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Home >
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> Results: Picross
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by Cary Woodham
September 30, 2007
This portable puzzler is practically picture perfect.
Reviewed for DS.
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Scroll down for our Kid Factor.
Nintendo does it again with their latest DS puzzler in their Touch Generations series of casual games. Picross will keep on-the-go gamers busy for hours. While Picross is fairly easy to learn and pick up and play, it's a little difficult to explain without going into too much detail. Picross is like a cross between a crossword and a logic problem. Players are presented with a grid with numbers on the top, and left sides. These numbers give clues as to which squares on the grid need to be filled in or left open. For instance, if you see the number 6 on the left side of the grid, you know that six squares in a row need to be filled in on that line. Fill in the correct squares and you'll reveal a picture. Try to complete each puzzle quickly without too many mistakes for the best score.
Even though Picross is a little difficult to explain, the thorough in-game tutorial will get you up and playing in no time. Tackle dozens of puzzles in the regular mode. They start off easy at first, but later on the puzzles get bigger and trickier to solve. In Free Mode, you aren't even told when you make a mistake, so that's really tough! Or you can try the Daily Mode for everyday Picross-related brain exercises.
But the puzzling doesn't have to end there. You can design your own Picross picture puzzles with the easy-to-use designing tool. It'll even let you know how difficult your puzzle will be to solve, or if it's solvable at all. Then you can show off your puzzles to friends or upload them for all to try using the Nintendo DS' Wi-Fi online features. While you're online, download other players' puzzles or check out ones made from Nintendo. In this way, Picross feels never-ending and really pulls up the replay value.
Graphics and sound are basic and minimal, but they don't need to be extravagant for this kind of game. Play control is easy since all you have to do is tap the touch screen with the stylus pen to fill in squares. However, sometimes you might mistakenly tap the wrong square, which counts as an error and a time penalty, which can get a little frustrating when you KNOW you tapped the right square. But other than that, Picross is a fantastic puzzle game and at only 20 bucks, a real value, too.
No violence or objectionable material to worry about in the main game of Picross, but you may want to supervise if your kids go online to download new puzzles in case another player uploaded a puzzle that might reveal a dirty picture when solved. But playing offline is perfectly safe. Picross can even be considered educational, as it teaches math and logic skills. However, very young players may have a little difficulty wrapping their heads around some of the tougher puzzles, unless they have strong math skills. Picross is one of the best DS puzzle games, but it may be better suited for gamers who are a little older.
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