Here at Niche Gamer, we don’t discriminate. So when I saw the request from publisher and developer eastasiasoft to check out their new game Otoko Cross: Pretty Boys Mahjong Solitaire, first I laughed and then I said “Fuck Yes.” How could I not? So let’s do the tuck. Suck some helium and play some mahjong solitaire.
Title: Otoko Cross: Pretty Boys Mahjong Solitaire
Publisher: eastasiasoft
Developer: eastasiasoft
Platform: PC(Steam) (Reviewed)
Release Date: 19 May 2022 (Steam), 22 September 2022 (Consoles)
Players: 1
MSRP: $6.99
You would think there isn’t much to say about this. It’s mahjong. This game can run on a toaster or smart fridge. However Otoko Cross wasn’t without its quirks. During my time playing, I had odd skips in the audio throughout my playthrough.
Eventually, I had to turn down the BGM music to make it less prominent. Other than that the graphics are clean and easy to read. The mahjong tokens are all relatively distinct and never caused me any issues.
All five of the boys are drawn very well and are pleasing to the eyes (if that’s your thing). The outfits are cute. There’s also a gallery mode where you can rest your eyes if need be. There is no full-frontal nudity. Just lewdness. No real complaints here.
Otoko Cross is quite simple at its core. It’s mahjong solitaire. Your goal is to match the two tiles together until there are no tiles left.
As you play through each level, you will slowly strip the femboys into their underwear, or cute girly outfits while they repeat cute phrases in high-pitched girly voices. The difficulty is fair, it never felt impossible and I never had any difficulties on any of the levels. If you find the time limit too stressful you can disable it in the options.
In regards to the gameplay, where Otoko Cross let me down was in one key element, each game gives you a limited number of shuffles where you can shuffle the tiles on the board if you get stuck. In theory, this is great as there will be times when you run out of pairings and need to shuffle.
My problem with Otoko Cross is if you run out of pairs you get a game over, despite how many shuffles you may still have. This is incredibly frustrating and really soured the game for me. I cannot count the number of times I was forced to restart a level despite having all of my shuffles in the pocket ready to go.
I may not know the common rules of mahjong solitaire but I believe if you have shuffles left and no more pairings on the board you should be forced to use a shuffle.
There is nothing more frustrating than getting very close to finishing a level and running out of pairings and being forced to restart even though you have all of your shuffles. I ended up working around this frustration by saving my “hints” for when I knew I was close to running out of pairs so that I could strategically use my shuffles.
Each of the five boys have their own unique background music which is reminiscent of Hololive backing tracks or generic upbeat anime music fitting to its character.
I found these themes pleasant and relaxing to listen to while the boys repeated catchphrases I did not understand as I don’t speak or read Japanese. That being said, their voices were not annoying at all.
Every time you clicked on a tile or made a pairing loud chimes would play. At first, this wasn’t a problem but I found myself turning the volume down on these sounds for what I found to be a better experience.
Where I was let down was in the strange skips in the BGM that I had consistently on my playthrough. I can’t be sure this will happen to you as this is a pre-release build and may be fixed, or just not a problem on your system but I did experience it, so it’d be wrong of me not to mention it.
This is the part of Otoko Cross which let me down the most. I was expecting some kind of story, or dating simulator elements, allowing me to get to know the boys and their personalities and give me more motivation to play through the levels.
Unfortunately, I got none of the above. Otoko Cross does not feature any story whatsoever and is purely a mahjong game with cute boys to look at. How or why? Who knows?
In conclusion, Otoko Cross: Pretty Boys Mahjong Solitaire delivers on what it promises. There are pretty boys, and there is a mahjong game that can be completed in 4-5 hours, and if you like those two things you won’t be disappointed.
However, if you’re expecting any more than that, like a story mode or dating elements which are common in these kinds of games, you may find yourself let down. There’s also the frustrations of not being able to use your shuffle when you run out of pairs on the board – but at least the boys are pretty.
Otoko Cross was reviewed with a code provided by eastasiasoft. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Otoko Cross is now available for Windows PC (via Steam).
