Customer Reviews

Monster Book of Japanese Puzzles: Masyu, Nurikabe, Hitori, Sudoku and Kakuro

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I started this book with the Hitori section, which it seems was a big mistake. The "solutions" contain many errors. After doing a search online, I found that this had been acknowledged at the publisher's website: "From Michael Mepham: While all the hitori puzzles in the Monster Book of Japanese Puzzles and the Book of Hitori are valid, some of the published solutions are incomplete, leaving a final square or two unpainted. The error will be obvious to anyone who checks an erroneous solution, but for clarity we have reproduced all the solutions here, with corrections wherever necessary." [...]

My continuing complaint with this is that, while the reprinted solutions may in fact be valid (I haven't checked them) many of the puzzles do NOT, in fact have unique solutions. There may be 2 readily apparent alternatives, or even 3.

I've also found solutions in the Nurikabe section that are different from the "unique" solutions that Mepham has included in the book.

Hitori and Nurikabe are the 2 sections I started with, and the puzzles have been mostly entertaining...right up until the aggravation kicks in when you reach a different solution than the reportedly unique one, and you spend more time double-checking your work than you did doing the puzzle in the first place.

As a hitori fan, I was very disappointed in this book. The reason I chose this particular book was for the hitori puzzles and they are all flawed. For those of you familiar with hitori, there are blacked out numbers with no reason for black out, and also circled numbers with no reason to circle. Leaves the puzzles unsolvable.

I bought this primarily for the Nurikabe puzzles. After a while, I started getting a feeling of déjà vu. Turns out that the same few puzzles are used over and over. A real ripoff.

I enjoy various of the kinds of puzzles presented here, particularly Masyu. But about 10% of the puzzles in this book fail to have a unique solution, which every one of them is supposed to have, and after a while that becomes intolerable. There are other books that feature each of these kinds of puzzles, and I recommend that you buy those instead.

It is great to see more of Nikoli's puzzles becoming popular, and indeed the Masyu and Nurikabe puzzles in this book are great fun and are a refreshing change from the more standard Sudoku and Kakuro, which this book also contains.

Unfortunately, the author completely misunderstood how Hitori is supposed to work, so those 100 puzzles (1/4 of the book) are next to useless. When introducing and explaining Hitori, he states the rules correctly, but one hint he gives ("If a number is unique to both its row and column, then it must be white") does not follow from the rules. All of his Hitori puzzles do not work out unless you invoke this "hint". And some of them do not work out even if you do invoke it.

I give the book 3 stars because the other sections of the book have given (and still are giving) me hours of puzzle-solving enjoyment.

I am a beginner at Hitori and was stunned to realize that most of the Hitori solutions in the book are invalid. Mepham or his editors seem unaware of the basic rules of the puzzle. Other reviewers have noted similar problems and even said that the publisher has acknowledged the errors. The puzzles lose all of their relaxing, mind absorbing qualities when the book is so poorly created. Shamefully bad material carrying the name of a (supposedly) great puzzle creator. One star.

This book just is not fun or in an way correct!!!!!! I want my money back.

Really the only good thing I can say about this book is that it introduced me to a variety of puzzles beyond Sudoku. Being a fan of Sudoku, I was excited to learn about some other Japanese puzzles. I flipped through this book in a bookstore and it seemed like a good purchase, but after having spent quite a few hours with this book I discovered the same problems other reviewers have, e.g. wrong solutions, multiple solutions, repeat puzzles, ambiguous difficulty, etc. It's been an annoying journey with this book.

If you are interested in Masyu, Nurikabe, Kakuro, or Hitori, look somewhere else.

If a harmless puzzle book can be termed a disgrace, this one qualifies. Where to begin? The puzzle ratings (from beginner to diabolical) often seem to have been applied at random. The instructions on the Hitori puzzles are woefully inadequate for beginners, several have non-unique solutions and the printed answers to many others are flat-out wrong. (If you're unlucky enough to own this book, just put a big red X through the Hitori section and save yourself the aggravation.) Several of the Nurikabes also have non-unique solutions, and most are duplicated - presumably the publishers thought we wouldn't notice. No matter how low the price drops on this book, it's not worth it.

Several of the puzzles in the book have non-unique solutions, the Hitori are especially atrocious, with several ways to fill in numbers and no real solution. The Masyu were pretty good, but still had a few errors in them. I really don't know how a puzzle book could get published in this state, is it that hard to make sure all of your puzzles are uniquely solvable? I do not recommend this book.