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.

Reviewed on Sep 21, 2021


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