As a Picross expert, I can say that this game is alright.I've played so much Picross. Seriously, just.so much. Mario Picross, Picross 3D, Picross e1-6, etc. I have a problem. My 3DS is basically a Picross factory.So if you've played the Picross e-series, this is pretty much that, with some new stuff layered on top. New stuff including Pokemon 'powers' to use during puzzles, missions, a world map, achievements, and also it's free-to-start did I mention that?
Dec 21, 2017 Picross e2 only had 150 puzzles and 3 Micross puzzles, no Mega Picross. It also didn't have the additional marker (you could only cross out a block or fill it, you couldn't mark blocks which you weren't certain about). E2 also didn't have any 20x15 puzzles. So e7 (and e8) are a much meatier and refined experience than e2. That's the puzzle game, Picross S. The new Picross series is now playable on the Nintendo Switch! Comes with Picross and Mega Picross, with 300 puzzles in total, including plenty of difficulty.
It's free-to-start.You can buy or earn picrites, which are used to extend your energy meter (also there's an energy meter), open access to new areas, and open new party slots. Maybe some other stuff. It hasn't been too overbearing so far though. You can only upgrade your energy meter 5 times before you just have infinite energy, for instance. I've upgraded it 3 times already, after just a few hours of playing. The system also prevents you from buying more than $32 total worth of picrites before you just have everything unlocked. I applaud that, but at the same time, every Picross e-game has been $6, so spending $32 on this game might be a bit much.
Though to be fair, I have not seen how much is actually in this game so far. I will say that I've spent 10-15+ hours on every Picross e-game though, easily.The sad downside of this is that the controls just feel sluggish and slightly laggy compared to the e-games, which is strange. I feel like it takes just a little bit of extra time to mark squares in the puzzle, which has sometimes led to me misclicking on tiles.
I have been playing with buttons, not the stylus, so it might be different with a stylus. That being said, I also don't like how you HAVE to use the touch screen to progress things along, even if you choose button controls. It's super annoying. I can't recall any other games that force you to tap the touch screen just to advance dialog or choose 'ok' or something. I've never once used the stylus for any other Picross game, so it's kinda jarring that it's just like 'alright stylus time' now.
Why take the extra step to program in 'please use the stylus' when you could just say 'oh hey you tapped the A button, lemme advance this dialog for you bro?' Overall though, it's a good game. It's more goddamn Picross, and goddamn Picross is a pretty fun thing.NOW THEY JUST NEED TO BRING PICROSS 3D 2 OVER HERE.pls.
It was with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that I met the first few levels of the 3DS eShop release Picross E. Bizarrely, this wasn't nostalgia for the original Mario's Picross on Game Boy, which it most closely resembles, but for those glory days of the original DS; those days when Hudson Soft and others were releasing (albeit only in Japan) a series of some of the finest, most perfectly presented puzzles ever seen in gaming form.As I held my 3DS I felt a sense of sadness for those lost times, wondering where the new incarnations of Slitherlink, Pic Pic, Picross 3D and Illust Logic DS + Colorful Logic are.
Why is this new handheld, with its slight smattering of platformers and RPGs, so bereft of that gorgeous variety?Picross E clearly demonstrates that the machine is perfect for it - and, oh my goodness, so perfect surely for a sequel to HAL Laboratory's Picross 3D. So perhaps this is the start of a new golden age? Let's hope so, because Picross E is splendid. The pixel art is very lovely and far improved in the 15x15s.Presumably most of you are familiar with the puzzles now, especially given the confusing popularity of the mediocre Picross DS. You have a grid, here either 10x10 or 15x15, and numbers at the edge of each row and column indicate how many squares should be filled in. Deduce which they should be via the few-but-engaging techniques, and you create a picture!
Picross E does that, precisely that, and absolutely nothing else.And that's enough - especially at a significantly lower price than you'd usually expect for a full Nintendo game. For £4.50, rather than £30, you get 150 Picross puzzles, and you get them implemented superbly. Picross E is not bulked up with frills and extras, but what's crucial is that the core puzzles are so flawlessly delivered.
And if you were one of the many who enjoyed Picross DS, then it is with delight that I welcome you to the concept done properly.Picross DS' huge fault was the way it insisted on zooming in on the puzzles, thus rendering just about every method by which they're completed 17 times as frustrating. Not being able to interact with the full puzzle at any time was a bewildering decision, and one that's not repeated here. Instead, everything is just right.Picross E really is incredibly similar to 1995's Mario's Picross (which is also on the eShop), right down to that silly roulette hint option that fills in a row and column for you at the start if you need the help. Sadly, again like its spiritual great grandfather, it doesn't have an option to just make the request go away, meaning you have to say 'no' for each and every puzzle.
WHAT WILL IT BE? This game might be too much for those of a nervous disposition.Once started, if you've filled in all the right squares for a row and want to X out the rest, you just select the Xs and slide the stylus over the whole row - it smartly knows you don't want to overwrite anything, and for the most part it also smartly prevents you slipping into adjacent rows.
The same is true in reverse. The top screen shows the image you're creating, here rather cutely slowly developing colour as you progress. And the bottom screen has the absolute bare minimum on display besides the grid, with the necessary buttons exactly where your fingers might want them.There are three ways to fill things in, letting you opt for your favoured style. If you're a hardcore old-timer, you can choose to have it all on the face buttons, Mario's Picross style. If you prefer the stylus, you can choose between tapping to enter either blocks or Xs, or you can have it default to neither and instead choose by pushing up or down on the slider or d-pad.
That last one is the best for me, and the spongy analogue controller proves a lovely smooth method for switching back and forth to allow super-speedy filling.The one feature I've not seen in other Picross games is one called 'Navigation'. This is an optional hint system that makes the numbers at the top and side become super-smart. They glow blue if anything in that line is currently possible to fill in, and fade to a duller blue if there are Xs you could put in there. When there's nothing you could logically fathom there, they turn to a bold black, and fade to a lighter grey when everything in that line is complete. Oh my goodness, it was a sewing machine. Well, who needs a cigarette?This means the game understands every single trick there is for solving these puzzles, and knows where any of them can be applied. Leaving it on all the time would, I think, make the already slightly low difficulty level far too easy - but when you're just flat-out stuck, tapping it on lets you see where you've missed something but, crucially, not what it is that you've missed.
It's a lovely prompt. And for those who do fancy letting it make things easier throughout, every now and then the game will just say, 'Nope, you're doing this one on your own.' The division of the puzzles is slightly odd. 60 are set as 'Normal Mode', where filling in a wrong box incurs a time penalty (although here the timer counts upward, rather ruining the point of this feature from the Game Boy original).
In 'Free Mode' puzzles, it doesn't. Half of each section's puzzles are 10x10 grids, the other half 15x15, while there are another 15 Easy puzzles and, oddly, 15 'Extra' puzzles. These are, in fact, far harder ones, and are a welcome way to end a game that a Picross aficionado will likely race through.It's a bit of a shame the game doesn't seem to notice when you've solved all the puzzles in a section, and it's a bigger shame that there aren't any of the star ratings familiar from the late Hudson Soft's takes on these games. The incentive to replay to beat your time is pretty low when there's no recognisable reward for doing so.There is a lot that could still be added to Picross E to raise it to the levels of those sublime puzzlers from the last decade. But as it is, it delivers the essential basics pretty much perfectly, and it's hard to complain much about that.Could Picross E's publisher Jupiter perhaps be setting itself up to be the Hudson for the 3DS? Good grief, I hope so.