Mario's Picross

"A great puzzle game for on the road."

Introduction
I think most of you have solved some of these puzzles. Picross puzzles are a pretty common type of puzzles, but that doesn't mean they can't be fun puzzles. Basically, you begin with a big, empty square with a lot of little squares in it. On the top and on the side are numbers. You must fill out as many little squares as indicated on the side and top. It's a pretty old game, from 1995, so it's in black and white. Don't worry, you'll hardly notice it (and if you have a GBA (SP), you can add some colour in it).

Gameplay: 8/10
Well, there's no problem with the controls here. Your cursor is easy to move, obviously, since there are only two things to do here. You can move your cursor up and down a square, or move it horizontally. As for the difficulty, it varies. There are a lot of puzzles in this game (and I mean a lot), and they vary in size and difficulty. They start out pretty easy, but when you progress in the game, it gets a lot more difficult. Luckily, the game provides a very good tutorial in the beginning, so you play and learn at the same time. Also, at the beginning of your puzzle, you can choose whether or not to use a hint. When you make an error, and mark a square that should be left blank, the game tells you it should be blank (at the cost of some time, of course). Therefore, every puzzle is very well solvable. The game is fun to play, if you like to puzzle in real life. It has some nice surprises for the real Nintendo-fan, because a lot of the solutions of the puzzles are Nintendo-related. If you don't like to puzzle in real life, you probably won't like this game.

Graphics: 6.5/10
Sure, it's a Gameboy game, dated from 1995. Yet I'm kind of disappointed in the graphics. Sure, you could say this game doesn't need fancy graphics, and you probably would be right too. It's just that this game's graphics are really simple. All you see on-screen is a square filled with squares, some numbers, a timer and a little Mario in the corner. It does what it's supposed to do, but nothing more than that.

Sound: 7
There are 5 different types of background music in the game, and after you've played the game for a while, they all get annoying. There is nothing special about these tunes; I usually turn them off now. You also hear a little sound when you mark a square. Again, nothing special. It's the same thing with the graphics, this game doesn't need fancy graphics and/or sound to be great. I didn't give this section a too low point, because it took me quite some time to get bored of the music.

Play Time/Replayability: 10/10
This game lasts forever. First of all, there are 64 puzzles in the Easy section. Then there are another 64 puzzles in the Kinoko course. Another 64 puzzles await you in the Star course. And if that's not enough, when you've finished all puzzles in the game (which will take you a long, long time), you unlock a time trial with some new puzzles in it. This game is perfect if you travel a lot. I travel a few hours every week, and I still almost play this game every week.

Final Recommendation
My suggestion? Buy a magazine where you can try this type of puzzle for yourself. If you like them, and travel a lot, I recommend you buy this game. I really enjoyed this game, and I still do. I didn't put too much value on the scores for graphics and sound, mainly because this game doesn't care very much about them. It's all about the gameplay and the replayability. Therefore, I give this game a 9, because it scores where it needs to score.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/18/04