0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Azumanga Dontara Daiou

       

Azumanga Dontara Daiou is a puzzle game similar to Mahjong and is based on the yonkoma comedy manga series written and illustrated by Kiyohiko Azuma which ran from 1999 to 2002 as well as receiving a tv anime series adaption. Since the completion of the Azumanga Daioh series in the early 2000s, Kiyohiko Azuma has been working on the long running Manga Yotsuba&!.

 

The game has received three video game spin off releases, an arcade only game called Azumanga Daioh Puzzle Bobble, a card game called Azumanga Daioh Advance for the Game Boy Advance and Azumanga Dontara Daiou which is a puzzle game. Developed by Ganbarion and published by Bandai this game released exclusively on the Playstation on the 18^th of April 2002 and released in Japan only

Story wise there is very little I can tell as i have not been able to find much information on this game story, what I do know is there are six main characters each with their own story to complete in the game story mode, these are Tomo Takino, Ayumu Kasuga, Chiyo Mihama, Koyomi Mizuhara, Sakaki and Kagura with additional characters to be unlocked.

 

As previously mentioned the game plays very similar to the Chinese game Mahjong, with Azumanga Dontara Daiou being a tile matching game but highly simplified with the game being aimed at kids. At the beginning of each game the player is given 8 tiles each with a characters face on, in order to win a game the player must complete three sets of 3 different characters (three of each character).

It is also possible to win a game with two sets, as well as the character tiles there is also a tile called th Chiyo-Chichi, this pieced works as a stand in for any of your pieces, of you have 2 out of 3 sets it will work as just a stand in.

Reach occurs when you have two full sets and half a set, when this happens the game automatically moves pieces until you have a complete set, each of the various combinations have a points value with around 100 different combinations available, the game has an in game manual that shows what the points values are.

This being a Japanese exclusive release there are no critic reviews available, so we head over to GameFAQs for their user ratings as well as a user review of the game. The review comes from the user joachim005 who scored the game at a very respectable 4/5, which converts to an 80 overall.

The reviewer praised the visuals of the game calling the very nice, with the Mahjong pieces looks marvellous, and the chibi characters walking around the table the review called over the top cute. Character voice wise the review praised them for having a familiar feel with the characters sounding like their Anime series counterparts.

Overall the review called it a great came and should appeal to fans of the series and those who are not with puzzles that will keep you coming back for more, the review from this user came eight years after its release and they concluded with the game is still good after 8 whole years.

Next we move on to the GameFAQs user ratings, with the game currently sitting at an average user rating of 3.71/5, overall the game has been rated pretty highly by six of those seven users, the final user really bringing down the game average.

Six of the games rating are rated at 3.5/5 or higher with one user giving the game the full 5/5, a couple gave it a very good 4.5/5, while another two rated it at a 4/5 including the user who review the game, the final user gave the game a solid 3.5/5.

It was the seventh and final user that knocked this games average down from a 4.25/5, to its current 3.71/5 with their 0.5/5 score. Moving on we have the games difficulty up next with just four users rating this category we find a 3/1 split, with one user rating the game as easy, while the remaining three found the game to have just the right difficulty level.

Finally we have the games lifespan, again we have just the four users rating this category, this time however we have an even split with each of the users giving the game a separate lifespan rating for the game. With one user each rating the games lifespan at either 1 hour, 4 hours, 8 hours or 12 hours, averaging out this give the game a 6.3 hours lifespan.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese only release, same goes for Retrogames.co.uk and while eStarland do list copies of the Manga which are currently out of stock, they don’t list any of the games.

So we move on to Amazon.com in the hopes of finding some copies of the game, we strike luck and find a decent supply of the import available. A couple of very good condition used copies can be picked up for $11.65 and $11.70 respectively, both coming with free shipping as well.

Prices for a complete used copy in good or better condition reach a high of around the $20 mark, one copy priced at $14 can be ignored due to the $16 shipping fee. Moving on to the few new copies that are available prices start at $45.17 this copy comes with free shipping, another new copy with free shipping Is priced at $48.22.

From here priced don’t rise too much for a new copy one priced at around the $49 mark once shipping has been added in while the most expensive new copy currently on the market is priced at $57.17 and comes with free shipping/

Written by

P J Gibbon