Mario's Super Picross was my first Picross game ever, and my first impressions were nothing short of magical. I got hooked immediately, and in a summer full of boring Zoom classes, mental health issues and a general sense of ennui and listlessness I sought an escape from, Mario's Super Picross was it. I grinded through so much of the game and loved every bit of it.
To quote my initial review:
"this is potentially one of the best games on the nintendo switch library
i cannot imagine my life before picross anymore."
... But that was one year ago. I've finished this game just five minutes ago (as of this writing), and my feelings have shifted quite considerably.
The first thing I have to say is that Mario's Super Picross is one of very few games I've played where I can confidently say there's far too much content. Time after time, I've cleared out levels and modes thinking "wow, that was hard! I think that's about all that this game can throw at me."
And I was wrong, time and time again. The game has 300 whole puzzles, and the later ones can easily take up anywhere from thirty minutes to an entire hour to solve.
My total clocked time was over ninety hours, and... I think that's far too much. I doubt I've played some games I unabashedly love, games I tell myself I could go back to time and time again, for as long.
And I don't unabashedly love this game. The difficulty spike peaks, being extremely generous, around puzzle 250, and I'd say anything past 200 is honestly excessive already.
I'll take a tangent real quick and note that for a game simultaneously titled Mario's Super Picross and Wario's Super Picross, there's a noted lack of Mario and Wario here. Finding Wario's EX puzzles was a breakthrough moment for me in terms of what I think Picross is capable of, and it's a shame that it was so underutilized.
Wario's EX puzzles are written from his point of view, describing Mario's M emblem as "Bad Guy Mark", and describing his W as a "Hero's Mark", among other things - the sheer implication that these puzzle titles are written from the characters' point of view could have made for really fascinating exploration of characters, potentially even telling a story through overarching themes across puzzle descriptions (if any of you reading this decide to make a Picross game based on this concept -hi, I'm a composer looking to write music for video games! ...wait, i should actually bring this up to a friend who actually considered making a picross game).
Mario's Super Picross ultimately explores so very little about this concept, and only at the very tail end of the game. It's extremely disappointing.
So what you have left is an addictive, bloated game that doesn't do anything special. Its biggest draw is being a game that lets you live out the satisfaction of almost infinitely seeing boxes get checked.
"'Video games are bad for you'? That's what they said about rock and roll," said Shigeru Miyamoto once. But Picross might be the one (series of) game I've played that I'd be tempted to describe as "bad for you".
At least, to a certain kind of individual in a certain time. Maybe Mario's Super Picross gave me a kind of reprieve from my listlessness, from the boredom from my online classes - but it never solved anything. It let me so thoroughly escape that it took me arguably too long to truly admit to myself that I was in a position in life that I absolutely did not want to be in, and to go about changing that for myself.
I think the game was added to Nintendo Switch Online at simultaneously the best and worst time possible. It was a time when many people had much less to do, and could use a timesink of a distraction... but also a time where I'd argue that that's likely probably the worst thing a lot of people could have been doing at the time.
It's really funny, actually. I find the concept of Picross a bit too questionable to think this game deserves a high score, but I love the concept of Picross and its potential far too much to give this game an actually low score.
It's a great paradox of a game. I'll never forget it.
To quote my initial review:
"this is potentially one of the best games on the nintendo switch library
i cannot imagine my life before picross anymore."
... But that was one year ago. I've finished this game just five minutes ago (as of this writing), and my feelings have shifted quite considerably.
The first thing I have to say is that Mario's Super Picross is one of very few games I've played where I can confidently say there's far too much content. Time after time, I've cleared out levels and modes thinking "wow, that was hard! I think that's about all that this game can throw at me."
And I was wrong, time and time again. The game has 300 whole puzzles, and the later ones can easily take up anywhere from thirty minutes to an entire hour to solve.
My total clocked time was over ninety hours, and... I think that's far too much. I doubt I've played some games I unabashedly love, games I tell myself I could go back to time and time again, for as long.
And I don't unabashedly love this game. The difficulty spike peaks, being extremely generous, around puzzle 250, and I'd say anything past 200 is honestly excessive already.
I'll take a tangent real quick and note that for a game simultaneously titled Mario's Super Picross and Wario's Super Picross, there's a noted lack of Mario and Wario here. Finding Wario's EX puzzles was a breakthrough moment for me in terms of what I think Picross is capable of, and it's a shame that it was so underutilized.
Wario's EX puzzles are written from his point of view, describing Mario's M emblem as "Bad Guy Mark", and describing his W as a "Hero's Mark", among other things - the sheer implication that these puzzle titles are written from the characters' point of view could have made for really fascinating exploration of characters, potentially even telling a story through overarching themes across puzzle descriptions (if any of you reading this decide to make a Picross game based on this concept -
Mario's Super Picross ultimately explores so very little about this concept, and only at the very tail end of the game. It's extremely disappointing.
So what you have left is an addictive, bloated game that doesn't do anything special. Its biggest draw is being a game that lets you live out the satisfaction of almost infinitely seeing boxes get checked.
"'Video games are bad for you'? That's what they said about rock and roll," said Shigeru Miyamoto once. But Picross might be the one (series of) game I've played that I'd be tempted to describe as "bad for you".
At least, to a certain kind of individual in a certain time. Maybe Mario's Super Picross gave me a kind of reprieve from my listlessness, from the boredom from my online classes - but it never solved anything. It let me so thoroughly escape that it took me arguably too long to truly admit to myself that I was in a position in life that I absolutely did not want to be in, and to go about changing that for myself.
I think the game was added to Nintendo Switch Online at simultaneously the best and worst time possible. It was a time when many people had much less to do, and could use a timesink of a distraction... but also a time where I'd argue that that's likely probably the worst thing a lot of people could have been doing at the time.
It's really funny, actually. I find the concept of Picross a bit too questionable to think this game deserves a high score, but I love the concept of Picross and its potential far too much to give this game an actually low score.
It's a great paradox of a game. I'll never forget it.