{"id":15485,"date":"2016-09-30T00:01:34","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T00:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=15485"},"modified":"2016-09-14T12:44:24","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T12:44:24","slug":"picross-3d-round-2-3ds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/30\/picross-3d-round-2-3ds\/","title":{"rendered":"Picross 3D: Round 2 (3DS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PICROSS_BOX\"<\/a>You may know HAL Laboratory best for their excellent Smash Bros. and Kirby series, but they\u2019re no slouch when it comes to puzzle games either.\u00a0 They made the downloadable 3DS BoxBoy<\/strong><\/a> games, the original Picross 3D on the DS, and old fart gamers like me may remember the NES Adventures of Lolo series, all done by HAL.\u00a0 And now they\u2019ve done it again with Picross 3D: Round 2, downloadable on the 3DS.<\/span><\/p>\n

Picross 3D is like regular Picross, in that you use number clues to fill in and break squares to make a picture.\u00a0 But this time you\u2019ll do it with all sides of the cubes, and you use the stylus to rotate and mark and break blocks.\u00a0 Round 2 adds a new feature.\u00a0 Now you must mark blocks either blue or orange, depending on the number clues.\u00a0 Blue blocks will turn into squares while orange ones will be other shapes.\u00a0 When you mark all the correct squares, it\u2019ll form a 3D shape of something familiar.<\/span><\/p>\n

If it all sounds complicated, don\u2019t worry!\u00a0 The game does a way better job explaining how to play than I do.\u00a0 There are plenty of interactive tutorials to get you started, and later you\u2019ll unlock exercises meant to hone your skills.\u00a0 Even the in-game written instructions are done very well.\u00a0 The original Picross 3D was part of Nintendo\u2019s \u201cTouch Generations\u201d line of games for casual players, and this one fits right in there as well.\u00a0 So don\u2019t be intimidated!<\/span><\/p>\n

The game is set up like a caf\u00e9, and you tap on books on a shelf to select puzzles.\u00a0 Each book has about 5 to 10 puzzles in them, and each book has a theme, like cooking or construction vehicles.\u00a0 The shapes you make in the books will relate to the theme.\u00a0 Some books add an extra challenge, like a time limit or no mistakes allowed, so only touch those if you think you\u2019re up to the task!\u00a0 But in most puzzles, you can make as many mistakes as you want, and are only penalized with a lower score at the end.\u00a0 Every puzzle can be done in Easy, Medium, and Hard modes.\u00a0 The harder the mode, the less number clues you get.\u00a0 And there are hundreds of puzzles!<\/span><\/p>\n

You can also scan amiibo figures to unlock puzzles that reveal familiar Nintendo characters.\u00a0 Not all amiibo figures will work, but the ones that do include Kirby, King Dedede, and MetaKnight.\u00a0 Of course all the Kirby amiibo would work, since this is a HAL game.\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised the Waddle Dee one didn\u2019t work as well, but I think this game came out before that amiibo was released in Japan.\u00a0 Other compatible amiibo include Link, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, and Bowser.\u00a0 And I think that\u2019s all that works with this game.\u00a0 I tried a lot of my other amiibo figures and none of them worked, and I have all the amiibo released in the US to this date.\u00a0 Watch out, though, as the amiibo puzzles are more challenging!<\/span><\/p>\n

There are a few problems with this game, and while they\u2019re rather nitpicky, I\u2019ll go through them anyway.\u00a0 Some of the puzzles can be quite tough, and I felt like sometimes I had to guess to fill in the squares.\u00a0 Also, if I was slightly off in tapping a square, it would count as a penalty.\u00a0 I know that\u2019s mostly my fault, but it was still annoying, especially on the larger puzzles where the numbers and squares are smaller.\u00a0 The scoring system is a bit arbitrary as it shows your rank via different colored gems, rather than something easier to understand like \u2018gold, silver, bronze,\u201d or \u201cA, B, C.\u201d\u00a0 Marking blocks for later was also a bit confusing.\u00a0 And they took out the level editing and sharing feature from the first game, but I image it would’ve been too complicated to do that here.\u00a0 But the biggest problems I had with the game was that it\u2019s download only, and you can\u2019t buy it as a physical cartridge like you could in Japan.<\/span><\/p>\n

But other than that, this is probably the best puzzle game I\u2019ve played this year so far.\u00a0 It\u2019s so addicting that one time while playing, I let my 3DS battery run all the way down, and I\u2019ve never done that before!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"PICROSS_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Picross 3D: Round 2 is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Cartoon Violence.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t know how it got that descriptor though, because the game isn\u2019t violent at all!\u00a0 I guess you do break up blocks and some of the shapes end up being weapons like swords and ninja stars.\u00a0 And the Kirby characters are shown either sucking up, hammering, or slicing blocks.\u00a0 But that\u2019s the only thing I could see that was remotely violent.\u00a0 Reading skill is a must, as well as good number and logic skills.\u00a0 But because of that, this game could be considered somewhat educational.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may know HAL Laboratory best for their excellent Smash Bros. and Kirby series, but they\u2019re no slouch when it comes to puzzle games either.\u00a0 They made the downloadable 3DS BoxBoy games, the original Picross 3D on the DS, and old fart gamers like me may remember the NES Adventures of Lolo series, all done […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15485"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15493,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15485\/revisions\/15493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}