7 Hills of Rome Mahjong

Rome was one of the greatest empires that ever existed on the globe, right up there with Alexander the Great’s Greece and Genghis Khan’s Mongolia. Naturally, most of their success was thanks to their large and well-prepared armies, which were quite capable of taking anyone on the battlefield. However, they also used diplomacy and culture to spread their territory, although the sword was the preferred method.

7 Hills of Rome Mahjong has nothing to do with war and violence, since it’s just a Mahjong game that features a thin story and a couple of interesting backgrounds depicting Roman soldiers and cities. Just like in every other Mahjong game, your goal is to match the tiles that share the same symbol on them, as long as they are not obstructed by other tiles.

To begin with, the main campaign is structured into a couple of different areas, and you get to unlock them by winning level after level. The stages increase in difficulty from one area to the next, but the game never gets frustrating, unless you are the type to quit easily. Thankfully, you can easily replay the levels whenever you want to, by simply selecting the desired one from the menu.

One of the slightly more original concepts at work in the game at hand are the power-ups, which can be received by matching the tiles sporting warriors on them. Power-ups can be useful when you get stuck and you need to reshuffle the tiles, or when you want to eliminate a couple of them from the board entirely. Naturally, you need to use them wisely, but the reshuffle power-ups are used automatically whenever there are no more possible moves.

As far as the visual quality is concerned, the game looks nice, mainly thanks to the hand-drawn backgrounds and landscapes. The tiles are nothing out of the ordinary, although you can switch between a couple of sets when you get bored of a particular one. Not much can be said about the soundtrack, on the other hand, except that it gets repetitive after enough time has passed.

Even if 7 Hills of Rome Mahjong has a couple of flaws that might not sit well with the fans of the genre, the huge number of the levels should make up for them. The power-up system is a nice addition, although it could have been a lot more refined.