take the number of first places shown and divide this by the total number of
matches played you get your overall win rate percentage which is shown in the R2
information panel during play.
PAGE 3.2 shows your positions from the past thirty games [koka 30 sen no jun'i].
The graph at the top of the page plots your position in each match, just like
the one on stats page 1.1 except that this one shows data from games played with
any rule-set.
The rest of the page is taken up with a grid which gives details of each of the
thirty matches, with the most recent at the top. Only five rows are visible at
a time but you can scroll down.
The columns of the table give the following data...
1. This just numbers the rows, starting with number 1 for the most recent.
2. Game length - pale green text indicates a one-round game [tonpuusen] and
pale purple denotes a two-round game [hanchansen].
3. Game mode - dark blue with five kanji is Fight Club mode, green (including
the word "CPU") is Pro CPU mode and red with two kanji is Free Rules mode.
4. Game events [taikyoku ibento] - for games played in Fight Club mode, this
shows which of the four possible bonuses were in effect during the game.
In the top-left corner is the "double Orbs" bonus.
In the top-right corner is the "winner takes all" Orb bonus
In the bottom-left corner is the "double P-Points" bonus
In the bottom-right corner is the default bonus which appears in all Fight
Club matches after you become a Kouryuu player (see Section 06); I think
this just means that you can win golden Orbs now.
5. Position - this shows if you came first (blue and a crown), second (green),
third (yellow) or fourth (red). If you were bankrupt under the Buttobi rule
then a skull is displayed.
6. Points profit/loss [tenbou shuushi] - if you won points overall in the game
then a positive number is shown in purple or if you lost points then you
get a negative number in red.
7. Play date and time [puree nichiji] - this shows the date (month and day)
and time (hours and minutes) when the game was played, or more specifically
the time at which the game ended.
= Orbs = (stats section 4)
This is quite a small/simple section with only one page.
PAGE 4.1 becomes available when you reach the Dan ranks (see Section 06) and
keeps a track of how many Orbs [oubu] you've won and also therefore your
progress through the Dan grades and, later, through the Kouryuu levels.
The caption at the top-left gives your Dan rank which is composed of four
characters - the first two are the name of your God and the last two give the
actual rank, so the third character is the number of the rank. Special kanji are
used for 1st, 2nd and 3rd but normal Japanese numbers are used for the others.
Once you become a Kouryuu player (see Section 06) this part shows how many
Kouryuu Orbs you've got (and your level is shown on the right of the screen).
The table below that lists your Fight Orbs [faito oubu]; the kanji after each
number is Ko which is a general countword used when counting small objects.
1. Current total
2. Orb gains [kakutoku]
3. Orb losses [sonshitsu]
4. Bonus Orbs
You receive a bonus Orb when you make a Yakuman (Limit Hand) or when you
complete a full set of Pro Stars (see next sub-section below).
There are two gold buttons at the bottom-left. If you select the first one you
are shown a breakdown of the different types of Orbs you've collected.
1. Seiryuu - blue Orbs from Blue Dragon players
2. Suzaku - purple Orbs from Red Bird players
3. Byakko - cyan Orbs from White Tiger players
4. Genbu - green Orbs from Green Turtle players
5. Kouryuu - gold Orbs from Pro's or other Yellow Dragon characters
6. Rank position [kyuui]
The information is presented as a bar chart showing gains and losses separately
but you can press O again to view them as numbers.
I'm not sure what that sixth option is. I haven't got any yet... maybe it's an
online thing?
You can select the second button for the Orb display [oubu hyouji] which shows
your current set of Orb slots which you're striving to fill (for Dan ranks and
Kouryuu levels) or the three "special Orbs" (when you're at Master rank).
On the right of the screen is an image of the God with whom you're affiliated*,
either one of the Shijin (Four Gods) or, after you've progressed into the
Kouryuu levels, an image of the golden dragon. The colour of Kouryuu's mane
depends on which God you were attached to before, so for example in my case, as
a Suzaku player, his mane is red/purple.
*Your God is shown in front of an octagon formed from the eight Gua or trigrams
of the I'Ching, the ancient Chinese divination system. Each of the eight sides
corresponds to one of the eight Dan ranks so you can track your progress. If you
know the I'Ching you'll notice that the trigrams are arranged clockwise in the
sequence Wind, Water, Mountain, Earth, Thunder, Fire, Lake and Heaven (which is
known as Fu Xi's Arrangement, one of the two common circular arrangements).
= Pro Players = (stats section 5)
PAGES 5.1 to 5.6 gives a listing of all forty-eight of the professional Mahjong
players [puro janshi] who appear in the game. They all come from the Japan Pro
Mahjong League [Nihon Puro Maajan Renmei], also known simply as the JPML.
There are eight Pro's listed on each page. Beneath each picture is a block of
four characters - the top two just say Pro [puro] and the two underneath give
their Dan rank. To the right of this is their name. Under this is the number of
Pro Stars you get for defeating them (see below) and a button you can select to
view their profile (see further below).
Each of the Pro's is shown with a set of one, two, three, four or five stars; I
call these the Pro Stars. These come into effect in Fight Club mode - sometimes,
randomly, one of the three computer-controlled opponents will be a Pro character
and you can win their Pro Stars by "defeating" them, i.e. if you come first and
they come fourth. While you are progressing through the Dan ranks you have a set
of five Pro Star slots and each time you fill all five you receive a bonus Orb;
the same applies once you pass into the Kouryuu level ranks but now you have ten
slots to fill instead of five. You should note that you can only win stars in
Fight Club mode, not Pro CPU mode.
Each character yields a specific number of Pro Stars, as shown under their
photo. You can defeat the same Pro on more than one occasion and each time you
win the same number of stars; the number of times you have won stars off each
player is shown to the right of their pic. Below the eight people listed on each
page is your progress on your current set of star slots and to the right of this
is the total number of Pro Stars that you've harvested; for example if you were
in the Dan ranks and the total was six then you would've filled one set of five
slots (converted into a bonus Orb, whoop!) and you would have one slot filled.
(I'm not sure of the correct reading, but - rather than being given as a "Pro
Directory" or similar - this section of the stats pages is actually labelled
with two kanji which mean "win stars".)
You can press L1/R1 to move between the pages of Pro's, press the d-pad to high-
light a person and the circle button to select them. Each character is shown
greyed-out until you "defeat" them in either Fight Club or Pro CPU mode (i.e.
you come 1st in a game where they come 4th); once beaten, you'll notice that
their face morphs from the neutral face to the happy face when you highlight
them!
(Presumably something cool happens once you've defeated all 48 Pro characters,
but I've still got a few more to get. Of course the fewer you have to collect,
the smaller the chance that, in any given game, you'll play against the right
people and one of them'll come 4th.)
When you select a person the game displays a full page of information about
them. The caption at the top says professional MJ player [puro janshi] and the
black box gives their name. There are six other boxes on the display...
The first box on the left gives their rank position [kyuui], from the humble
Shodan up to the mighty Kyuudan (9th Dan). The second box on the left gives, I
think, the number of years they've been playing Mahjong. The third gives their
place of origin* [susshin ba].
The first box on the right seems to give their favourite Yaku; some of these are
abbreviated, for example "San Shoku". The second box gives their hobbies, which
range from typically Japanese pursuits such as pachinko, sake (rice wine), golf
[gorufu] and karaoke, to more general things like music [ongaku], movies [eiga],
diving [daibingu], football [sakkaa], gambling [gyanburu], tennis [tenisu],
snowboarding [sunouboudo], frisbee [furaingu-disuku], slot machines [pachisuro],
oil painting [aburae], PC computing [pasokon] and shopping [shoppingu], to the
non-specific "sports" [supoutsu], and finally the obvious - Mahjong [maajan]!
(sorry, I was only going to give a few examples but kinda got drawn into their
world...) The third box on the right then shows how many titles [taitoru]
they've won, or if they've won none it says Nashi which means "without".
The last thing to note here is that when you're viewing a Pro profile you can
press the O button for a sound-test of one of their speech samples used in the
game; each time you press the button it cycles through a short series of phrases
(if, like me, you're easily amused then try pressing the button several times
quickly). The button for this is marked Saisei which means either "playback" or
"resuscitation" (which is apt as you are in a sense bringing them to life).
*You'll notice that two of the Pro's are not Japanese - these are Jenn Barr from
Seattle [shiatoru] and Garthe Nelson from California [karuforunia]. Their place
of origin is given as Beikoku which is the Japanese name for America - the name
means "rice country" but this reading is not significant, it's actually just an
abbreviation of the original Ateji kanji spelling of "America".
Jenn and Garthe are the founders of the www.reachmahjong.com website which is a
great place to find out more about modern Japanese (Riichi or "reach") Mahjong.
= Detailed Info = (stats section 6)
As with stats section 1, when you select this option you're prompted to select
which rule-set you wish to view the data for - Free Rules on the left or Fight
Club rules on the right.
PAGE 6.1 shows a win vs payment comparison [agari/furikomi hikaku]; the figures
on the left of the page (in navy blue) are collected from hands that you won and
those on the right (in dark brown) are taken from hands where you got "Ronned"
(i.e. where you discarded a tile, another player took it to complete their hand
and consequently you had to pay the full amount of points won).
The first column shows the different items [koumoku], column 2 is the win
[agari] count, column 3 gives the percent [ritsu] and column 4 gives the graph
[gurafu]. This layout is then mirrored on the right side, with the graph,
percentage and payment count [furikomi kaisuu] in that order.
The top section of the table has three rows and gives the three different forms
[katachi] of wins as follows...
1. Riichi - wins where you won after calling Riichi
2. Dama - wins where your concealed hand became Tenpai (ready) but you did not
call Riichi; this is known as Dama Ten or "silent Tenpai".
3. Naki - wins where your hand was open, with one or more exposed sets made
from calls [naki] on other players' discards
The bottom section of the table gives a distribution of won and Ronned hands in
order of Fan count, with the lowest at the top.
4. One Fan
5. Two Fan
6. Three Fan
7. Mangan (hands meeting the lowest limit, with 2,000 Base Points)
8. Haneman (hands with 6 or 7 Fan)
9. Baiman (hands with 8, 9 or 10 Fan)
10. Sanbaiman (hands with 11 or 12 Fan)
11. Yakuman (Limit Hands or "counted Yakuman" hands with 13+ Fan)
You'll notice that four-Fan hands are not listed separately here, instead these
are counted in the entry for five-Fan Mangan hands. This is not an unreasonable
approximation since any four-Fan hand with 40 or more Fu (minipoints) would have
Base Points exceeding 2,000 and therefore be paid as Mangan and, as can be seen
from the score tables on page 22 of the manual, a four-Fan hand with 30 Fu gets
only a few hundred points less than Mangan anyways. It is also possible to have
a three-Fan hand limited to Mangan but this only occurs rarely (with 70+ Fu).
Since both parts of the table give an exhaustive breakdown of all the hands, the
percentages for rows 1, 2 and 3 add up to 100% as do those for rows 4 to 11.
Lastly there are two rows at the bottom of the page. The top one (in navy blue
again) gives the total count of won hands [agari kaisuu goukei] and the bottom
one (dark brown) gives the payment count total [fu(ri)komi kaisuu goukei], i.e.
the total number of times you got Ronned.
PAGE 6.2 gives information on your Riichi trends [riichi keikou] - your
percentage win-rate on different types of Riichi. The four rows at the top give
the percentage rates and the four rows at the bottom give the fraction used to
calculate the rates for the same four categories.
1. Riichi wins [riichi agari]
The number of times you won hands after calling Riichi.
2. Hikkake Riichi wins [hikkake riichi agari]
The number of times you won hands after calling Hikkake Riichi.
Hikkake Riichi is when you call Riichi dropping one of the end tiles on a
Ryankan wait (i.e. one formed from two adjacent Kanchan or centre waits);
an example would be if you had the three tiles 4-6-8 in the same suit and
called Riichi discarding the 8. This can be used as a tactic to trick your
opponents into dealing into your hand as they might work on the assumption
that you've given yourself a Ryanmen wait (a two-sided Chow wait on two
sequential tiles) and therefore, using the "147" rule, it might also be
assumed in the above example that - since you discarded the 8 - that you
are not waiting on the 5 tile whereas, in fact, you are. (mwahaha!)
3. Riichi Ippatsu wins [riichi ippatsu agari]
The number of times you won with Ippatsu after calling Riichi.
4. Okkake Riichi wins [yup, okkake riichi agari]
The number of times you won after calling Okkake Riichi.
Okkake Riichi, or "chasing Riichi", is simply the name for calling Riichi
after another player has already "reached" in the same hand. The opposite
of this, when you are the first player to call Riichi, is Sensei Riichi.
(This isn't the Sensei that means "teacher"; the second kanji is different
so it means "head-start" or "pre-emptive" instead).
PAGE 6.3 shows your Dora-use trends [dora riyou keikou]; as on the previous
page there are percentages in the top half of the page and the fractions used to
calculate them in the bottom half.
The first four rows give a breakdown of what sort of tiles the Dora in your
winning hands were, for example the first row is calculated from the (Dora)
Honours tile count [jihai maisuu?] divided by your overall Dora-use tile count
[dora riyou maisuu]. Since these cover all the possible types, the four rows
will always add up to 100%.
1. Honours tiles [jihai] - Winds and Dragons
2. Terminal tiles - 1's and 9's
3. Simples tiles - 2's thru' 8's (not counting Red Fives)
4. Red Fives [akago]
The fifth row is then calculated from your Dora-use count [dora riyou kaisuu]
divided by the number of hands won [agari kaisuu].
5. Proportion of winning hands containing Dora
This differs from the "Dora usage rate" on page 1.2 of the stats which gives the
average number of Dora per winning hand. For example if you'd only won two hands
and one had no Dora and the other had four then the proportion here would be 50%
and the average use rate would be 2.
PAGE 6.4 has two separate tables on it. The top table shows trends in your waits
in your winning hands [agari no machi keikou], given as a breakdown into seven
different types (with percentages adding up to 100% again and numbers adding up
to your total number of wins with the given rule-set).
1. Two-sided waits [ryanmen] - e.g. -45- waiting on a 3 or 6
2. Pair waits [tanki] - i.e. a single tile waiting to make a pair
3. Waits with two pairs [shanpon] - e.g. 22 and 77 waiting to make one Pung
4. Edge waits [penchan] - e.g. 12- waiting on a 3
5. Centre waits [kanchan] - e.g. 6-8 waiting on a 7
6. Multiple waits [tamen] - e.g. -23456- waiting on a 1, 4 or 7
7. Other [sonota] - i.e. Nagashi Mangan and probably Tenhou too
The bottom table is headed Sonota (like the seventh row on the above table)
which means "in addition" or "the others". In this case I think it's just the
stats which didn't fit onto any other pages! It gives average figures for making
ready, winning and calling Riichi.
1. Average turns to Tenpai [heikin tenpai jun]
2. Average turns to win [heikin agari jun]
3. Average turns to Riichi [heikin riichi jun]
So you can find out here, for example, that it takes you on average 10.43 turns
to make a ready hand (Tenpai), etc.
= Events & Records = (stats section 7)
This final section, simply headed "etc.", has two pages.
PAGE 7.1 is an event list [dekigoto risuto] which is a log of major happenings
in your MFC career, with the date and time given for each. It records when you
began individual (offline) play [kojin taisen o puree kaishi], when you were
promoted to the first Dan rank [shodan shoukaku], when you were summonsed to
Master rank [masutaa shoukan] and to Kouryuu (yellow dragon) Levels [kouryuu
shoukan] and when you were promoted to Kouryuu Level 10 [lev. 10 shoukaku].
This page also makes a note each time you make a Yakuman (Limit Hand), which is
a nice feature. The name of the specific Yakuman (Dai San Gen, Suu An Kou, etc)
is also recorded.
PAGE 7.2 lists your records [ekisutora (etc) rekoudo]. The first four on the
left are as follows...
1. Most Dora count [saita dora kazo]
This shows the most Dora you've had in one winning hand, including normal
Dora, Ura Dora, Kan Dora, Kan Ura Dora and also Red Fives.
2. Most scoring sticks [saita tenbou]
This is your biggest points gain in a game; it gives the actual points won
rather than the absolute score because of course it's possible to start the
game with different scores (20,000 or 25,000 being the default options).
It's likely that you'll set this record when you make a Yakuman but when I
got my record profit (+66,100 pts) I actually achieved this without making
any hands bigger than a Haneman! I just got a lot of them. :D
3. Best winning-streak [saikou renshou kazo]
This is the highest number of consecutive games in which you came first.
4. Best Fan count in a win [saikou agari han kazo]
This is the most Fan (doubles) that you've had in one winning hand. All
standard Yakuman have a nominal Fan count of thirteen so once you make your
first Yakuman this one will show 13. If you have Counted Yakuman allowed I
guess it could show a larger number if you got very lucky (I've only ever
got it once and it was 13 Fan, not more) and presumably a Double Yakuman
would show as 26 and a hand with stacked Yakuman would show as a multiple
of 13. I do like to dream of such things. :) (see also page 6 of the rule
settings in Section 07 above).
Then there are three more entries on the right...
5. Most hands won [renzoku agari kaisuu]
This gives the highest number of hands you've won in a single game; given
the use of the word Renzoku I assume they have to be consecutive, just like
the game winning-streak stat above, although I'm not certain.
6. Most consecutive hands without being Ronned [renzoku fuhoujuu kaisuu]
This is the record for the most consecutive hands you've played without
dealing into an opponent's winning hand. My record is 79 - a streak which
was broken by Jenn's character. Grrr! ;)
7. Yakuman win count [yakuman agari kaisuu]
Last, but by no means least, this one keeps a count of the number of times
you've won with a Yakuman; the entry gives the date and time of your most
recent Yakuman win.
------< JAPANESE MAHJONG >---------------------------------------- [Section 12]
If you're more familiar with other versions of Mahjong, this section explains
the significant features of the modern Japanese rules that appear in the game.
o Only the player that wins a hand receives points. A win by self-draw is called
Tsumo and has all three losers paying their share of the winnings, while a win
with a stolen discard is called Ron and only the discarder pays.
o If any tiles among a player's discards would complete their hand then they are
Furiten and not allowed to win by Ron, although they can still win by Tsumo.
This is sometimes known as the Sacred Discard rule.
o The third tile on the Wanpai (Dead Wall) is exposed and acts as an indicator
for the Omote Dora (top Dora) - a bonus tile which is worth one Fan for each
present in a winning hand. The Dora is the tile sequentially following the
indicator tile, so for example a 6 Dots on the Dead Wall makes 7 Dots the Dora
and if you have a Pung of 7 Dots this will be worth three Fan (ker-ching!).
The sequence for Winds is ESWNE and for Dragons it's RWGR, so a Red Dragon
(Chun) indicator makes White Dragon (Haku) the Dora. Optionally an additional
Kan Dora indicator is exposed each time a Kong is declared.
o A popular variant of Japanese Mahjong includes additional Dora which take the
form of special red versions of the number 5 tiles in each suit - these are
known as Akago (red fives), Akapai (red tiles) or Akadora (red Dora). Each Red
Five in a hand is worth one Fan. The settings for these can be viewed or
adjusted on page 3 of the rules settings (the Fight Club rule-set and default
Free Rules include four Red Five tiles).
o A player with a concealed hand which is Tenpai ("ready" or one tile from being
complete), when there are at least four tiles left to be drawn in the Wall,
can pay 1,000 pts to declare "Riichi". If they then win the hand they get
their stake back and gain an extra Fan (double). There are two additional,
optional, benefits which are an extra one-Fan bonus if they go out within four
turns of calling Riichi (this Yaku is called Ippatsu) and Ura Dora bonus
indicators which are revealed on the bottom half of the Dead Wall beneath the
Omote Dora indicator (and any Kan Dora indicators). (see Free Rules 5.2 & 3.1)
When a player wins a hand they collect all Riichi stakes on the table from the
current hand plus any left unclaimed from any previous drawn hands.
This rule is a major aspect of the modern Japanese Mahjong rules and therefore
the game is often known as Riichi Mahjong or "Reach" Mahjong.
o Claims for discarded tiles to complete a set are made with the word "chii" for
a Chow, "pon" for a Pung and "kan" for a Kong.
o The list of permitted Yaku (scoring elements) includes:-
- Pinfu (No Points / Peace) [gives 1 Fan]
awarded for a concealed hand with four Chows, won on a Ryanmen (two-sided)
wait and with a pair that is not made of Dragons, Seat Wind or Round Wind
tiles - i.e. a hand scoring no extra Fu (minipoints) (see Free Rule 5.1)
- Tanyao (All Simples / Inside Hand) [gives 1 Fan]
awarded for a hand with no Terminal or Honour tiles (see Free Rule 1.1)
- Chanta (Mixed Outside Hand) [gives 1 Fan if open or 2 Fan if concealed*]
awarded when all sets contain at least one Terminal or Honour tile
- Junchan (Pure Outside Hand) [gives 2 Fan if open or 3 Fan if concealed]
awarded when all sets contain at least one Terminal; can't claim Chanta too
- Iipeikou (Pure Double Chow) [gives 1 Fan]
awarded for two identical Chows in a concealed hand (same suit and numbers)
- Ikkitsuukan or "Itsuu" (Pure Straight) [gives 1 Fan open or 2 Fan concealed]
awarded for three consecutive Chows (123456789) in one suit
- San Shoku Doujun (Mixed Triple Chow) [gives 1 Fan open or 2 Fan concealed]
awarded for three Chows with the same numbers (one in each suit)
- Chii Toitsu (Seven Pairs) [gives 2 Fan]
as you might've guessed, this is a special hand with seven paired tiles
o There are no restrictions on the number of suits or Chows in a hand.
o The game is played with an Ii Han Shibari (one-Fan minimum) so a hand must
have Yaku worth at least one Fan in order to be able to "go out" and win; Fan
from Dora bonus tiles don't count. Optionally a Ryan Han Shibari (two-Fan
minimum, again without Dora) is applied after five consecutive hands have
ended in either a dealer win or a draw. (see Free Rule 1.3)
o Players who are Tenpai on an exhaustive draw usually receive points (called
No-Ten Bappu) from the players that are not. (see Free Rule 4.3)
o If a hand ends in a dealer win or a exhaustive draw where the dealer is Tenpai
then an extra hand is played without the Seat Winds moving, so the dealer
"stays on"; this is called Renchan. (see Free Rules 4.1 & 4.2)
o There are five situations which can cause an abortive draw. (see Free Rules
1.6 and 4.4 thru' 4.7)
o The eight Season and Flower bonus tiles are removed before play. In most
Japanese Mahjong sets the four Flower tiles are replaced by four Red Fives but
the four Season tiles are still present and need to be taken out!
o Fu are rounded up to the nearest ten before doubling. The one exception is the
Seven Pairs hand which always scores 25 Fu (with no additions) and two Fan.
After doubling, point payments are rounded up to the nearest hundred.
o Games are usually played over two wind-rounds instead of the traditional four.
This standard Japanese two-round game with only East and South rounds is
called a Hanchan (half game).
o There are five tiered limits applied to the overall points value of a hand;
these are listed in the table below. The first limit is called Mangan and is
often defined simply as applying to a hand worth five Fan but actually any
hand with more than 2,000 Base Points (and less than 3,000) is limited to
Mangan, i.e. hands with five Fan OR four Fan and at least 40 Fu OR (albeit
rarely) three Fan and at least 70 Fu.
The highest limit is Yakuman which applies, obviously, to any Yakuman (Limit
Hand) and also to any hand worth thirteen or more Fan ("Counted Yakuman").
(see Free Rule 6.2)
| | Points for | Points for | Mangan
| Awarded for... | non-dealer win | dealer win | equivalence
-----------+----------------+----------------+------------+--------------
| 3 Fan & 70+ Fu | | |
Mangan | 4 Fan & 40+ Fu | 8,000 | 12,000 | 1 x Mangan
| 5 Fan | | |
-----------+----------------+----------------+------------+--------------
Haneman | 6 or 7 Fan | 12,000 | 18,000 | 1.5 x Mangan
-----------+----------------+----------------+------------+--------------
Baiman | 8, 9 or 10 Fan | 16,000 | 24,000 | 2 x Mangan
-----------+----------------+----------------+------------+--------------
Sanbaiman | 11 or 12 Fan | 24,000 | 36,000 | 3 x Mangan
-----------+----------------+----------------+------------+--------------
Yakuman | 13 or more Fan | 32,000 | 48,000 | 4 x Mangan
*Several Yaku have a property called Kuisagari which means that they are worth
one Fan less when open/exposed ...or one Fan more when closed/concealed,
depending on your perspective!
------< MANUAL REFERENCE >---------------------------------------- [Section 13]
The game manual has several useful reference sections which are explained here.
Page 20 shows the fixed Fight Club rules [ruuru] that apply in both the Fight
Club and CPU Pro modes. See Section 07 above for a full list of these.
Page 21 gives a minipoint calculation table [fu keisan hyou] with the scoring
units given in the following order:-
Win [agari] ..................................................... 20 Fu
Concealed Ron Win [menzen ron agari] ............................ 10 Fu
Self-Draw Win [tsumo agari] ..................................... 2 Fu
Edge Wait [penchan], Centre Wait [kanchan] or Pair Wait [tanki] . 2 Fu
Pairs [jantou]
Seat Wind [menfon] ............................................ 2 Fu
Round Wind [chanfon] .......................................... 2 Fu
Dragons [san gen pai] ......................................... 2 Fu
Double Wind (when Seat Wind and Round Wind coincide) .......... 4 Fu
Sets [mentsu]
Major Tiles (Terminals & Honours) [yaochuuhai]
Chows [shuntsu] ............................................. 0 Fu
Pungs [koutsu]
Concealed Pung [ankou] .................................... 8 Fu
Exposed Pung [minkou] ..................................... 4 Fu
Kongs [kantsu]
Concealed Kong [ankan] .................................... 32 Fu
Exposed Kong [minkan] ..................................... 16 Fu
Minor Tiles (Simples) [chunchanhai]
Chows [shuntsu] ............................................. 0 Fu
Pungs [koutsu]
Concealed Pung [ankou] .................................... 4 Fu
Exposed Pung [minkou] ..................................... 2 Fu
Kongs [kantsu]
Concealed Kong [ankan] .................................... 16 Fu
Exposed Kong [minkan] ..................................... 8 Fu
Page 22 gives simplified tables of points [tensuu hayamihyou] which can be used
to look up the points scored by cross-referencing Fan across the top and Fu
(minipoints) down the side. The top table is for dealer wins [oya no agari] and
the bottom one is for wins by non-dealer players [ko no agari].
Where there are paired rows, the top one is for Tsumo (self-draw) wins and the
bottom one is for Ron (stolen discard) wins. On the bottom table the paired
columns show the amount paid by the dealer [oya kachi] on the left and the
amount paid by non-dealers on the right [ko kachi]. The bottom row of each table
(25 Fu) is for Chii Toitsu (Seven Pairs) hands.
Pages 23 to 25 give an introduction to the professional Mahjong players [puro
janshi shoukai] that appear in the game, both as "special guests" in the Fight
Club mode and as the only players available in Pro CPU mode. There are 48 Pro's
in total, 28 male and 20 female. The green box for each gives their name and the
small brown box beneath this gives their rank, for example the first six in the
list are Kyuudan (9th Dan), the next four are Hachidan (8th Dan), etc.
The final piece of information for each player, in the bottom-right of their
section, is their blood group [the Japanese term for this is ketsueki-gata but
here only the final kanji is given - kata - which means "type"]. In Japan some
people believe that your blood group has a bearing on your personality, not
unlike the beliefs surrounding zodiacal birthsigns in the West.
For more about the Pro players see the information about page 5 of the stats
in Section 11 of this guide above.
Pages 26 to 31 give a winning Yaku summary [agari yaku ichiran] - a list of all
the Yaku and Yakuman recognised in the game with illustrated examples for most.
In these illustrations the tiles on the right are the wait [machi] tiles which
would complete the hand. The Yaku are listed in the following order:-
Page 26 Concealed Self-Draw [menzenchin tsumo], Riichi, Ippatsu, Pinfu, Wind/
Dragon Pung [kazehai / yakuhai], All Simples [tanyaochuu] and
Pure Double Chow [iipeikou]
Page 27 Last-Tile Tsumo [haitei raoyue], Last-Tile Ron [houtei raoyui], Robbing
a Kong [chankan], After the Kong [rinshan kaihou], Double Riichi
[daburu riichi], Seven Pairs [chii toitsu], All Pungs [toitoihou] and
Pure Straight* [itsuu / ikkitsuukan]
Page 28 Three Concealed Pungs [san an kou], Triple Pung [san shoku doukou],
Three Kongs [san kantsu], Little Three Dragons [shou san gen], Mixed
Triple Chow* [san shoku doujun], All Terminals & Honours [honroutou]
and Mixed Outside Hand* [chanta / honchantayaochuu]
Page 29 Twice Pure Double Chow [ryanpeikou], Half-Flush* [honitsu], Pure
Outside Hand* [junchan / junchantayaochuu] and Full Flush* [chinitsu]
The Yakuman list follows, starting on the same page:-
Page 29 Heavenly Hand [tenhou], Earthly Hand [chiihou], Hand of Man [renhou]
and Eight Consecutive Dealer Wins [paa renchan]
Page 30 Four Concealed Pungs [suu an kou], Big Three Dragons [dai san gen],
Thirteen Orphans [kokushi musou], All Honours [tsuuiisou], All Green
[ryuuiisou], Nine Gates [chuurenpoutou] and All Terminals [chinroutou]
Page 31 Four Kongs [suu kantsu], Little Four Winds [shou suu shii] and Big
Wheels [dai sharin]
Finally the four Double Yakuman are on the bottom half of the page:-
Page 31 Big Four Winds [dai suu shii], Thirteen Orphans with 13-sided wait
[kokushimusou juusanmen machi], Four Concealed Pungs with pair wait
[suu ankou tanki] and Pure Nine Gates (with a 9-sided wait) [junsei
chuuren poutou]
NB: For more about Yaku and Yakuman options (and Double Yakuman for that matter)
see the information about rules pages 5 and 6 in Section 07 of this guide.
*Any Yaku marked with a star (either here or in the manual) obey the rule of
Kuisagari and are worth one Fan less when open.
------< GLOSSARY >------------------------------------------------ [Section 14]
I thought new players might find a list of Mahjong terms useful for reference,
although sadly the old-skool plain-text ASCII format of GamesFAQs won't allow me
to include the kanji or kana characters for the Japanese entries. (well, unless
I figure out how to use Shift-JIS coding)
This is a list of terms used in Japanese Mahjong plus English and Chinese words
used internationally and some concepts that are specific to Mahjong Fight Club.
For the sake of completeness I've also included a few terms and rules that are
not included in MFC.
This list is based on the glossary I wrote for my Yakuza 2 guide but it's grown
wildly out of control since then and is now stupidly long! Consequently I've
tried to keep the entries brief and most Yaku are only listed under their
Japanese name (with the definition there including the common English title/s).
Many of the Japanese terms are given with spaces added for ease of reading.
Abortive Draw - a draw that occurs at the start or middle of a hand; there are
five such situations that can force a draw in Japanese Mahjong
Agari - win
Agari Yame - a rule that lets the dealer in the final hand end the game if they
win the hand (instead of playing a continuance)
Akago - literally "red fives", special number-five tiles marked in red that give
a bonus score (+1 Fan); also Akapai (red tiles) or Aka Dora (red Dora)
An - term used to refer to a concealed set, e.g. An Kou
Aotenjou - optional rule to play without limits (no Mangan, Haneman, etc)
Ari - a term used to describe a rule that is applied (it means "with")
Atama - literally "head"; Japanese term for a pair of tiles; also Jantou
Atama Hane - the "head bump" order used when Double Ron is disallowed; the
closer of the two players to the discard's right takes the win
Atozuke - a rule that lets you go out on a hand that had no Yaku until you took
the winning tile
Ba - a round of four hands (plus optional extra hands); usually East or South
Baiman - the third limit, applied to hands with eight, nine or ten Fan
Bakaze - the wind of the round, or Round Wind (East or South)
Bamboo/Bams - one of the three suits, also known as Souzu
Base Points - this is calculated by doubling the Fu twice and again for every
Fan in the hand; dealers get 6 x BP and non-dealers get 4 x BP
Betaori - purely defensive play, often employed after someone has called Riichi
Bot - a computer-controlled player in a video-game
Buttobi - an optional rule that ends the game when one player's score drops to
zero or lower; this is essentially the same as the Dobon rule
Byakku - the white tiger in the Four Gods; his aspect is Attack (many Fan)
Calling Chii/Pon/Kan - making an exposed set using another player's discard
Chankan - a rare Yaku for going out on the tile an opponent used to complete an
exposed Kong (or exceptionally and optionally a concealed Kong if you
are taking it to finish Kokushi Musou); also Robbing The Kong
Chanta - a Yaku for a hand in which all sets and pairs contain a Terminal or an
Honour tile; also Mixed Outside Hand or Dirty Ends
Characters - one of the three suits, also known as Craks or Manzu
Chii - declaration used when making a Chow with a stolen discard
Chiicha Maaku - a flat marker used in Japanese Mahjong to indicate the current
Round Wind (and the initial dealer)
Chiihou - a Yakuman awarded for a non-dealer drawing a complete hand at the
start of a Kyoku; also Earthly Hand
Chii Toitsu - a Yaku for a hand with seven pairs; also called Seven Pairs!
Chinitsu - a Yaku for a hand containing only tiles of one suit; also Full Flush
or Pure Hand
Chinroutou - a Yakuman for a hand containing only Terminals; also All Terminals
or "Heads & Tails"
Chombo - a Mangan-level (8k or 12k) points penalty paid for a foul
Chow - a set of three tiles from the same suit with consecutive numbers; also
known as a Shuntsu or Sequence
Chun - the Japanese name for the "Red Dragon" tile/s
Chuuren Poutou - a Yakuman for a hand containing 1112345678999 plus one
duplicate, all in the same suit; also Nine Gates
Closed - descriptive of a hand with no exposed sets; also concealed
Concealed - a hand with no exposed tiles
Continuance - an "extra hand" played when the dealer wins (and optionally if
they are Tenpai in a draw, or sometimes in any draw); also Renchan
Counter - a scoring stick used to count dealer wins and extra hands (Honba)
CPU - the Central Processing Unit of a computer; the abbreviation has been used
for decades to denote a computer-controlled opponent in a video-game
Craks - an informal name for the Characters suit; also Manzu
Daburu Riichi - a Yaku for calling Riichi on your first turn; also Double Riichi
or Double Reach, sometimes contracted to Daburii
Dai San Gen - a Yakuman for a hand containing three Dragon Pungs (obviously one
of each); also Big Three Dragons
Dai Sharin - an optional Yakuman for a hand containing 22334455667788 in the
Dots/Pinzu suit; also Big Wheel/s
Dai Suu Shii - a Yakuman for a hand with four Wind Pungs; also Big Four Winds
Dama Ten - to become Tenpai without calling Riichi; also "Silent Tenpai"
Dan - a system of ranks, higher than Kyuu, running from 1st (Shodan) up to 8th
Dead Wall - the fourteen tiles (seven stacks of two) at the end of the Wall
which are used as Dora indicators and replacement tiles after Kongs
Dealer - the player with a Seat Wind (q.v.) of East in any given hand
Dealing into - when you discard a tile which is taken by another player by Ron
you are said to have "dealt into" their hand; also "Ronned"
Dobon - a bankruptcy rule that ends a game when a player's score goes negative
Dots - one of the three suits (they're marked with dots!); also known as Pinzu
Dora - one or more tiles that gives a bonus score (cf. Red Fives)
Dora indicator - a tile on the Dead Wall which indicates the Dora
Double - a measure of score awarded for Yaku and Dora in a winning hand which
doubles your points; also Han or Fan
Double Ron - a rule that allows two players to win off the same discard; also
called Ryan Cha Hou or Dabu Ron
Double Wind - you are said to be in Double Wind when your Seat Wind and the
Round Wind coincide; a Pung of Double Wind gives two Fan
Double Yakuman - Dai Suu Shii and special versions of Suu An Kou, Kokushi Musou
and Chuuren Putou which are optionally worth double the normal
Yakuman points (see page 6 of the rules options in Section 07)
Doubling Honours - the tiles which give one Fan for a Pung or two Fu for a pair,
i.e. the "Dragons", Seat Wind and Round Wind; cf. Otakaze
Dragons - the three Dragon tiles are red, white and green; in Japanese they are
known together as San Gen Pai and individually as Chun, Haku and Hatsu
Draw - a hand in which no player declares Mahjong (q.v.)
Exhaustive Draw - a draw which occurs when the supply of tiles is exhausted
Experience Points - points awarded after play to advance through the Kyuu ranks
Exposed - a melded set that has been placed face-up on the table
- a hand with one or more exposed sets
Fan - a measure of score awarded for Yaku and Dora which doubles your points;
also Han or Double
Fanpai - another name for Yakuhai; literally tiles [pai] that give Fan
Fight Orbs - mystical spheres awarded for good results, making Yakuman and
defeating Pro's in Fight Club mode; required to advance Dan ranks
Flowers - four tiles depicting flowers, not used in Japanese Mahjong
Fold - you are said to fold when you decide to give up on the idea of trying to
win with a hand and instead switch to purely defensive play (Betaori)
Fu - a measure of score awarded for features in a wining hand; also Minipoints
Furikomi - a points payment made, usually when you get Ronned
Furiten - the situation where one of your discarded tiles would complete your
ready hand making it illegal for you to win by Ron
Genbu - the green tortoise in the Four Gods; his aspect is Defence (safe play)
Genten - the 30,000 points used to buy into a game; also Kaeshi
Go-round - a sequence of all four players taking a turn (once around the table)
Going out - the act of completing a valid hand and declaring a win with it
Hadaka Tanki - literally a naked (or, by extension, exposed) Tanki wait; a wait
to complete a pair in a hand which already has four exposed sets
Haikyuu Genten - the number of points that each player starts a game with,
commonly 25,000 pts in Japanese Mahjong; also Mochiten
Haipai - the tiles drawn by players at the start of a hand
Haitei - a Yaku for completing your hand by self-draw with the last tile in the
Wall; also Last-Tile Tsumo (cf. Houtei)
Haku - the Japanese name for the "White Dragon" tile/s
Half-Game - another name for a Hanchan, the standard two-round Japanese game
Han - a measure of score awarded for Yaku and Dora which doubles your points;
also Fan or Double (Han is the Japanese version of the Chinese "Fan")
Hanchan - a game consisting of two rounds; the term means "half-game" since a
full game in traditional Chinese Mahjong consists of four rounds, but
in Japanese Mahjong this is the standard game length
Hand - the thirteen tiles you are holding plus one you are dealt; also Te
- each round consists of four normal hands and sometimes extra hands too
Haneman - the second limit, applied to hands with six or seven Fan
Hatsu - the Japanese name for the "Green Dragon" tile/s
Hell Wait - a wait for a single occurence of a single tile (when the other three
are already either on the table or in your hand)
Hikkake Riichi - to call Riichi on the discard of one end of a Ryankan wait
Honba - a count of draws and dealer wins
Honitsu - a Yaku for a hand containing only one suit plus Terminals and Honours;
also Half-Flush or Semi-Pure Hand
Honours - collective term for the Dragon and Wind tiles; also Jihai
Honroutou - a Yaku for a hand containing only Terminal and Honour tiles; also
All Terminals & Honours
Houjuu - when you discard the tile that another player uses to win the hand
Houra - a win
Houtei - a Yaku for completing your hand by stealing the last discard tile in
the hand; also Last-Tile Ron (cf. Haitei)
Iichan - a full Chinese game of four rounds
Ii Han Shibari - the standard one-Fan minimum applied in the Japanese game
Iipeikou - a Yaku for two identical Chows in a concealed hand; also Pure Double
Chow or Double Run
Ikkitsuukan - a Yaku for three consecutive Chows in the same suit, i.e.
123 456 789; also Pure Straight or Itsuu
Ippatsu - literally "one shot"; a Yaku for going out on or before your first
turn after calling Riichi (disallowed after any Chii/Pon/Kan)
Itsuu - common contracted form of Ikkitsuukan (Pure Straight)
Jankyuu - a curious hybrid of Mahjong and Pachinko
Janpai - Mahjong tiles or a Mahjong set
Janshi - a Mahjong player; also Maajanuchi
Jansou - a Mahjong parlour; also Maajanya
Jantaku - a Mahjong table
Jantou - literally "Mahjong head"; a pair of tiles; it's written using the same
kanji as Atama
Japan Pro Mahjong League - a league of Mahjong professionals in Japan (duh!)
Jigokumachi - literally a "hell wait", when you are waiting on a single instance
of one tile (all the others have been played or are unavailable)
Jihai - the Japanese name for the Honours: the Wind and Dragon tiles
Jikaze - the Japanese term for Seat Wind
Junchan - a Yaku for a hand in which all sets and pairs contain a Terminal tile;
also Pure Outside Hand or Pure Ends
Jun'i Uma (or Jun'i Ten) - another name for Uma (q.v.)
Kaeri Ton - a continuation of the Peinyuu rule (q.v.) which causes a fifth round
to be played (another east round)
Kaeshi - the 30,000 points used to buy into a game; also Genten
Kamicha - the player seated to your left
Kan - declaration used when making a Kong
Kanburi - an optional Yaku that awards one Fan for calling Ron on a tile
discarded after declaring a Kong
Kanchan - a closed/centre wait on a Chow, for example 2-4 waiting on a 3
Kan Dora - an additional Dora that comes into play when a Kong is declared
Kanji - ideographic script used in Japanese text, borrowed from the Chinese
Kan(tsu) - Japanese name for a set of four matching tiles; also Kong or quad
Kan Ura Dora - a Dora indicated by the tile under a Kan Dora indicator
Karaten - literally "empty Tenpai", the situation when you are waiting on a tile
but all have already been played or are otherwise unavailable
Katakana - a simple Japanese script used mainly to represent foreign words
Kawa - literally "river", the part of the table where tiles are discarded
Kazehai - the Wind tiles
- Yakuhai/Fanpai specifically made with Wind tiles (Seat or Round Wind)
Kazoe Yakuman - a Yakuman achieved by making a hand with Yaku/Dora totalling
thirteen or more Fan; also Counted Yakuman
Keishiki Tenpai - a "Formal Tenpai" rule which allows any ready hand to be
considered as being Tenpai even if it lacks Yaku
Ko - Japanese name for the three non-dealers (literally "child"); cf. Oya
Kokushi Musou - a Yakuman for a hand containing one of each Terminal and Honour
tile plus one duplicate; also Thirteen Orphans (the Japanese
name actually means "peerless distinguished person")
Kong - a set of four identical tiles; also known as a Quad or Kantsu
Kouryuu - the yellow dragon who presides over the Four Gods (Shijin)
Kouryuu Orbs - golden Orbs required to advance through Kouryuu levels after
you've completed all the Dan grades
Kou(tsu) - Japanese name for a Pung
Kui- - this prefix is used in a few Mahjong terms; the literal meaning is
"eating" which in the context of the game refers to stealing discards
Kuikae - an optional rule that allows you to steal a tile to meld a set and then
to immediately discard another tile that could've completed the same
set; the literal meaning is "eating substitution"
Kuisagari - the property of certain Yaku, for example San Shoku Doujun, which
makes them worth one Fan less in an open hand; the literal reading
is "eating decrease" ("eating" discards makes the Fan value drop)
Kuitan - an optional rule that allows Tanyao in an open hand; the name implies
that Tan(yao) is allowed with stolen discard tiles; also Nakitan
Kyoku - a round is composed of four Kyoku or hands (sometimes more)
Kyuu - a system of ranks, lower than the Dan grades, running from 10 up to 1
Kyuu Shu Kyuu Hai - an abortive draw which a player can choose to declare when
they have nine or more different Terminal and Honour tiles
in their hand after their first drawn tile
Limit Hand - a rare hand which is automatically worth maximum points
Live Wall - the part of the Wall from which the tiles are drawn; cf. Dead Wall
Maajan - the Japanese name for Mahjong
Machi - the Japanese term for a wait (q.v.)
Mahjong - with a complete hand of tiles you declare Mahjong to win the hand
- also it's the name of the game!
Major tiles - a collective name for the Terminal and Honour tiles
Mangan - the lowest limit, applied to hands with five Fan (or 2,000 Base Points)
Mangan Kiriage - literally Mangan rounding-up, an optional rule where a hand
with 3 Fan and 60 Fu or 4 Fan and 30 Fu is counted as Mangan
Manzu - the Japanese name for the Craks suit; also Wanzu; the name is sometimes
abbreviated to "man" or just "m"
Master - the rank awarded after 8th Dan (effectively 9th Dan)
Mekuri Pai - the flipped tile on the Dead Wall which indicates the Dora
Meld - (verb) to call Chii/Pon/Kan thereby creating an exposed set
- (noun) an exposed set
Mentanpin - a combination of Menzen Tsumo/Riichi, Tanyao and Pinfu (qq.v.)
Menzen - the Japanese term describing a concealed hand; also Menzenchin
Menzen Tsumo - a Yaku for going out with a concealed hand on a Tsumo win; also
Fully Concealed Hand or Concealed Self-Draw (CSD)
Middles - yet another term for the Simples tiles
Min - term used to refer to a melded/exposed set, e.g. Min Kou
Minipoints - a measure of score awarded for features in a wining hand; also Fu
Minor Tiles - another name for Simples tiles (cf. Major Tiles)
Mochiten - the number of points that each player starts a game with, commonly
25,000 pts in Japanese Mahjong; also Haikyuu Genten
Moupai - to identify an engraved Mahjong tile by touch instead of sight
Nagare - a re-deal after a draw
Nagashi Mangan - a special Yaku; also known as All Terminal & Honour Discards
Naki - Naku is the verb to call or cry (like a bird) so this term is used to
describe an exposed hand containing set/s made by stealing discards
Nakitan - another name for the Kuitan rule which allows open Tanyao; literally
Tan(yao) allowed with calls (exposed sets)
Nan - name used in Japanese Mahjong for South wind
Nanba - a optional rule where the dealer gets a Renchan if they are Tenpai on a
draw in the East round or on any draw in the South round (the Nanba)
Nashi - a term used to describe a rule that is not applied (it means "without")
No-Ten - the opposite of Tenpai (q.v.), i.e. having a hand which is not "ready"
No-Ten Bappu - points totalling 3,000 which are shared on a draw
Nobetan - a wait consisting of four consecutive tiles which can be completed
with a pair at either end, for example 6789 waiting on a 6 or a 9
Oka - an optional bonus paid to the winner of a game, composed of the remainder
of the Genten after the Haikyuu Genten have been deducted (qq.v.)
Okkake Riichi - to call Riichi after another player has already "reached";
literally "Chasing Riichi"; cf. Sensei Riichi
Omote Dora - the normal or "top" Dora
One-Chance - a hand with a Tanki, Penchan or Kanchan wait (qq.v.), i.e. one that
is waiting for a single tile to complete it
Open Riichi - an optional rule that allows a player to call Riichi and expose
their waiting tiles in return for one extra Fan if they win
Oriru - to retire or fold (q.v.)
Otakaze - literally "Guest Winds"; the non-scoring Winds which are neither your
Seat Wind nor the Round Wind
Ourasu - the final Kyoku/hand of a game
Own Wind - another term for a player's Seat Wind
Oya - Japanese name for the dealer (literally "parent"); cf. Ko
Paa Renchan - an optional Yakuman awarded for eight consecutive dealer wins
Pai - Japanese word for (one or more) Mahjong tiles; sometimes given as Hai
Pao - a rule which requires a player to pay if they "deal into" certain open
Yakuman by discarding the tile which completes the criteria when Ponned
Peace - an alternate name for Pinfu, based on the Japanese reading of the kanji
Pei - name used in Japanese Mahjong for North wind
Peinyuu - a continuation of the Shaanyuu rule (q.v.) which causes a fourth round
Penchan - an "edge wait" on a Chow, for example 8-9 waiting on a 7
Pinfu - a Yaku for a hand with no Fu beyond the basic Fu for going out, i.e. all
Chows, Ryanman wait and no Doubling Honour pair
Pinzu - the Japanese name for the Dots suit; the name is sometimes abbreviated
to "pin" or just "p"
Points - points are awarded in each hand, based on Fan and Minipoints
Pon - declaration used when making a Pung with a stolen discard
Prevalent/Prevailing Wind - another term for Round Wind
Pro - a professional Mahjong player from the Japan Pro Mahjong League (JPML)
Pung - a set of three identical tiles; also known as a Triple or Koutsu
Pure Nine Gates - the Yakuman of Chuuren Poutou when won on a 9-sided wait;
optionally this is counted as a double Yakuman
Quad - another name for a Kong
Quarter-Game - a one-round game; also Tonpuu or Tonpuusen; half a Half-Game! :9
Reach - variant pronunciation of Riichi, sometimes used to refer to the game
- also used as a verb meaning "to declare Riichi" ("he reached early")
Ready - descriptive of a hand which is one tile from being complete; also Tenpai
Red Fives - a special number-five tile marked in red that gives a bonus score;
also called Red Dora, or Akago, Akapai or Akadora in Japanese
Renchan - a extra hand played when the dealer wins (and optionally if they
are Tenpai in a draw, or sometimes in any draw) where the Seat Winds
do not move - the dealer "stays on"; also called a "continuance"
Renhou - a sometimes optional Yakuman achieved by completing your hand on a
stolen discard before your first draw; also Hand of Man
Riichi - a "ready bet" that can be placed when one is Tenpai with a closed hand
Rinshan Hai - the "supplement tile" taken from the Dead Wall after making a Kong
Rinshan Kaihou - a Yaku for completing a hand with a supplement tile drawn after
the declaration of a Kong; also After A Kong
Ron - to declare Mahjong by claiming another player's discard; cf. Tsumo
Ronchan - a following hand played with the Seat Winds moving; cf. Renchan
Ronned - when a player takes your tile by Ron you have been Ronned!
Round - a set of four normal Kyoku/hands (not counting extra hands played)
Round Wind - this is East in the first round and South in the second
Routouhai - the Terminals tiles
Ruuru - Japanese transliteration of the word "rule" (or "rules")
Ryan Cha Hou - another name for the Double Ron rule, literally "two-player win"
Ryan Han Shibari - formal name for the two-Fan minimum rule; also Ryan Shi
Ryankan - two adjacent Chankan (q.v.) waits, for example 5-7-9
Ryanmen - a "two-sided wait" on a Chow, for example -34- waiting on a 2 or 5
Ryanpeikou - a rare Yaku for a hand with two sets of two identical Chows
(i.e. Iipeikou twice); also Twice Pure Double Chow
Ryan Shi - contraction of Ryan Han Shibari (q.v.)
Ryuuiisou - a Yakuman for a hand containing only "pure green" tiles, i.e. the
2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 of Bams/Souzu and Hatsu; also All Green
Ryuu Kyoku - a drawn hand
Saikoro - the dice used to determine which side of the Wall is broken
San An Kou - a Yaku for a hand with three fully self-drawn Pungs/Kongs; also
Three Concealed Pungs
Sanbaiman - the fourth limit, applied to hands with eleven or twelve Fan
San Cha Hou - an abortive draw declared when three players declare a win off the
same tile; also Triple Ron
San Gen Pai - correct Japanese name for the Dragon tiles collectively
San Kantsu - a rare Yaku for a hand with three Kongs (Three Kongs)
San Ren Kou - an optional Yaku worth two Fan composed of three consecutive Pungs
in the same suit (it could also be considered as Pure Triple Chow)
San Shoku Doujun - a Yaku for three Chows with the same numbers, one in each of
the three suits; also Mixed Triple Chow or Three Colour Runs
San Shoku Doukou - a rare Yaku for three Pungs/Kongs with the same numbers; also
Triple Pung or Three Colour Triples
Sashikomi - the tactic of intentionally discarding a tile that will let an
opponent win a hand (so that you can win the overall game)
Scoring element - a pattern or condition that is worth Fan; also Yaku
Scoring stick - a short white stick used like a casino chip; also Tenbou
Seasons - four tiles depicting seasons, not used in Japanese Mahjong
Seat Wind - the Wind assigned to a player that changes after each normal hand of
a game; also Jikaze
Sekinin Harai - literally "responsibility payment"; another name for Pao (q.v.)
Sen - a match
Sensei Riichi - calling Riichi in a hand when no other players have "reached";
the name means "pre-emptive Riichi"; cf. Okkake Riichi
Sequence - another name for a set of three consecutive suit tiles; also Chow
Set - a Pung, Chow or Kong; known collectively as Mentsu in Japanese
Shaa - name used in Japanese Mahjong for West wind
Shaanyuu - an optional rule which causes a third round to be played if no player
meets the target score by the end of the South round (cf. Peinyuu)
Seiryuu - the blue dragon in the Four Gods; his aspect is Luck (many Dora)
Shanpon - a wait with two pairs, waiting to make one into a Pung
Shanten - a Japanese term used to refer to the number of tiles required in order
to become ready, for example Ryan Shanten if you are two tiles away
Shiisanpuutaa - an optional Yakuman composed of thirteen unconnected tiles plus
one duplicate; also known as "Thirteen Unrelated Tiles"
Shijin - Japanese name for the "Four Gods" of Chinese astrology
Shimocha - the player seated to your right
Shinjin - a new-comer or rookie
Shodan - the first rank in the Dan scale
Shou San Gen - a Yaku for a hand with two Dragon Pungs and a Dragon pair; also
Little Three Dragons
Shou San Shii - a Yakuman for a hand containing three Wind Pungs and a Wind
pair; also Little Four Winds
Shuntsu - Japanese name for a Chow
Shuupai - Japanese name for the numbered suit tiles
Simples - suit tiles marked with numbers between 2 and 8 inclusive
Sokurii - literally "immediate Riichi", to call Riichi as soon as you are Tenpai
Souzu - the Japanese name for the Bams suit; the name is sometimes abbreviated
to "sou" or just "s"
Suit - a group of matching tiles, like the four suits in a deck of playing cards
Supplement tile - an extra tile drawn after a Kong is declared
Sutehai - Japanese name for the tiles that have been discarded
Suu An Kou - a Yakuman for a hand with four fully self-drawn Pungs/Kongs; also
Four Concealed Pungs
Suu Cha Riichi - an abortive draw declared when all four players call Riichi in
the same Kyoku
Suu Fon Renda - an abortive draw declared when all four players discard the same
Wind tile on their first turn
Suu Kan Nagare - an abortive draw declared when four Kongs in total are made by
two or more players in the same Kyoku
Suu Kantsu - a Yakuman for a hand with four Kongs; also called Four Kongs!
Suu Ren Kou - an optional Yakuman composed of four consecutive Pungs in the same
suit (in CO rules it's called "Four Pure Shifted Pungs")
Suzaku - the red bird in the Four Gods; his aspect is Quickness (many wins)
Table rules - optional rules that can be chosen at the start of a game
Taikai - a tournament
Taikyoku - a Japanese word meaning "the act of playing a game"
Takame - where you have a wait in which one winning tile will give more Yaku
than the other, the tile that gives the higher score is the Takame
Tanki - a wait for a single tile to make a pair when you have already completed
four sets; the name means "single horseman"; cf. Hadaka Tanki
Tanyao - a Yaku for a hand with no Terminals or Honours; also All Simples or
Inside Hand
Ten - Japanese word for points; sometimes Tensuu
Tenbou - a short white stick used like a casino chip in Japanese Mahjong
Tenhou - a Yakuman awarded for the dealer drawing a complete hand at the start
of a Kyoku; also Heavenly Hand
Tenpai - literally "listening to tiles"; the state of having a hand that is one
tile away from being complete; also Calling, Fishing, Waiting or Ready
Terminals - suit tiles marked with numbers 1 or 9; also Routouhai
Tetsuman - short for Tetsuya Maajan or "all-night Mahjong"!
Tiles - the pieces used to play the game
Tochuu Ryuu Kyoku - another name for an Abortive Draw
Toimen - the player seated opposite you
Toi-Toi Hou - a Yaku for a hand where all sets are Pungs/Kongs; also All Pungs
Toitsu - Japanese name for a matching pair of tiles; also Atama or Jantou
Ton - name used in Japanese Mahjong for East wind
Ton-Nan - another term for a Hanchan, a game with East and South rounds
Tonpuu/Tonpuusen - a one-round or "East wind" game; also Quarter Game
Toppu - literally "top"; the player in first place
Triple/Triplet - another name for a set of three matching tiles; also Pung
Triple Ron - an abortive draw declared when three players declare a win off the
same tile; also San Cha Hou
Tsumibou - the 100-pt scoring sticks used to record the Honba count (q.v.)
Tsumo - to declare Mahjong with a self-drawn tile (cf. Ron)
- more generally, any self-drawn tile
Tsumokiri - to immediately discard a drawn tile instead of one from your hand
Tsuuiisou - a Yakuman for a hand containing only Honour tiles; also All Honours
Tsuupai - Japanese name for the Honour tiles: the Winds and Dragons
Two-Fan Minimum - a rule applying a score restriction after four extra Hands;
only Fan from Yaku are counted, not Dora
Uma - a final exchange of points between players after the final hand; the 4th
place player pays the 1st and the 3rd place player pays the 2nd
Ura Dora - a special Dora applied after a hand is won with Riichi; the indicator
is the tile under the basic Omote Dora indicator in the Dead Wall
Value Tiles - the tiles which give one Fan for a Pung or two Fu for a pair, i.e.
the "Dragons", Seat Wind and Round Wind; cf. Otakaze
Wait - an incomplete set/hand that is "waiting" for the tile/s to complete it
Wanpai - literally the "king's tiles"; the Japanese name for the Dead Wall
Wanzu - the Japanese name for the Craks suit; also Manzu
Wareme - an optional rule whereby the player whose section of the Wall is broken
at the start of a hand pays and receives double points
Winds - the four Wind tiles are each marked East, South, West or North
- see also Seat Wind and Round Wind (qq.v.)
Yakibuta - an optional rule where a player who avoids Yakitori (q.v.) in the
final hand with a Ron win forces the discarder to pay the penalty
(the name means "roast pig")
Yakinaoshi - a variation of the Yakitori rule (q.v.) also known as the Phoenix
rule because when all four players have won a hand the Yakitori
markers come back into play and the process begins again
Yakitori - an optional rule whereby any player who has won no hands must pay a
penalty at the end of the game (the name means "roast bird")
Yaku - a pattern or condition that is worth one or more Fan; a scoring element
Yakuhai - a Yaku for a Pung of Dragon or Round/Seat Wind tiles; also Fanpai
Yakuman - the top limit, applied to any of the special Limit Hands allowed in
the game and usually to hands with thirteen or more Fan as well
Yama - the name given in Japanese Mahjong to the square Wall from which all
tiles are drawn (the word Yama means "mountain")
Yasume - where you have a wait in which one winning tile will give more Yaku
than the other, the tile that gives the lower score is the Yasume
This table gives a summary of the two numbering systems you might encounter.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
----------+------+------+-----+---------+----+------+-------------+-------+-----
Japanese | ichi | ni | san | yon/shi | go | roku | nana/shichi | hachi | kyuu
----------+------+------+-----+---------+----+------+-------------+-------+-----
Mahjong | ii | ryan | san | suu | uu | ryuu | chii | paa | chuu
The first row gives the words normally used in Japanese (there are two different
words for both four and seven) and the second row gives the Japanese renderings
of the Mandarin Chinese numbers which are often used in Japanese Mahjong terms,
for example Ryan Han Shibari, Suu An Kou, Chii Toitsu, etc.
------< CONTACT >------------------------------------------------- [Section 15]
I welcome feedback, corrections, contributions and questions about Mahjong Fight
Club (PS3 version), Mahjong Taikai IV and the Mahjong minigames that appear in
the various titles in the Yakuza (Ryuu ga Gotoku) series.
You can email me at barticle at hotmail.com - obviously changing the "at" to an
@ and removing the spaces. It would be helpful if you include the word "Mahjong"
in the subject line and tell me which game you're playing.
Most of the Japanese translations in this guide - and any errors in them - are
my own; I'd welcome any corrections to these.
------< THANKS >-------------------------------------------------- [Section 16]
I would like to thank...
o Poochy for information on the MFC online service, e-Amusement Card, Four Gods
affiliation, the "Buttobi" rule and stacked Yakuman fantasies 8)
o Suihi for information on the online service
o July for explaining Hikkake Riichi
o Maximax for confirming my suspicions regarding Okkake Riichi
o Everyone else at reachmahjong.com for generally being cool and groovy
o UmaiKeiki for the excellent online Japanese Mahjong glossary
o Wei-Hwa Huang for the online Japanese Mahjong info
o Asiaestore (eBay trader) for their solid worldwide games sales service
o Berlitz, Tuttle and tangorin.com for great language resources
o Etsuko for her help with some kanji
o Kraftwerk (and Afrika Bambaataa) for teaching me the Japanese numbers 1 to 4!
o Chuck Palahniuk
I will be happy to give credit and thanks to anyone who makes a contribution.
--
Mahjong Fight Club (PS3) Guide
Copyright 2009-2010 James R. Barton
Initial version 1.00 completed 5 November 2009
Current version 1.01 completed 2 March 2010
All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their
respective trademark and copyright holders.
This guide may be downloaded and printed for personal, private, non-commercial
use only. This work is subject to copyright. It may not be hosted online or
otherwise distributed publically or reproduced either in whole or in part
without the advance written consent of the author. Any violation would
constitute an infringement of copyright and is strictly prohibited.
The only websites with the author's consent to publish this guide are GameFAQs
(www.gamefaqs.com) and its affiliates (i.e. Gamespot).
If you find this file hosted on any other site I would be grateful if you would
inform me at the email address given at the top. Thanks!