There is so much fucking content here, so I'm writing my review after finishing the Kinoko courses. I know that's bad practice, but I know it's just gonna be more of the same but harder that I'll get to eventually. I understand the game well enough by this point.

Being a successful puzzle game on a portable seems like a cheat code for developers and publishers. Tetris is Tetris on every platform, Sudoku is Sudoku on every platform, and Picross is Picross on every platform. It was always gonna be good because Picross is always good.

The only nitpick I have with the game is one QoL aspect that's missing. I wish there was an option to mark or fill in an entire row/column instead of doing it one by one, though I'm sure that's addressed in newer versions of the game. There also could've been more Mario characters, but that's really nothing. Otherwise, I can't think of much bad to say.

You'll enjoy this game as much as you enjoy Picross. I happen to really like it.

Em casos como o desse jogo, é sempre bom pensar que ele talvez seja um produto de sua época, que o Game Boy não conseguiria dar uma experiência tão boa quanto um 3DS ou um Switch, e eu relevo várias das coisas nesse ponto.

Mas dito isso, hoje em dia, ele não é lá o melhor jogo de Picross pra jogar... Os puzzles são meio estranhos (seja pelos picos malucos de dificuldade, seja pela simetria de 80% dos desenhos que quebra um pouco da graça do puzzle), seja pelo limite de tempo e pelas punições absurdas.

Picross é sempre bom, mas se você tem um videogame moderno pra jogar, não precisa voltar tão longe pro Game Boy não.

I'm probably the only person who thinks this, but the beginning of the title screen music sounds like a coked up shark is sneaking up on me to shank my ass.

Mario's Picross really shocked me, I actually completely forgot it existed on Game Boy for the longest time. The amount of content here is astounding, I've been playing it for about two weeks now for like an hour before going to sleep and it doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon! The controls unfortunately do feel a bit laggy, I was ready to blame it squarely on my 10+ year old DS being shit, but I guess the combo of both is why my cursor sometimes feels delayed at times. Otherwise though, this a surprisingly fun picross title for the Game Lad!

Wholly recommended! It's only fifty whole didgeridoos for an American copy! Maybe by 2026 we'll see this game on Switch finally!

Oh boy, it’s Picross! Was this the first outing, or was that something that came before? I’m not super sure, but this is a good puzzle game. I bought this to scratch that Picross itch and it did not disappoint… up until I hit the time attack, anyway. I don’t like that it tosses a random puzzle at you every time instead of giving you a list to work through! I understand it was probably due to system limitations but I like to put puzzles I’m having trouble with down for a while to work on other ones, and I can’t do that with this setup! It’s a thing that was fixed later at least.

It is Jupiter Picross. For a first picross game the puzzles here do a good job of slowly forcing you to logically derive advanced picross strategies without just telling you them directly. While the puzzles only go up to 15x15 they still can get pretty challenging especially on the time trial mode. The timed mode makes a nice balance where getting squares wrong makes you lose time which can be used strategically to figure out tough spots, but the time penalties are strict enough to stop your from spamming it. The trial mode itself is a natural endpoint if the game where you have to make do without the previous mode's time based hints. The problem with the time trial mode is that rather then it being layed out in an 8 x 8 level select like the past modes the game will just randomly give you 1 of the 64 time trial puzzles to complete for a leaderboard time, which makes figuring out 100% completion hard. The pointer is also a little bit sluggish which made me misplace a few blocks more times then it should have, but beyond that Mario's Picross is a masterclass version of a classic puzzle game that does a great job teaching you the ropes.

Have you ever played a game where you wished there were less content?

Mario's Picross is that. I enjoyed my time a lot, and Picross still gets me hooked, but I'm starting to feel like it's less of genuine enjoyment and more of an obsession of seeing boxes filled and checked.
I also don't actually enjoy the time limit system, and I felt like some of the puzzles near the end were a bit too dependent on either educated guessing or using the hint system which I didn't use.

Of course, this was a full price game intended to be completed over a longer period of time, I'm sure, and grinding through it over roughly a week probably didn't help...