Picross (DS) Review
Posted by Steve McHugh on 08.27.2007
Handheld gaming crack.
Everyone’s heard of Sudoku. From the young school child to the elderly gran, pretty much everyone has been introduced to the game at some point. It’s in the papers, on the TV and it even has its own selection of games to enjoy. But as much as everyone loves the game there’s something you should know. Sudoku is akin to the ugly, illiterate brother of Picross.
Picross is simply put, the best logic puzzle game in the world, ever. So let’s see if this handheld version of the classic game does it justice.
Graphics
Well graphically it doesn’t exactly do the DS justice. You certainly wouldn’t play it for the way it looks. Functional is probably the best description, but everything looks bright and colourful. Completing each puzzle rewards you with a small picture but none of these are exactly exciting and some look just downright odd. Maybe completing each puzzle should have unlocked a portion of a picture so that upon completing 5 you got a much nicer large picture to look at. Its just a small complaint really and doesn’t detract from the game one bit though.
Artistic talent to make your own puzzles isn't essential.
Gameplay
As with all the best puzzle games it’s deceptively easy to play. You are faced with a grid (starting with 5 x 5) and each column and row will have numbers next to it. For example if one row says 4 then 4 sequential squares in that row will need to be filled in to complete the puzzle. It’s up to you to figure out which 4 are the correct ones. It gets harder as the puzzles get larger going up to 10 x 10 and 20 x 20 grids. The puzzles become more complex later on when you’ll get a list of numbers. In this case, for example, there’s a 2, 1 and 3 and in that row you have to have 2 squares together then 1 by itself and then 3 together all with at least 1 square between the sets.
Like most puzzle game rules it sounds unbelievably boring but is in fact utterly compelling. Using logic you have to figure out where each square you need is so if you’ve got a 15x15 grid and 14 squares are to be filled then you know that you can cover all except the first and last and one of those will be uncovered as you play through the puzzle.
To help you in this is the ability to put ‘X’ where there are no chances of a square being in use. It’s a fantastic helper and makes solving puzzles easier then they would have otherwise been. The game also asks if you want a hint before you start each puzzle. If you say yes then one row and one column will be filled in which can sometimes mean the difference between completing the puzzle and staring at it in frustration.
Picross has many different options available to you. Firstly, Easy and Normal modes allow you to tackle puzzles and if you make a mistake you're penalised with a time penalty. If you take over an hour to complete a puzzle then you’ll need to re-do it and the more mistakes you make the higher the penalty. This is a good idea in theory, but can become something you’ll use to help you when you decide to just use guesswork instead of logic. Only having a certain number of times you could make a mistake before its game over would have made me take care more often.
After these modes have been aced (and that will take some time) you have Free mode. In this game you’re not given a time penalty for making a mistake, the game just lets you continue playing until you realise at the end that you’ve screwed up at some point and need to restart. These are much harder puzzles due to the lack of penalties helping you out and its where most people will take a long period of time to play through.
The Daily mode is a sort of Brain Training-esque mode where you can take certain types of game once a day and record how well you do over time. Some of these are a lot of fun (secret, no X) and some less so (memory can be a nightmare) but none are awful and you’ll play all of them at some point.
Being able to make your own puzzles is the icing on the cake, especially since you can send them to your friends.
It really is an almost complete package of puzzle gaming, but there are a few issues. The largest of these is the stylus controls. Unfortunately you’ll often go to hit one square and the game will think you hit one next to it as well, occasionally causing you a time penalty. It’s very unfair and will having you cursing a few times if it pushes you over the hour limit but it doesn’t break the game or cause you too many sleepless nights.
The second problem won’t affect everyone but its worth mentioning. This is a fairly mature game for people who have time to sit down and learn the rules and how to play. It’s good for a quick play now and again but if you don’t have a concentration span over about 20 seconds then you should try the game first.
I can't find a single exciting screenshot.
Sound
The music is both basic and repetitive and you’ll switch it off pretty quickly. That’s it for this category.
Seriously every single screen shot is of every puzzle game ever is boring.
Lasting Appeal.
Over 300 puzzles, downloadable new puzzles to get too. And you can make your own and send them to your friends. There’s also the daily play where you try to break your old records and that takes 20 days to unlock everything. There’s so much to do and it’s all executed so well that you will literally be playing this game for weeks and weeks on end.
Fun Factor
Whilst some of the puzzles are both hard and frustrating you’ll always go back time and time again to play more puzzles or to get better times on the old ones. Even when the stylus touches squares you didn’t want to touch you’ll still forgive it. Addictive doesn’t begin to describe this power this game will have over your free time.
The 411
There are a couple of faults but they’re easily overlooked, if you don’t like logic puzzle games though you won’t like this. It takes time and effort to complete the harder level puzzles but it’s a very worthwhile experience to get there. Easily the best puzzle game on the DS but the lack of flash will probably put people off. Look past that though, and you couldn’t get a better time eating experience.
Graphics
7.0
Simple and they do the job well. Maybe getting a larger, better defined picture as a reward for completing a puzzle would have been nice.
Gameplay
9.3
Almost perfect. But some dodgy stylus controls means you’ll make mistakes where you don’t mean to.
Sound
5.0
Neither awful nor good. You’ll switch it off quickly.
Lasting Appeal
10.0
Over 300 puzzles and you can download more and make your own. Daily play is excellent. This will last you months of play time.
Fun Factor
9.8
Apart from the occasional stylus problem this game is tons of fun to play. You’ll come back again and again.
