Picross DS

Jul 31, 2007

Every time I walk into a bookstore, my heart breaks a bit when I see the plethora of sudoku books lining the shelves. It makes me want to lurk there until some poor schmoe wanders up and grabs one to kill time on his morning commute. Grabbing him by the shoulders, I would give him a hearty shake and yell, "No, you fool! Why play those repetitive puzzles when you could be playing picross!" Sadly, after I enthusiastically explain the concept of picross to our hypothetical bookstore patron, chances are there would be no way for him to play it. I've only ever seen one picross (or oekaki as it is sometimes known) book in stores, and even then it was given the blasphemous subtitle "Paint By Sudoku."

If you're not familiar with the "way popular in Japan, but relatively unheard of in the U.S." puzzle game of picross, check out our preview of this DS version I'm reviewing here. It explains the basic gameplay and a bit of the series' history. One important bit is that Nintendo tried to introduce the game to the U.S. back in 1995 on the original Game Boy. Well before its time, the game flopped, robbing us of countless other picross titles that were released in Japan on just about every system (heck, even the NeoGeo Pocket Color got one.

When the DS was released, the small pocket of American picross fans realized that the system's touch screen made it a perfect fit for the "fill in the squares on a grid" gameplay of picross -- a game that they would surely have to import. Although there have already been a couple picross titles released for the DS in Japan, Nintendo felt that the pencil-based puzzle game market was strong enough to give the game another shot at finding a market in the U.S. As a bit of extra incentive, Picross DS is being released at a bargain price of only $19.99.

Nintendo's even making sure that everyone who picks up the game understands how it's played. The first time you play the game, you're forced into a fairly brief, yet very thorough tutorial that explains the basics to you. It's a great feature for newcomers, but picross veterans will find themselves rapidly tapping the screen while muttering, "Come onnnnnnnnn" under their breath.

Even for veterans, the control may take a little getting used to. Touch screen control seems like a natural for picross, but it can get very tiresome repeatedly having to tap the icon set in the upper left corner of the screen to switch between filling in the proper squares and "x-ing" out the ones that are to be left blank. Things get even trickier when you reach the later puzzles that require you to zoom in. You will be far better off if you immediately adjust to using the d-pad in tandem with the touch screen. In this case, the stylus by itself simply moves your cursor around the screen (or scrolls the screen with the larger puzzles). Holding up on the d-pad activates the drawing tool, and holding down triggers the "X" tool. It's slightly awkward for a puzzle or two, but this control scheme quickly becomes second nature. I find it hard now to go back to older picross games with their primitive "d-pad and button" controls.

Picross My Heart

In the main gameplay mode, there are 300 puzzles split between three difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, and Free. As you play, your only opponent is the clock. In the first two modes, making a mistake will cause time to be added to your score, allowing you to return to the puzzle later and try to beat your time. In Free mode, however, the game doesn't let you know if you made a mistake. You'll incur no penalties, but if you're not careful, you could waste plenty of time building off of a mistake only to realize that something doesn't quite fit after 15 minutes have passed. This extra challenge really forces you to put a lot of thought into each move in Free mode. Of course, that just makes solving each of the puzzles that much more satisfying. The puzzles are also broken up into categories (like fruit or flying things), each with its own skin and sound effects. These graphical touches are cute, but I found myself turning them off and going with the generic grid. They were often just too darn busy and distracted from the puzzle itself.

In keeping with the whole "brain training" motif that permeates a lot of the Touch Generations titles, there is a mode called Daily Picross that charts your progress as you solve a sample of random puzzles with various restrictions. In one mode, for instance, you can't mark unused squares with an "X." In another, you can only look at the grid's guide numbers for 20 seconds. At that point, the numbers are removed, and you must solve the puzzle by memory. Not all of the modes are available at first, so you have to play this mode for several days to open them all up. There's not much to Daily Picross, really, and the stats don't mean anything, but it's still a neat feature that helps hone your strategy.

One of the best features of the game is its Wi-Fi options. Over in Japan, Nintendo released multiple picross games. There were two for the original Game Boy and nine for the Super Famicom (the Japanese Super NES). Even though we only saw one of those games in the States, we can still play some of the best puzzles by downloading them. Although no puzzles are available as this review is being written, we've been able to download dozens of classic challenges in the Japanese version of the game. Expect to see plenty of new puzzles come online soon. The Picross DS cartridge stores 100 of these downloaded puzzles, but for some reason, most of the downloadable puzzles are very easy. When I'm downloading new puzzles, don't waste my time with simple 5x5s. Gimmie the hard stuff!

Another outstanding feature is the ability to create your own custom puzzles. You can have up to 100 of those, as well, and you can trade them with your friends. The puzzle editor is a little tricky to use at first, but like the controls, you'll quickly adapt to it. In addition to swapping puzzles, you can also compete against people online in a race to solve two puzzles.

There's an awful lot to do in Picross DS, but given the addictive nature of the puzzles, don't be surprised if you plow though the puzzles in a couple of weeks. The downloadable puzzles and custom puzzles will keep you busy for a while longer, but the fact is, you'll want more. Hopefully more will people catch on to picross this time around, so we'll see a lot more of these titles in the future.