Picross DS Review *Edited*

[Mendez]

Picross DS Review
I've been a fan of Picross puzzles ever since I first played “Mario's Picross” on the Game Boy. So as you’d expect, I was really excited when I heard about the DS debut of the puzzler and really couldn't wait for it to come out.

The game certainly doesn't disappoint, and with the sudden jump forward through a few generations from the Game Boy game, which I still played a lot, to the DS game, it was a huge leap forward.

The touch screen control may not be all it’s hyped up to be, but if it doesn’t suit you, you can always just change the controls to buttons, which is how it works best in my opinion. Thankfully, the game is even better than the previous Picross games that I grew up with. Picross has never been as addictive as it is here!

You’re given a grid, which will range in size, with numbers going horizontally and vertically across the left and upper sides of it. So say you have 5, 4, 1 going vertically, you will have to fill in that line vertically with those numbers in that order with at least 1 space between them. As the grid gradually fills up you’ll unveil a picture. A short animation of the thing from the picture is then shown as a reward for your efforts. This is an essential part of what makes the Picross puzzle so engrossing, and makes you want to come back for more and more until you’ve completed every single puzzle.

If you try to fill in any of the wrong squares, minutes will be added to your timer in an increasing scale. If the timer exceeds an hour, you won’t be awarded with the animation at the end of the puzzle.

The main mode, "Picross" is where you'll find the many great puzzles featured in the game. There are 3 modes here, as well as a “How to Play” tutorial.

First of all, there’s "Easy Mode", which is where you'll be best starting off if you're new to Picross. As the name suggests, the easiest puzzles in the game are found in this section. The 15 introductory puzzles consist of 5x5 and 10x10 grids.

"Normal Mode" is where you'll find the more challenging puzzles. On this mode, there are 4 themed levels, e.g. Food, Sea Life, consisting of 15 puzzles each, which are increase in difficulty as you plough through them. There are also tons of more levels that can be unlocked as a reward for completing puzzles. The grids on this mode range between 10x 10 and the massive 25x20 grids.

"Free Mode" is the hardest mode in the game, as you don't get told if you make a mistake, so you could spend ages thinking you’re heading in the right direction before it all suddenly goes wrong leaving you in a bit of a mess! The advantage of this however is that you don’t get time added to your timer if you do happen to do something wrong, meaning time is no longer a major issue. I found the mode quite difficult the first few times I tried it but I slowly warmed up to it, and now I find it very enjoyable and a good challenge.

The next mode is "Daily Picross" plunges 5 mini Picross puzzles at you, which you have to solve as quickly as you can. You’re started off with "Nonstop Time Attack", in which you just have the simple challenge of completing the 5 puzzles as quickly as possible. The other 4 are unlocked by playing Daily Picross for a certain amount of days. They are similar to “Nonstop Time Attack”, but with twists like not being able to use X’s, or having the puzzles partially completed for you, but with errors which you have to fix as fast as possible.

After the 5 puzzles are completed, you'll be given a graph similar to the graphs used on "Brain Training" which show your progress each day. You're also told how many times you've played, and displayed an average time.

The next mode, "My Picross" is a great feature, and adds a lot of potential gameplay onto the overall package. There are 2 modes, “Original” and “Classic”.
"Original” allows you to create your very own Picross puzzles, and exchange them with your friends using the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection. You can also download puzzles from your friends to enjoy solving yourself.

"Classic" allows you to download puzzles from previous Mario Picross games from the Game Boy and SNES straight from Nintendo. You then just simply delete them once they're solved.
Moving onto the Wi-Fi features of the game. The Wi-Fi is split into 2 sections.
"Picross Challenge" and "Community".

Picross Challenge is simply the general Wi-Fi you would expect; with the ability to "Challenge anyone" or "Challenge a friend"

I’m not a big user of the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection personally, but I’ve spent quite a lot of time playing against random people from across the globe, and the rate of quitters, which is usually a big problem in Wi-Fi games, is surprisingly low!

Community is also split into 2 sections.
"Classic Puzzles" and "Puzzle Exchange"
Classic Puzzles will allow you to download past puzzles from previous Mario's Picross games directly from Nintendo! This is great because if you actually manage to finish all of the puzzles in the main game, there's always something to come back for.

“Puzzle Exchange” allows you to upload puzzles you've made yourself in "My Picross" to your own area, and share the puzzles with your friends. Obviously, you can also download puzzles to play yourself from your friend’s area too. Your area can store up to 10 puzzles.

The overall look of the game is very nice, they couldn’t really have gotten it any better. The sound is also pretty good, and the memorable tunes in the game suit Picross very well.

The only main problem I find with the game is the touch screen controls. I don't know if it's because I've spent so many years using button controls for Picross puzzles, but the stylus controls don't feel right for Picross to me. They also get worse when terrible zoom feature comes in, which is just awful to use. I just find it impossible to complete a puzzle with it all zoomed in and the numbers on the side dragging onto the grid, an overall view which I can directly work from is necessary for me.

This doesn’t really drag it down from being a brilliant game though, because the button controls are still great.

Summary
+Literally hundreds of puzzles
+Great online features
+Very addictive gameplay
-Awful zoom feature
-Touch screen controls don't work very well

Graphics= 8
Sound= 8
Longevity= 10
Gameplay= 10
Overall= 94%
Picross DS can be enjoyed by anyone of any age, and with so much to do, at the budget price of £20, it's a must have.


Umm, well that was my first ever review, I welcome all comments good or bad. I made a bit of a leap doing it suddenly, so if there's anything I can do to improve on, or am doing wrong, then please say.

[Mendez]

Grr, I was actually hoping for some sort of feedback >.<
I won't bother posting my next review here then..

[iNma]

Heheh. Don't take it to heart. The review was well-written and thought out. I certainly enjoyed reading it, and from the sounds of it, you enjoy playing it. Keep up the good work.

[Mendez]

Thanks. I'm doing my second one now, and posting them around forums so people can tell me if they're alright and where I'm going wrong.

[iNma]

Originally Posted by Mendez

Thanks. I'm doing my second one now, and posting them around forums so people can tell me if they're alright and where I'm going wrong.

As well you should. Just because people aren't posting in response, don't get disheartened, practice makes perfect, and criticism is an artform. Having said that, you're off to a good start

[Mendez]

Yeah, thanks.
I'm posting my new review, just finishing it up, it'll be ready in a couple of hours of tomorrow.

[Manaman]

That's a nice concise review, Mendez. I, too, was a big fan of Mario Picross on the Gameboy, and it's great that Nintendo have brought this out in the west again after snubbing the SNES releases.

[Jonno]

Originally Posted by iNma

Heheh. Don't take it to heart. The review was well-written and thought out. I certainly enjoyed reading it, and from the sounds of it, you enjoy playing it. Keep up the good work.

No really, what iNma said! Really -some review!

[Mendez]

I've improved a lot of it now, I should have actually played the game a bit more to do such an in depth review, but I think it's ok now.

I tend to go into everything when I write a review, but I've gotta learn to keep it brief too, which I will do as my GCSE's are over in 36 hours from now.

[yoshi175]

Good reveiw, Picross DS is an awesome game