Professional Mahjong Gokuu (Japan)

Getting Started

When you boot up Professional Mahjong Gokuu, you're greeted with a title screen and a menu in Japanese. Use the D-Pad to navigate and press X (A button) to select an option. The main menu typically offers a single-player game against AI opponents. Choose your starting hand and begin a standard game of Mahjong, aiming to complete a winning hand by drawing and discarding tiles.

The core loop involves drawing a tile from the wall, then deciding which tile to discard. Pay attention to what other players discard to avoid giving them needed tiles. The game follows traditional Japanese Mahjong rules (riichi mahjong), so you must have a valid hand composition (melds and a pair) to declare a win. The controls let you call tiles for melds (pon, chi, kan) when appropriate, using the B button to cancel or skip.

Since all menus are in Japanese, basic familiarity with Mahjong terminology helps. The game tracks scores automatically. There are no English patches in this original version. Focus on building a hand with at least one yaku pattern to win. Practice reading the tile symbols; the game uses standard mahjong tile shapes with Japanese characters.