Lost In Translation/Janshin Densetsu - Quest of Jongmaster

About The Game
Janshin Densetsu - Quest of Jongmaster is a mahjong-based arcade video game with role playing elements and selectable items.

Trivia
Released in June 1994.

The title of this game translates from Japanese as 'Jong God Legend'.

Janshin Densetsu appears to be a complete ripoff of 1991's "Mahjong Quest" by Taito. The basic premise is the same : a girl in an RPG-style format walking along a world map and encountering enemies which are battled through mahjong matches. The enemy encounter screens have identical borders and the enemies are drawn in the same comic-anime style. Before each mahjong match, there are selectable spells that can be bought with stored MP, the screen and spells being identical in both cases. The player also has a Sword and Shield which can be activated during a match which give the player special abilities. The in-game text is virtually identical. The mahjong tiles themselves look almost exactly the same save for the backs; the mahjong game screen itself is almost exactly the same. Even upon defeating an enemy, they are turned into a scantily-clad woman as does your character when she is defeated. The only major difference between the two seems to be that "Mahjong Quest" is controlled with a mahjong control panel and Jyanshin Densetsu is controlled with the MVS Neo-Geo joystick. The next Aicom game on SNK Neo-Geo MVS is 1995's "Pulstar", shares lots of similarities with "R-Type" as well.

Ports

 * Consoles :
 * SNK Neo-Geo CD (1995)
 * NEC PC-Engine Arcade CD (1995)