User Review : Picross 3D

All a puzzle game enthusiast needs for hours of fun is a Nintendo DS and a copy of Picross 3D.

Now, if you’ve played Picross before, whether on the Nintendo DS in 2007 as Picross DS or on the GameBoy in 1995 as Mario’s Picross, you know what Picross is about. For the benefit of those out there who have yet to discover the awesomeness that is Picross, I’ll give a brief overview. Picross is a puzzler that involves filling in the blanks. You’re given rows and columns and a series of numbers that represent the color groupings in each of the rows and columns.

You place X’s for places that you believe cannot be colored in and you place colored blocks for places that you know must be colored in. By doing this you eliminate what is and isn’t and eventually end up with an image. You have a time limit that rises with mistakes so patience and experience are key to getting low times.

Picross 3D takes it to the next plain with the same basic rules. Except now, besides rows and columns, you have the elements of length, width and height. This makes it sometimes easier and sometimes harder since there are more ways of finding out which blocks are colored. In 3D you also destroy the X blocks so you can get a better idea of the shape at hand. It’s more difficult in 3D since sometimes they angle the figure to eliminate symmetry which makes it harder to figure out what it is. There are a few more elements that add to the challenge of Picross 3D.

Instead of how it was done in the first Picross, where you were given groupings of numbers, you only get one number per line. This means, if a line has a “3” on it you have to find 3 blocks in one grouping. If you get the number 5 circled though, it means that you need to find any grouping of 5 total blocks. The game has five difficultly levels with tons of levels within each grouping. To add variety Picross 3D throws a few timed and no-mistakes-allowed levels in there to change it up but for the most part it’s the same sort of puzzles with scaling difficulty. In each puzzle you’re given several chances for mistakes and a timer. If you make even one mistake you’re stuck getting 2/3 stars at the most. To get a “Perfect” 3 star score you must get done within the green time limit with no mistakes. This seems easy but can become challenging later in the game.

The controls are idea for this type of game and the stylus picks up on the movement and selection with ease. For the most part you’ll only use the up and right arrows and the stylus. That’s it, and it’s efficient. Presentation in the game is simple and clean. There aren’t any fantastic animations but the game is charming enough with its simplicity. Throughout the levels you’ll uncover different pieces to the game’s collections, all of them are themed but they aren’t themed per level. In level one you may find the letter U, a pineapple and an axe. It’s fairly random, which makes it difficult to guess what you’re solving which in turn ups the difficultly and makes you rely on solving the puzzle rather than looking at the bigger picture. The music is not worth keeping the volume up. Silence can be somewhat less annoying than the synthesized and repetitive soundtrack. The victory tunes are charming but the in-level music is boring and irritating.

Picross 3D on the Nintendo DS is a great and addicting puzzle game. If you enjoyed the last Picross it’s an instant buy at the $19.99 USD price-tag. If you’re a puzzle fan and looking for something that can keep your interest for five minutes, two hours, or any amount of time it’s a great investment. To the fan of puzzlers I say this is an instant buy. You can spend weeks getting through the sheer amount of content in this game and the fact that it’s fun and functional makes it a brilliant purchase.