Jongbou (Import) FAQ/Walkthrough

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Introduction

Welcome to another one of my FAQs. This particular FAQ covers Jongbou. Jongbou is designed kind of like a crossover between Super Breakout! and the general game of mahjong. Each game alone is addictive in and of itself, and, in this odd crossover game, you'll find perhaps the peak of addictive gameplay! It actually was initially released in Japanese arcades in 1987, and had, shall we say, some "adult" themes, which were removed upon the porting of this game to the NES/Famicom later that year.

It's been over twenty-five years since this game's initial launch back in 1987. And, since then, not a single FAQ has been written for it. Well, there's always a first time for everything, no? Ever since the start of the NES FAQ Completion Project on GameFAQs several years ago - a project designed to get a guide out for every single NES game out there - many people have now been helped because older, rarer, less popular games have gotten guides. So many games, in fact, that all of the North American games have been covered, as have the European games, leaving only those that are homebrews and mostly those released in Japan and the Koreas.

And so, that is how I came upon this game. Thanks for listening to my ramblin'; hope you enjoy!

Basics of the Game

Game Controls

How to Play

At the title screen, begin by pressing the Select Button to swap between a one- or two-player game, then press the Start Button to begin.

^l1|Generalization of the game field.

This is what the game generally looks like. At the bottom, you'll see a white board - one of those white "Tenpai" sticks if you've ever played a game like the real mahjong. This is what you move with the D-Pad (only left or right) to move the ball. Which is the ball? Well, if you look in the lower-left corner, you'll see it. The background has been partially removed from this white box for a reason - to show you a critical relationship about the ball. The pink thing is the ball, even though your eyes are draw to its completely-black shadow. Got it?

In the lower 1/3 of the screen, you'll see a string of mahjong tiles. These are what you want to make various mahjong hands with. More on that later. The white sticks with the black dots throughout the field are mere blocks that will yield points. The ones pictured take only a single hit to destroy, but ones later on with different designs are a bit more resilient. At the top, the area of brown tiles, you'll find that these turn into mahjong tiles or other things when hit. It'll usually require a second hit to dislodge the tile from the pile - one hit will usually just reveal it.

If you get the platform to run into these items that fall, several things could happen. If it is a power-up, that power-up remains in effect until you lose a life or, sometimes, grab another - these effects can include the ability to see all tiles or the slowing down of the ball. If you grab a mahjong tile, you'll need to look at those you already have and discard one or the tile you've gotten to try and make a mahjong hand.

Your goal is to remove all of the blocks on the field, or get a mahjong - after either, you'll proceed to the next level! After this, you'll progress to the next level. This loops on and on until you lose all of your lives. Lives are lost by letting the ball go through the bottom of the screen. At time goes on, this will get more difficult, because the ball will move faster and faster.

At the end of stages, you'll get bonus points for having mahjong hands. As in mahjong, your goal is to use the thirteen tiles in your hand to create some various hands - and they all have be in a hand, and not have one tile used in multiple hands, to complete a mahjong. These will obviously be based on two things. First is the tile's value - whether it is "one", "two", whatever. With the Circle and Bamboo suits, this is easy - just count the number of figures on there! With the Chinese and Honor suits, it's a bit more difficult. Your best bet is to look up pictues of the tiles on-line. For example, use Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong) for general images. They won't line up exactly with those in the game, but the similarity is obvious enough - in addition to the fact that the game will automatically sort them by suit and value.

As for the various hands, there are four.

When making the hands, there is but one condition: you are only allowed to use one or zero pairs. That's it, except in the possible case of seven pairs, but whether that's possible in this game is yet to be seen. It is exceedingly rare, after all.

Mahjong Hand Tips

• Tiles in the suits (Bamboo, Characters, and Circles) tend to be best used for Pungs, Chows, and Kongs, whereas your other "Honor" suit characters are better left for Pairs, if anything.

• Leave yourself with as many options as possible. For example, let's say you're trying to make a Chow. You have the Circles 3, 4, and 6. Instead of hoping, for some arbitrary reason, for a Circle 5 to come down and make an excessively long Chow, look at the hand. We already have 2/3 of the Chow in Circle 3 and 4, but only 1/3 in Circle 6. You may as well toss out the Circle 6 and let the other Circles get completed with Circle 2 or Circle 5, generally twice as likely to happen than just Circle 5.

• Again, leave yourself with plenty of options! This is extremely, extremely important! You need to leave a lot of flexibility in your strategies! In this way, you can open up your "pre-mahjong" call and more easily win the matchesbecause the penalties against your opponent will be steeper.

• You may as well try forming your pairs as early as possible. Don't use suited ones for this, but try to use the "Honor" tile set, which seem to just feature the large Japanese character. This also ties in to discarding tiles that are the least likely to form melds. Sure, it may not always work, but it's better than tarrying over which tile to remove from a more-likely meld!

Credits

In no particular order...

• GameFAQs, Neoseeker, and Supercheats:
  • For being the most amazing FAQ-hosting sites I know.

• CJayC, SBAllen, and Devin Morgan:
  • General sucking up to the GameFAQs admins. =P

• Me (KeyBlade999):
  • For making this FAQ. =P

• You, the reader:
  • For hopefully enjoying this FAQ.

Version History

• Final:
  • First, and likely only, version of this FAQ.
  • Time: 11:02 PM 3/9/2013.

Legalities

This FAQ may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright.

All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.

ｩ 2013 Daniel Chaviers (a.k.a. KeyBlade999).

If you would wish to contact me concerning this or my other FAQs, use this e-mail: keyblade999.faqs@gmail.com, or PM (Private Message) me on the GameFAQs message boards.

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