Review of Mario Picross, as emulated on the 3DS

Review of Mario Picross, as emulated on the 3DS

I’ve another video game review, for those few of you that are interested.  Don’t groan!  I’ll get back to Victorian Evil soon enough.

This game came to me due to a major turnaround in Nintendo’s business logic, and I couldn’t be happier.  Nintendo, a giant in the industry of making games that are now too small to be easily marketable, is now offering free downloads of some of their many decades of incredible game design.  The downloads are hardly free, as you have to fill out product surveys for Nintendo before they assign you coins.  Coins can be traded on Club Nintendo for classics of the month.

Mario Picross is a perfect example of those many such gems that I missed, so many years ago.  The 4 shade of grey Gameboy game features Mario sitting around doing nothing, and instead draws its strengths from Picross.  For those unfamiliar, Picross is a puzzle game for a 2D field.

The length and width of the field are labeled with numbers indicating how many blocks can be found in that row/column.  The rest is using the clues and deductive logic to find the blocks exact positions.  Wrong answers cost 2 minutes apiece, but can also be flagged so that you don’t forget your own deductions.  Like all of the truly brilliant puzzle games, it is remarkably simple to learn, but difficult to master.

As said above, Mario brings his name and face, but nothing else.  Iconic faces from the Nintendo universes sometimes appear as puzzles, but otherwise this game is sheer, raw, and brilliant Picross.  As for why you should want it, I suppose that I have already betrayed my bias, haven’t I?

There is nothing truly Nintendo or Mario about this game, but as a free download for filling out surveys about Super Smash Bros Brawl and Pokémon, this solid little Picross title can’t be beat.  I’ll warn anyone unsure about this download to Google Picross before sinking 100 coins into though, as the game is much the same as any other version you could find.

And oh yeah, I should mention how gratifying this little slice of nostalgia has become.  Mario Picross has a clever score, nothing that will win any awards, but a jazzy set of numbers that support the puzzle environment.  The four shades of grey again prove not to be a limitation, but a trip down memory lane for me.  That said, the lack of colors doesn’t look any better than colors, only fitting to the package.  I missed this, I can’t tell you how much.

And hey, the price is right too.  Common Nintendo, let’s have some more of this.  Games like this make the 3DS easier to cost justify all of the time.  Can you remember when we didn’t need all of this help?  Strange, I think I just grew up a little.  Lame!