I could write an essay, a long one, on the genius of this game's concept and the intricacy of its execution, but it's Friday afternoon, and I like think I have better things to do. (I like to lie to myself, in other words.) For now, suffice it to say that the Hard puzzles are among the best I've played in any game, and that while a few Round 2 QOL enhancements would've been welcome here (especially the bomb and reworked "completed line" indicator), the lack of a hint system improves this one to such a startling degree that I'm tempted to do a full "hintless" replay of the sequel. I do wish the really incredible stuff was unlocked from the start, but the easier puzzles still have a zen charm of their own. HAL should have made 10 of these.

Nice presentation only goes so far when the core puzzle mechanic boils down to comparing numbers. (And not the kind of cause-and-effect comparisons in Minesweeper-esque puzzle games like Tametsi.) Maybe the harder puzzles require logic or more intense thought - I only made it to Level 10 of Easy, as there are tons of puzzles and no way to skip ahead in difficulty. Anyone looking for a low-challenge puzzle game that still has a pretense of pressure could do worse than this, especially for things easy to emulate on phones & play with two thumbs.

Picross 3D! I’m not done with this one, but I’ve played through enough to write down my thoughts, I think. I do like this one, but I genuinely think playing the 2nd one first has kinda made this one a little rougher to play. Regardless, I’ll do my best to put my biases aside for most of this review.

It’s Picross…but in 3D! If you haven’t played it: You get a cube made of smaller blocks rather a square like regular Picross. You have to chip away at what blocks aren’t part of the puzzle to make the shape.

This game feels…weirdly punishing. You have a time limit, which goes from green->orange->red. I’ve managed to always stay in the green, but I assume the orange/red detracts from the “Nice time!” star you get. You also get very limited strikes allowed, a total of 5. The one-chance challenges don’t feel much like challenges when I have to get no strikes on every puzzle for three stars anyways. This is moreso from me coming to this after the sequel, but this one also just feels kinda strange to play. Being able to paint incorrect cubes with no indication you’re wrong and not having to paint everything as long as you’ve broken all the right ones throws me off.

Despite all that, this game is certainly charming, that same crunchy charm a lot of DS games have. I really like the little cube bird that shows up throughout the game! They do the tutorial, and also just talk a bit in collections (explained later.) They’ve got little animations on the top screen while you’re solving puzzles, ranging from thinking to nonsensical silly movements to cheering you on to frustration. Not too many of the tracks in this game have stuck with me, but they’re all still pretty enjoyable.

Each puzzle is sorted into various collections, all based on their own themes, and you get a little description for each puzzle. The puzzles are also animated after you solve them. As you progress through the game, you get some misc. animations of the little cube bird.

Interestingly, this game also had a feature where you could make your own shapes and the game would generate a puzzle out of them! It’s defunct as DS services stopped, which is a shame cause that seems like it’d definitely be part of this game’s appeal at the time.

Overall, I think the sequel is better due to its QOL and presentation, but this one isn’t bad at all! Just a bit outshined, although maybe it’s not fair to compare the two when the puzzle sharing feature is defunct. If you wanna play both of these games, it’s probably better to start with this one first.
Maybe I’ll redo my Picross 3D Round 2 interview and go more in-depth on that one too.

Thanks for reading!