Picross is a game, like Sudoku, that I find fun in short bursts but that is pretty mindless and that I lose interest in pretty quickly. In this particular case, I tried out Pokémon Picross, which was released late last year. As with Sudoku games, if you've played one Picross game you've pretty much played them all. In this particular game part of the draw is that the puzzles are all pixel renditions of familiar Pokémon, which was marginally more engaging than the usual stable of random objects. When you solve a puzzle you "capture" that Pokémon, and can use its special ability to help you in other puzzles (e.g. scan puzzle for mistakes, reveal some random squares, etc.).
Each puzzle comes with various missions (e.g. solve in less than X minutes, or use a certain Pokémon ability) that you can tackle to earn "Picrites", the in-game currency, and there are random achievements and daily challenges that will also net you some Picrites. This game is also free to play, and it's done fairly similarly to other games of this kind (e.g. pay Picrites to be able to use Pokémon you've already used or unlock new puzzles). There's a ~32 USD cap on how much you can spend, which for 300+ puzzles this doesn't seem like a great deal, although with the free elements you could probably finish the game with well under that. I personally felt like I'd seen everything the game had to offer after just a couple of hours, and I'll probably try out other Picross games (such as the recently released MyNintendo reward, which uses elements from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess) before picking this one up again. Apparently I'm not the only one who found the touchscreen to be a bit unresponsive in this game, at least on the regular 3DS screen that I was using; perhaps the game plays better on a 3DS XL. Regardless, this is a game that may convert some Pokémon fans to the Picross games, but is otherwise pretty unremarkable. Onward!
Cross off these Pokémon Picross links:
- Page on official Pokémon site
- Miiverse page
- Review on NintendoLife
- FAQ on GameFAQs, includes some details on the pricing breakdown