Capsule Review: PICROSS e5
A solid budget-priced Picross experience with many puzzles and flexibility in play styles.
The fifth in a series of budget-priced downloadable Picross games for the 3DS.
There are 120 standard Picross puzzles up to 20x15 in size and 30 Mega Picross puzzles up to 15x15 in size, bringing the total up to the familiar 150. And that’s if you don’t have save data from earlier PICROSS e games - saves from e, e2, and e3 each unlock five bonus Mega Picross puzzles, for a total of fifteen. And on top of all that, there are three Micross puzzles.
As in e4, you can choose between Normal and Free rule sets for all puzzles and play them all in your preferred way. Available assist features include Hint Roulette, Hint-Number Auto-Check, and ? Navigation. All assists can be selectively enabled or disabled at any time, except that every fifth standard Picross puzzle disables all assists and must be completed without them for some reason.
Having both buttons and stylus-based touchscreen makes the process of solving puzzles quite smooth. It’s also good that you can’t outright fail any of the puzzles, but if your time (including any penalties if playing a Normal puzzle) comes in under sixty minutes you get the bonus of having the black-and-white picture you’ve created rendered in color instead.
This is a solid Picross experience with a lot of puzzles for the price point. There are no real structural or mechanical improvements over e4, but that still means flexibility in rule sets and optional assists with a large variety of puzzle types and range in sizes. The result is another great entry point, particularly for folks unsure if they enjoy Picross.
I Stopped Playing When: I finished the game by solving all puzzles.
Three Stars: Good. I liked the game enough to finish it (or just play it a bunch, for games that don't end). I recommend it to most genre fans.