Shanghai II

For the Sega Mega Drive game, see Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye.

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Shanghai II
System(s): Sega Game Gear
Publisher: Sunsoft
Developer: Falcon
Licensor: Activision
Peripherals supported: Gear-to-Gear Cable
Genre: Puzzle
Number of players: 1-2
Release Date RRP Code JP 1990-12-27 ¥3,8003,800 T-15017 JP (Meisaku) 1994-03-05 ¥3,5003,500 T-15037

Shanghai II (上海II) is a mahjong solitaire game for the Sega Game Gear.

It is not to be confused with Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye on the Sega Mega Drive. Both games are sequels to Shanghai.

Gameplay

The game is a matching game using mahjong tiles, like its predecessor. There are 144 mahjong tiles stacked in a pattern on the board, and players must remove all of the tiles two at a time by matching them with each other. Tiles can only be selected if they do not have another tile on top of them and no tiles touching either their left or right side. Two tiles can be matched if they have if they have identical symbols on top of them. Any two flower, dragon, or season tiles can be matched with each other as well. There is some strategy involved in choosing which tiles to remove in such a way to expose other potential matches. The game is won when all pairs of tiles have been removed from the board or lost if the remaining tiles contain no exposed pairs.

The game uses a cursor, which is moved using the D-Pad. The player can select a tile with or cancel a selection with . Tiles can only be selected if they have no other tiles on top of them and a free space to either side of them. When one tile has been selected, a second tile can only be selected if it is a valid match. Pressing again when two tiles are selected confirms the match and removes the tiles.

In single-player games, there are two menus at the top of the screen that can be selected by the cursor: Help1 and Help2. The Help1 menu contains items to show possible moves (Find) or undo the last move (Back). The Help2 menu contains items to reveal covered tiles by removing the tiles on top of them (Peek), restart the current game (Retry), or start a new game with the same tiles (New). All of the items in the Help2 menu necessitate ending the current game. In multiplayer games, there is only one menu, Help, which shows a possible move when used. This can only be used three times per game.

Modes

There are three game modes:

• Solitaire: A single-player mode. There are six different formations to choose (which determine the shape of the arrangement of tiles). The symbols on the tiles are randomized for every game.
• Tournament: A mode for multiple players to compete, where each player takes turns playing a game, sharing the same Game Gear. Each game has a time limit of 30 seconds. After the game, players are returned to a menu where they can view the best scores, continue the tournament, or start a new game (with new scores).
• Challenge: A two-player mode, where each player takes turns making a move on the same board, using separate Game Gears linked over a Gear-to-Gear Cable. Players have a time limit for each turn and compete to have the best score.

There is a settings menu that allows the player to choose between three music tracks, change the difficulty level (Easy or Normal), and change the tile symbols (Japanese or European).

Formations

Tiger

Scorpion

Monkey

Snake

Panther

Dragon

Production credits

• Program: Nick
• Design: M M O, Geruge, Youji, Satoko
• Music: Yukichan, Tsukachan
• Director: Falcon

Source:

In-game credits

Magazine articles

Main article: Shanghai II/Magazine articles.

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average
Publication Version Score (DE) 60 (JP) NTSC-J 70 (IT) 83 (JP) NTSC-J 40 (FR) 90 (JP) NTSC-J 68

	69
Based on 6 reviews

Shanghai II

Game Gear, JP
Cover
Cart

Game Gear, JP (Meisaku Collection)
Cover
Cart

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 2ae8c75f MD5 a9d1712dca313ba021844f62eec8a08c SHA-1 5180891ec0ae08d784dd89222d9ffd7f88a59691	128kB		Cartridge (JP)
✔	CRC32 81314249 MD5 c228d31cf77bd03ac457e2d22f5b2bd1 SHA-1 82210b387344aaebae8cf03029967cd0c906beff	128kB		Cartridge (JP)	(Rev A)

References

NEC Retro has more information related to Shanghai II

Shanghai games for Sega systems
	Shanghai (1988)
	Shanghai II (1990)
	Dragon's Eye Plus: Shanghai III (1991) | Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye (1994)
	Shanghai: Triple-Threat (1995) | Game no Tetsujin The Shanghai (1995) | Shanghai Great Moments (1996)
	Shanghai Dynasty (2000)
	Super Shanghai 2005 (2005)