A cute, if a bit predictable, take on Picross with Pokemon. Considering it was developed by Jupiter, it naturally resembles and plays much like their other Picross games, but with a healthy dose of added Pokemon flair. In addition to puzzles of individual Pokemon (and items), there's also "Safari" puzzles that depict colorful and often funny scenes of Pokemon interacting, which was a pleasant surprise. A slight caveat is that bigger puzzles are built out of smaller, easier chunks, meaning the game never gets especially hard.

Although it was never released, the leaked ROM of the game is a complete package. Honestly, they should give this game the Star Fox 2 treatment and just put it on NSO as-is, because this is a nice little spinoff.

Picross games and fakeout endings, name a more iconic duo

I don't get why this wasn't released! It's an accessible, friendly first Picross game which could have turned plenty of young Pokemaniacs into Picross addicts. The art is the clear highlight, with each image being quite lovely, especially for the hardware, and the Pokemon theming gives the game plenty of charm. There are 151 puzzles that you'll complete in the main game, one for each Pokémon (at the time). If you complete a puzzle, that Pokémon is added to your Pokédex, and the puzzle is marked with a Poké Ball. However, if you beat the puzzle under the target time, it's marked with a Great Ball instead. Is there any real reason to go for Great Balls on all of them? Not as far as I can tell! I came in under the target time on every single puzzle, and I'm unsure if anything in the game changed as a result. Probably not worth all the retries!

Throughout these 151 puzzles, I feel comfortable saying this is an entry-level Picross game. Nothing is too difficult, largely due to the small resolution of the Game Boy. This means that you won't encounter any puzzles larger than 15x15, though the game does fake its way to 20x20 and 30x30 pictures by splitting those images into 4 quadrants, essentially just being a group of 10x10 or 15x15 puzzles that must be completed in a row. It keeps things quite simple, but they definitely did the best they could with the hardware limitations. Though there is one adjustment made by the dev team that might be controversial; instead of actually drawing the pixels in the images, you're sort of highlighting over the lines in broad strokes, allowing for more detailed stills. You can see in this image how there are black lines underneath the dark blue filled squares. This does end up causing a LOT more completely filled-in rows than your average Picross game, but again, I think it works well as an introductory title.

However, after the game rolls credits, a new mode is unlocked. In the Safari Park, you'll be completing images of multiple Pokémon in a variety of settings. These puzzles skew towards the larger side, have stricter Great Ball times, and most crucially, multi-screen puzzles which are split into 4 quadrants no longer tell you if one quadrant has been successfully completed. You must verify for yourself that no required square has been left unfilled, which ultimately soured me on my experience quite a bit. When you're trying to make that Great Ball time, nothing is more frustrating than thinking you're done, only to have to go check your work across 4 different 15x15 puzzles, searching for the single pixel you missed. Later Picross games tend to change the color of the numbered prompts associated with a row or column once you have filled the proper number of squares, a QOL improvement which I desperately missed here. The game does allow you to mark the numbers yourself, but that takes enough time to do that I don't think I'd ever make a Great Ball time in the Safari Park while doing so.

In short, Pokémon Picross for the Game Boy is Baby's First Picross, until the Safari Park happens. I think it's a great introduction to this style of puzzle, and a much more worthwhile entry than other titles on the Game Boy. But there is a serious handbrake turn towards frustrating difficulty in the post-game, and I haven't even taken into account any time penalties for marking the wrong squares. As an unearthed relic that never saw a formal release, I think it's absolutely worth checking out, just don't expect anything groundbreaking.

The Picross puzzles are fine if mostly overtly simplistic until the last couple that are a weird jump in difficulty, but they get far too long with the 30x30 fake puzzles that are just four together. The BGM is so horribly repetitive too, which makes it even worse, but overall the story mode's solid enough and the art can get nice sometimes (like Sandshrew who gets a neat pose)

I'm not sure what they were thinking with Safari Picross though. The par time limits are horrendously harsh (not helped by how bad the GBC is for filling spaces, and the fact that you can (and will!) erase properly filled spaces for some unexplainable reason) to the point I just abandoned it there and then.

The Mew credits were cute and fun too. I think this game's fine but it is very restricted by the platform it is in and some bad choices. I can only wonder why it was never released.

I did it. I completed all the puzzles that don't require you to go fast, because I'm gonna be honest! I know it's part of the fun for other people but I don't like speedrunning the puzzles. My brain just isn't wired that way.

I also kind of feel like the fact that there's a picture traced on the blocks you're putting down throws me off a bit? Like, they're not a uniform color, so it makes my brain have a little more trouble mentally counting the blocks and slows me down even more. i'm still something of a Picross neophyte so I'm not sure if this is a common Picross thing or if it's unique to this game, but I'm not sure if I like it. The pictures sure are cute though, especially when you get into the Safari Zone! That's some cute stuff. I also think it's cute that you get different Pokemon along the way that change the BGM and aesthetic, but sadly I think the only music I was really into was the Charmander theme, which was a banger.

Pokemon Picross is a prototype that was leaked via the internet, and while I can't say it's 100% a full fledged game, it certainly plays like one. From the extra bits you get from completing a Picross fast enough to the little story marks that seem to parody the Pokemon Anime at the time; Pokemon Picross really does come across as a fully functional game, perhaps more than some other Picross titles out there. It even uses a wide range of pokemon, music, and cutscenes. I was absolutely shocked to see a full credits sequence too, and honestly it pains my heart to think there may be more fully functional games out there that weren't released due to marketing.

Regardless, I don't have much to say about the Picross side, as much of the praise really just comes from the fact they didn't release this game at any capacity. Pokemon Picross plays just like any normal Picross game at the time, and while it does have a few fumbles for it's UI, ultimately it functions on a bare bones level. You simply figure out where to fill the picture with the numbers indicting where they are, and you're all done filling the puzzle. Absolutely nice brain teaser for a gameplay loop, but really not something I haven't seen before. Ultimately, Pokemon Picross just becomes a showcase of an average idea that is made more exciting by putting an IP on it, and while I like Picross, I can see this being a harder sell for kids.

This was a completed but unreleased Pokemon-themed Picross game for Game Boy Color which finally saw the light of day due to a Nintendo hack. It's actually pretty cute, you solve Picross puzzles in the (vague) shape of Pokemon. Yes, all 151 of them. And most of the common inventory items from the game. The biggest downside to this game is that the time penalty is incredibly harsh. You need X number of par scores to move on, which range between 1 and 4 minutes or so. However, each mistake you make is a 1 minute, then 2 minute, then 4 minute, then 8 minute time penalty. Good luck doing Picross on a GBC D-pad and not fucking up. However, the biggest upside is that I am a big brained hackerman who made a romhack which lowers this time penalty down to 10 seconds. You're welcome Nintendo.