Customer Reviews

Picross DS

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The good news: Picross DS is a worthy follow-up to one of the best brain-teaser puzzle games I've played, Mario's Picross. The bad news: despite a host of great new features, they've actually left out a great feature of that 14-year old title and even damaged the design (though only slightly).

Picross DS keeps the same Sudoku-meets-Minesweeper gameplay of the classic game, derived from the popular paper puzzles called nonograms. You are given the number and order of colored cells in each row and column of a grid. By logical deduction and good guesswork, you must figure out which cells should be colored in and which shouldn't be.

Easy and Normal puzzles are time-limited and serve as an introduction to the game; Free Mode puzzles have no timer or warning that you've misplaced a tile. Free Mode is the bulk of the game, and a more satisfying way to play. There are a few minigames as well (a pair of "whack a square" games and a "reverse drawing" game, and possibly others), but these are rather dull and not the point. A change for the challenging: the largest puzzles here are larger than any I've played before.

In gameplay, you can either use the stylus (good for smaller puzzles, frustrating for large ones) or the d-pad and buttons (better for large puzzles, slower in competitive play).

Which brings me to one major addition: online and local wireless competitive play. You and another go head to head to finish two puzzles. I haven't put much time into this mode yet, but it doesn't intuitively seem a big draw - Picross has always been about contemplative mental exercise to me.

The next addition is more exciting: a "Daily Picross" mode, meant to test your speed at small puzzles randomly chosen. Five modes are available, only one of which is unlocked at the start. This mode has a great deal of potential and could bring some longevity to the game once it is finished.

The next major addition is one I've wanted for a long time. A puzzle editor allows you to create your own puzzles, either cell-by-cell or by automatically generating a puzzle from a free-hand sketch. I don't like the automatically-generated puzzles I've done so far, but I may get used to it.

You can share the puzzles you create via local wireless or over the internet, and download puzzles made by others. Nintendo will be releasing multiple puzzle packs that provide puzzles from previous Picross games as well.

This would all be perfect except for two changes made to the basic presentation:
- Mario's Picross had three save slots, to allow three people to use the same cartridge. This game has a single save slot - you can't really share this with a friend or a family member. Expect to buy one per person - at least it's cheap.
- More gravely, the picture you uncover by solving the puzzle is now displayed, both as a small icon on the puzzle select screen and at full size on the top screen. This hurts replayability - there's little point in replaying a puzzle if you know what it looks like. I have not completed Free Mode yet, but a full random Time Attack mode, as the earlier game had, would go a long way towards making up for this last problem.

While the former problem can be ascribed to Nintendo's desire to sell more copies of the software, the latter is simply strange. Nevertheless, the additions make this a superior title to its excellent predecessor and a downright bargain for its budget price. Highly recommended for those who like thoughtful, contemplative puzzle-solving.

I am approaching this game as someone who is familiar with the pencil-and-paper (P&P) puzzles of the same type, such as those found in Games Magazine. This review will compare the P&P version to this video game.

I was looking for a DS video game that could keep me occupied on a transatlantic business trip, and had serious doubts that this game would work. The P&P version of this puzzle is somewhat fun but also quite tedious. If you're on the fence like me, I can wholeheartedly say: you should definitely buy this game.

This video game version provides several features which make this type of puzzle much more approachable to the new player (and, frankly, it makes it a lot more fun, too, by removing a lot of the tedium). Many of the puzzles are setup to automatically tell you if you've made a mistake. No more grueling over a puzzle grid for an hour only to find you've made a horribly intractable mistake and have to start from scratch! Instead, you're penalized via a time penalty when you make a mistake. Also, the game offers you a random hint on each puzzle before you start. So, new puzzlers will find these puzzles on the DS very approachable.

There are also plenty of features that simply blow away what you can do with P&P. These include:
* great visual themes
* nice music
* cute animations as reward for solving the puzzle
* automatically keeping track of which bars have been fully filled in
* nice variety of mini-games to break up the monotony
* multiplayer, both local and internet
* make your own puzzles & share them wirelessly
* convenient way to try out an assumption then accept/discard it
* stylus allows for brilliantly fast gameplay -- much faster than P&P

My primary complaint is that the game doesn't serve the needs of the hardcore player very well. Specifically, these points bothered me:
* no way to disable automatic checking for errors on easier levels
* the assumption-checking system doesn't allow for layered assumptions
* it also doesn't show you which spot was your initial key assumption
* arbitrary notation (e.g. custom notes & scribbles) is not possible
* puzzle grids are initially limited to 15x15 in size

I debated rating it 4 stars because of the hardcore limitations, but decided that the game really isn't trying to fill a hardcore niche. It does what it tries to do perfectly, which is to make "picross" puzzles incredibly fun to play. Rather than spending an hour grueling over a single tough paper puzzle, making complex notations possibly even using layered assumptions, you can whip through a "tough" puzzle on the DS in about 10 minutes. All the tedium is gone. You can fill in the grid on the DS as fast as you can think, which is an order of magnitude faster than you can fill in a paper grid. So, while there was a certain satisfaction in conquering the hardest of hardcore "picross" puzzles on paper, it was precisely those frictions which turned me off from them in the P&P world.

Bottom line: the P&P variety of this puzzle was never particularly compelling to me, but the DS version is a joy to play.

Picross DS is an addictive and fun puzzler that puts a nice spin on the puzzle genre on the DS, and provides a wonderful amount of challenging fun as well. The ridiculous amount of puzzles are solved by attempting to form a picture as grid boxes are punched out by determining various numbers. Yes, the formula may sound a bit familiar for some, but make no mistake that Picross DS is still a blast to play regardless. The game is made even better by the fact that online Wi-Fi play is included and is where the real meat of the game is to be found. The only real downsides of Picross DS are that as the puzzle grid increases, the more often the game zooms in and out, which when using the touch screen of the DS, becomes quite annoying. However, considering the budget price of Picross DS and how much fun you get for your money, you really can't go wrong here. All in all, if you're looking for another more than solid puzzler for your DS and are on a budget, look no further.

I bought this game after hearing people gush over it on podcasts and after playing a demo downloaded from a gamestop kiosk. I am sure glad I did.

This is a puzzle game where you uncover tiles to create a picture. For each row and column there are numbers indicating that there are x tiles in a row followed by at least one blank space, followed by y tiles, and so on and so forth. Using deductive reasoning you eliminate choices (by switching to the X mode) and see where you must punch out a tile. This is fairly easy when you are on a small grid (Easy mode generally is between 5x5 and 10x10) but it gets harder when you move to bigger grids (15x15, 20x20, 25x20).

Once you start playing normal mode, there are different levels, all sharing a common theme. For instance, there is a frozen/cold theme one where you might be punching out pictures of a snowflake, or a snowman for that matter. Each theme also has a color theme for the maps, or you can choose to play with a default background and punching sound.

This game is a phenomenal value for $20. I have been playing it for at least an hour a night before I go to bed almost every day for the past month at least, and I am not finished level 10 yet.

In addition to Easy mode and Normal mode, there is free play mode which I have yet to try. From what I understand, the game will not tell you if you make a mistake, whereas in normal and easy mode you immediately know when you make a mistake and have a substantial time penalty imposed against you. This makes it much more difficult.

There is also daily training (sort of like brain age in that it keeps track of your best times and displays them in graph form). As you play x number of days, new modes unlock.

Even if you are not planning to go online (as I haven't) or play free mode, this game absolutely deserves your purchase.

I heard a lot of good things about this game but didn't know what to expect. Not being a big Sudoku I was worried if I would like it, but for the budget price it was worth a risk. After two days I have to say that am completely hooked. It's gotten so bad that I have been having dreams about Picross tiles :(

There's incredible value in this budget title. Even if you manage to burn through the bundled puzzles, you can jump online and download free add-ons from Nintendo. At this time of this writing there are four Mario puzzle packs available. Plus it has "Brain Age" inspired "Daily Picross" that keeps you coming back every day for new challenges.

My only complaint is that the interface for 15x15 puzzles is incredibly clunky. It takes a lot of getting used to but it's not a show stopper.

This style of game is the exact reason I purchased a DS.

I've been doing this type of puzzle for at least 14 years so when I heard they were going to have this for the DS, I ordered it. I enjoyed starting it out but was disappointed right away because this is basically a one player game. Unless you want to redo somebody else's puzzles, or have them poking into yours, you need more than one cartridge.

I did all of the beginning puzzles with no difficulty, but some of the later ones don't have what I think of as a 'clean' solution. I prefer a puzzle that can be solved just by the numbers provided. Some of these puzzles require using the hint or using an educated guess to figure out the answer. Free Mode is only this type of puzzle, and they give you an overlay that you can figure on and then you can apply it to your puzzle or not. However, the puzzles in the normal mode, to me, shouldn't require this.

The thing I find most lacking, though, are two color puzzles. I used to enjoy those a lot, and they are missing from the game. The idea of the game had more potential than was realized here.

Overall I enjoy this game. I like having a different sort of puzzle than the brain training games or Sudoku, so it is a nice change. I just thought it could have been better.

I've owned about 10 games or so for my DS so far, and this is by far my favorite. Usually I don't like puzzle type games but this game really grabbed me. I bought it and couldn't put it down untill I finished it completely.

I bought this game to play with my wife because the multi-player reviews were so positive, but I think the 1-player mode is wonderful. In all honesty I've spent maybe 30 minutes in multi-player mode but countless hours playing by myself - Great game!

I think a lot of people gave it poor single-player reviews because once the puzzle gets too big for the DS screen and you have to scroll around it is impractical to use the touch-screen anymore. It's hard to explain unless you actually play it but if you use the D-pad and the buttons you can actually solve the bigger puzzles much faster and enjoy the game a lot more. If you only use the touch-pen for the bigger puzzle it is tedious and not very much fun.

It is only $20, and for the price and the amount of fun I had playing it I rank it as a must have for the DS.

I really liked this game, I sort of wish there was another game for the DS just like this one with different picture so of course.

This is a game for people who enjoy a good puzzle. It's fun figure out where the right filled pixel goes.

There are even bonus levels if you finish everything. There are downloads (if you have a wifi connection) that are great too.

Tip - If you finished all the puzzles and want to start over - just like I wanted to do, you have to press L and select when you start the game, and the game will load on a screen that will ask you if you want to erase all your pervious data (this is also help if you bought this game used) ^_^

I bought this game on a whim after trying some Picross flash games online, thinking I'd enjoy it since I'm a big sudoku fan. I have to say though, this game far and away exceeded my expectations. There are A LOT of puzzles here, and if you manage to finish all of them you can go online and download A LOT more. You can also make your own puzzles and share them with friends.

There are two basic modes, Normal and Free (the first which notifies you if you make a mistake, the second which doesn't and lets you use "Try It Out" mode for more advanced gameplay). Both mode has 10 sets of 15 puzzles (plus 3 minigames) with their own themes, visuals, effects, and sounds, which adds a cool and refreshing twist every so often. Most of the themes are amusing and visually clear, though there are one or two you might have trouble seeing. You can always switch to the basic blue theme if you'd prefer. The pictures have a lot of charm, and if you complete them in <60 minutes it will show you an animated, colored version of the puzzle. The difficulty increases at a good pace, building from 5x5 and easy to 25x20 and challenging, with an occasional tougher one thrown in here and there throughout. I haven't taken inventory of all of the puzzles they have online, though they've got even more than the game totals out of the box. You can have 100 of those downloaded puzzles saved on your game pack at any given time, and you can delete them to make room for more when you've decided you're done with them. It also has Daily Picross mode (and 5 modes within that), which will train you to perform puzzles quickly and flawlessly. It keeps track of your times like Brain Age so you can see how you're doing. The game also has single and multi-pack multiplayer, though I haven't had the opportunity to test those yet.

The touch controls work excellent and once you get used to them you can scroll your view across the puzzles marking and Xing spots smoothly. The music is fine (it has several different options including Rock, House, and a few relaxing ones) though I prefer to relax and listen to my own music. I consider myself a hardcore gamer, but this game has surprised me and has perhaps even exceeded Final Fantasy Tactics A2 in play time on my DS by now. I feel like I've had to recharge my DS again and again every couple days because this game can keep you engrossed for so long. DEFINITELY worth its price if you're a fan of logic/puzzle games. This is a great value.

I confess that I'm not much into puzzle games, unless I'm playing a flashy combo-crazy game like "Tetris Attack" or "Meteos."

While "Picross DS" is not too flashy, it is a nice diversion from the typical snazzy sound effects-laden games.

In case anyone hasn't heard about it, Picross is a simple game in which players fill in a little picture based on the numbers on the border of a square grid. For example, if there is a number 5 on the column or row of a 5x5 square, the player would fill in five squares in that column or row. However, if there is a 22 on the row or column, the player would fill in the first two squares and the last two squares.

Anyhow, it's a fun game to play, just for the simple pleasure of drawing pictures in a puzzle. Some of the 15x15 squares may take a few more minutes to finish, but "Picross DS" is a refreshing challenge. And with an internet router, players can download puzzles off of the Internet.

The only big complaint about this game is that there isn't much of an incentive to continue playing for the sake of making nice pictures. Sure, the animated picross picture at the end looks really cute, but there aren't any especially stunning picross pictures available in the original game, unless one counts the bonus Mario pictures at the end of the game.

Also, the music sounds like cheap elevator music. After a certain point, most players will likely keep the music turned off in the game.

However, the game also offers different types of Picross grids with their own unique look and sound effects. For example, some stages look like a grass lawn or an ocean. It's a cheesy, but beautiful-looking change from typical pencil and paper Picross.

Overall, "Picross DS" is a fun diversion from the typical run-and-gun shooters and action games. However, keep in mind that it is very time-consuming.