At first I imagined a game about 5x5 grids would be quite boring for picross veterans, but I was wildly surprised by how much they can make such tiny puzzles feel interesting.

Picross X trades the laid back puzzle solving for a fast paced action marathon of solving little squares and it works. I played with touch controls and I feel like it is necessary for the optimal experience, playing with buttons feels clunky and slow. The game adapts itself to each control scheme, but touch controls are definitely the most fun way of playing.

Over time the luster does fade a bit, even with all the variety in gimmicks it feels like you have seen too much of everything. This doesn't erase the achievement of creating a fun action version of Picross, and I really enjoyed my time with it.

A remake of my favorite game ever, yeah it's still decent. BUT, there are some reallyyyyyyyy weird-ass changes in this version that perplex the hell out of me and also ruin some parts of the game surprisingly. Why didn't this get the OoT treatment and just have the graphics updated and implement some quality-of-life features? Especially with the boss changes. Like, come on, why does every boss get fitted with a glowing eyeball as its weakness. I couldn't believe that when I first played it. Why were the swimming mechanics taken out behind the woodshed and put down, when they were some of the most fluid swimming controls around. Why did the Sheikah Stones get turned into hand-holding walkthroughs when the game gives players all of the information they need to give them a sense of self-gratification when they complete anything in this game on their own. This should've been a slam dunk but it just wasn't. Kind of a shame...