The real vaccine is the friends we made along the way.

This game is pretty crazy, color picross + minesweeper. There's a story mode where you engage with a given character, and the images the picrosses create follows the narrative of each character. The characters are all pretty cute and their stories are nice, too.

Mechanically, this game is pretty sinful. It occasionally breaks the one rule of picross: on very few puzzles you have to guess where to put a certain tile. Although, you can make an educated guess based on multiple factors, including the patterns that you've built thus far. The kicker is, you fail out of the whole stage if you make 5 wrong calls. There were a few 20x20+ puzzles where I ended up making my 5th mistake over 30 mins into the stage, it's quite punishing. Additionally, on the story levels, you have to solve the puzzle within a certain amount of time. I think I only timed out on like two or three stages though. Either way, all these aspects can make for tense and somewhat infuriating times. Maybe the amount of errors allowed should have been increased with puzzle size. Be it on a 5v5 puzzle or a 30x20 puzzle, you are only allowed 4 mistakes before it fails you and you have to restart the whole thing.

Also they should have let you customize the music and character when you do the non-story puzzles. This game has some good music but for some reason you're stuck with the same one for the ~50 nonstory puzzles. I wouldn't recommend this as someone's first picross game. I think it's a good exception to the standard one, though. Also you don't need to know japanese to play it, but I'd say like half the fun or so comes from the characters and their arcs.

this fixed some of the timing problems parappa had. It's still pretty finnicky, but not as frustrating on average than parappa. At first I thought this game was much worse than it is, idk if my disc is scratched or something but it had no cutscenes between each song. I was pretty disappointed because I just thought they didn't exist, but I looked it up later and realized I just missed out I guess? Or maybe they don't appear if you save between each song? idk :(
Anyways I didn't like how little you could hear the music if you were ever doing bad or awful, it really disincentivized you to actually play at that point because you couldn't even hear what you were supposed to recreate. Regardless, I was able to pass a couple songs because I did well at the end and could barely hear them when I actually played. After relistening to the songs, I only really liked the baby and idol one. maybe it's because my playthrough was messed up, but I feel like they could have done a lot more with this. I don't mean that in terms of number of songs, but I just feel like a lot more happened in parappa.

this was so fun up until the last level. I spent 30 minutes total between levels 1-5 and then took 5+ hrs on level 6. a lot had to do with that I didn't know each heal would subsequently heal less, making the level unbeatable. there is no indication of this, but only take the heals at the end of the first two parts and then somewhere in between on the last part if necessary. also with the last level, you have to do each part without taking an extra lap. imo they should have allowed like at least two tries per part. this part was such a fun killer because you had to play it exactly like they wanted. my brain would be more attentive watching youtube kids for 5 hrs rather than grind that level for 5 hrs.
aside from that, this game is so cool, love the vibes, and the music is amazing. I was quite happy playing this up until that last level. If you play this, you should probably just use like a cheat that gives you infinite time or something on that last level, or just stop at the last level. fun stuff
oh yeah the controls are very stiff but it's not really a problem except for one part, prior to the last level

I learned there was a remastered version, should probably definitely play that. The timing is like very wrongly portrayed in the first one so you will just fail out unless you learn the timing they want.
Aside from the very blatant flaw when playing, the actual game is awesome. The style and music are super fun, just ignore the ps1 version if you don't want that mood killed lol. I haven't played the newer versions, but I assume/hope they fix timing stuff. I'd probably give it a 4 star without the timing issue.

I know this is like a pretty revered game by the few eng speakers that have played this so I had some hesitancy going into it. I went into this especially blind aside from knowing it was a go-at-your-own pace game. I really did take my time because my entire playthrough spanned 10 months to the day, with my play time clocking at 12.5 hours lol.

At first, like maybe for the second in-game week, I was missing a couple key items that really opened up the map. During those days I was kinda losing interest so I looked up how to progress in one area. There is so much to do, or rather miss, in this game. And that's the point, the game expects you to make your own memories with what is available. There is a lot to be learned game-wise that can really change up future playthroughs, leading to different experiences person to person.

As for the actual themes, reasoning, and aim of the game; it was fun, pleasant, and bittersweet at times. It got me pretty emotional on some days, be it empty, at ease, curious, or happy. The characters, their stories, and their interactions make this game special. It's all really delicate. By that I don't mean like "vulnerable," although I wouldn't completely exclude that either. It's like, you can make a friend by bonding over something insignificant. Regardless, that friendship can become something meaningful. This is just as true the other way around. Inversely, the littlest actions from those you cherish can result in a big impact. It doesn't take much to have or give influence, especially at a young age. Especially when surrounded by welcoming people.

They had a lot of creativity with this one, most levels felt very unique. I loved all the new enemies and designs in this, it's a treat whenever mario games creates a new world with whole new characters and this is no exception in that regard. Part of me feels like they picked up some ideas from mario maker levels (better coin indicators, quiz level, cheesy invis blocks in the "puzzle levels" lol). Oh yeah and the badges are a great addition. Multiplayer is good too. I think the presentation couldn't have been better, fun stuff