I hate saying this one disappointed me a bit. Maybe it isn't the game's fault because Rouge-likes are hit or miss for me, but I gave it a go anyway because Shovel Knight's one of my favorite games ever, why wouldn't I? Well, it ends up feeling a little tiresome after a while because of how often you're at the mercy of what the games gives you to build with. I can get a good run where I get a lot of Max HP sometimes, and thus have less difficulty surviving, but some runs it just doesn't give me any Max HP upgrades and I end up too fragile to reliably survive the lower parts of the dungeon.

Shovel Knight's hard level design works because fairly generous checkpointing allows you to learn the level design, and dying doesn't hurt so bad. Dying here feels awful because I'm trying to learn the mechanics of the water level's elements, only to get killed and not see the water level again for another half-hour because you start from the very beginning of the game, thus learning the level design becomes a chore. This came to a head when I got to the final level, reached a part that looked like a dead-end, couldn't find out how to progress, and then the drilling machine killed me. What did I do wrong? I'm not gonna find out until I play literally the entire game over again! It wants the Shovel Knight difficulty but still wants the perma-death of a Rogue-like.

Speaking of the drilling machine, I can't help but be shocked you can't turn that off in the options. Pocket Dungeon had such versatile customizable difficulty right down to removing its time limit entirely if you wanted. Why can't I do the same with Dig? The game would certainly kill me a lot less if I was allowed to take my time more.

The procedurally generated level design also rides the fine line of being sort of mish-mash, but also having whole segments that you start easily recognizing more and more. Especially in the first level, Mushroom Mines. Shovel Knight got it so right because every bit of the level design felt intentional and well thought-out, where here it's feeling a little more scattered because segments don't organically lead into one-another as well.

In the end it's still as solid as any Shovel Knight game, but this feels like a notable step down from everything else under the name. At least the pixel-art is gorgeous and the music is a banger, as usual.

Whoever escaped the Abenomics-era Konami developer prison to make this and keep it mostly ad-free for a couple of years: I salute you. May your cockles be warm and your curry plate tasty.

Jupiter took their precious sweet time doing more Picross collabs with IPs from corps like SEGA, yet the company no one expected put this out for free. And it barely feels like a free-to-play monstrosity, either! I picked up Pixel Puzzle Collection back around release since I wanted a meaty mobile game for the road, but got plenty more than I'd hoped for. There's a decades-spanning rogues' gallery of cool references made into nonograms here, from Frogger to Tokimeki Memorial. Playing these in a randomized sequence, albeit tuned for difficulty, makes it a smooth stop-and-go experience. I didn't realize that I'd gotten far into the total puzzles list until reaching the first batch of big multi-piece pictures, a good sign if ever.

UI and touch precision responsiveness are everything in a mobile nonogram app like this. I'm happy to report that, while a little stiff at times, this still feels better to use than the much bigger, easily discoverable competitors on the iOS marketplace. It rarely feels like I'm fat-fingering myself into a misplaced pip I'll regret later, or that I can't quickly redo grid sections when needed. This matters once you reach the game's second loop (its "Hard Mode"), where the inability to mark X pips means you must fill each line more carefully. After all, how am I gonna make my Shiori Fujisaki solutions come true if I keep messing up thirty minutes back?! (That's still more generous than the games she's from, no doubt.)

Pixel Puzzle Collection feels like an M2 employee's pet project at times, the kind of passionate mega-mini-game you'd make in the shadows and then slap into one of their compilations like it's nothing. This stood out five years ago mainly because it stood against all the stereotypes Konami's earned in recent years, most of which oppose that which this Picross set exalts. It's telling how classic Hudson Soft icons and characters from many games share plenty of space with the core Konami crew, as the corporation had become awfully good at erasing Hudson's history from digital stores by this point. There's nothing quite like hopping from Ganbare Goemon to Star Solider in a moment's notice, let's just put it that way.

For less experienced nonogram heads, there's a smartly designed hint system in play here. You get three daily solutions to use for any puzzle (plus the add for "boss" grids), and then a 10-minute cooldown for each new one after those. I like this more than the overly generous equivalents I see on my other phone Picross apps, and it feels naturally tuned to how much attention I'd give a hard puzzle before moving on. All I want now is more, which I guess is too much for Konami since they've done nothing for Pixel Puzzle Collection these past few years except shove more ads in. They really want you playing any other mobile game that could squeeze more coin, as if a prestige experience like this is somehow hurting their bottom line enough to deserve such harm. I hope whoever coded/designed the game is having an alright time, wherever they are.

All this sounds frustrating and it is when you consider how well Nintendo treats Jupiter's Picross works. Even then, the official Picross games you can get on the eShop now feel creatively stagnant, or just unwilling to toy with riskier concepts like that company used to. I'm not saying this weird misbegotten Konami counterpart is innovative, either, but it had so much sequel potential that's just getting squandered over time. Indie scene developers are taking the genre in all sorts of new directions while those who can access the kinds of resources Nintendo & Konami have are getting screwed. And I find it harder to recommend Pixel Puzzle Collection now because, while the core game's unchanged, all the new ads and annoyances remind you of what could have been. But I think it's still an easy choice for game fans who are either into nonograms or could use a cute diversion playing on nostalgia without feeling like a copout.

Wanted to play this before the eshop starts falling apart and it will no longer be possible to have an organic experience as the game was inteded to be played as. Pretty unique and cute for a free to play game, I’ve never really seen a game be handled like this before. Bartering with a virtual shop keeper with real world money on paper sounds like it could be very predatory, but Nintendo did a good job of keeping it a good value. If you play the game as intended, to complete the main storyline you only need to spend $10, and then like an extra $5 if you want the bonus minigames. The process of haggeling is pretty fun, because there is something real and tangible on the line of winning, your real world money. The mini games arent bad either, going into this game I wasn’t expecting them to be as fleshed out as they were so their pretty cool. The game itself is a pretty unique genre blend of Visual Novel and Arcade Sports game. And the story itself is pretty engaging, it definitely plays with your conceptions of what a Nintendo game story about a Baseball loving dog for kids can and cant be. It’s sad that within a years time from writing this review, the true way of playing this game will be lost forever. Maybe Nintendo will make a sequel to it one day, I doubt it though due to how much the gaming landscape has evolved in regards to opinions on micro transactions and in game gambling laws since 2013, which is understandable. But regardless, this was the most “Nintendo way” of Nintendo doing their first free to play game that you can come up with.