The first Picross 3D was released in 2010 on the DS and immediately became a beloved title for fans of puzzle games. America and Japan have already received its sequel for the 3DS, Picross 3D: Round 2, but Europe has to wait a little longer in order to play the newest title. I was able to play a little bit of the game and I must say, I’m looking forward to its release in less than two weeks.
The gameplay of Picross 3D: Round 2 is fairly simple. Color and remove cubes until you’ve completed the puzzle. A completed puzzle transforms into a figure and rewards you with a medal and points. Each puzzle can be completed on three difficulty settings: easy, normal and hard. Like many other games, solving puzzles on the highest difficulty rewards you with more points and better medals. Groups of puzzles are each centered around a certain theme, for example, the color red. You unlock more themes by earning a certain amount of medals or points.
For those who don’t know what picross puzzles are, it’s kind of like a mix of minesweeper and Sudoku. The game gives you a set amount of rows that consists out of small cubes. One the side of each row is a number that tells you how many cubes have to be colored in that specific row. Should you have a row of five cubes with the number ‘3’ on the side, then that means that three of those five cubes have to be painted, while the two other cubes have to be removed. It is up to you to find out which cube has to be painted and destroyed. Like in the first Picross 3D, this game gives you three-dimensional rows of cubes, increasing the difficulty and complexity of the puzzles. What is new in this title, however, is that there are now two colors of paint instead of one. The blue paint simply turns a cube blue, while the orange paint transforms the cube into any kind of shape you can think of. This makes the puzzles more challenging and is a great addition to the gameplay. Every puzzle is designed in such a way that you can solve it in a couple of minutes, which encourages playing multiple puzzles after each other instead of having to waste your time on one that’s overly complicated. I must say, however, that every puzzle I played in this preview was fairly easy to solve. Hopefully, there will be some tough puzzles to solve in the complete package because otherwise, you won’t get much satisfaction out of completing every puzzle.
Picross 3D: Round 2 also features Amiibo puzzles. If you have a New 3DS or a regular 3DS with a NFC reader, you can unlock additional puzzles that are themed around that specific Amiibo. While I wasn’t able to play any of these since I don’t have a NFC reader, it’s nice to know that you will be able to play new puzzles in the future, even if you have completed the base game. And with the current amount of Amiibo there exist, solving every single puzzle will probably take some time.
Early conclusion
Picross 3D: Round 2 has impressed me so far. If the final version of the game will feature some more challenging puzzles, then this might be one of my favorite games of this year. Fans of the puzzle genre should keep an eye out for this title.
