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"Thinking back to the classic puzzle games on the various Nintendo handhelds will inevitably lead you to the original Gameboy's Tetris, Columns or maybe even Puzzle League on the Gameboy Colour. You are unlikely to remember a little sleeper hit that was known as Mario's Picross. However, anyone that has played this game will know how addictive and ahead of its day it was."
Full Source:
DS-x2.com
"Falling blocks or pieces are a common standard for many handheld puzzle games, but Picross DS will rattle your mind in a different way. Instead of worrying about falling tetrominoes or rising tiles you will be challenging your mind to fill out and solve picture crosswords. With Picross DS, Nintendo revives an old puzzle game that has, for the most part, remained within Japan."
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N-Philes
"The basics of Picross are a little hard to explain but I'll give it a shot any way. There is a grid separated into sections; let's say for the sake of demonstration that we have one 15 squares wide by 15 squares high. Each row has a set of numbers attached to it; for our example, let's say one row has 1 2 1. This means that you must fill in one square, then there must be at least one space skipped, then you must fill in two squares, leave at least one blank, then fill in one last square. Which squares you fill in and which squares you leave alone are all dependant on a variety of factors including the surrounding rows and the image that you are trying to draw."
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Gamepro
"In 1995, Nintendo first tried to introduce the world to idea of a picross game with Mario Picross on the Game Boy. While it did well in Japan, the game failed to attract audiences in North America.
Fast forward twelve years later, and with a new stylus-controlled handheld in the form of the Nintendo DS, the picross game is back in the form of Picross DS. While the game itself is pretty much still the same, it's not only more fun and intuitive on the DS, but has a great learning curve that will allow just about anyone to pick up and play the newest title in Nintendo's Touch Generations line."
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Blog Critics
"If you’re one of the many people who hate math then you’re probably thinking that a mathematic puzzler wouldn’t be your cup of tea. Chances are, though, you’d be surprised by just how entertaining and addictive Picross DS is.
Years and years ago, Nintendo released Mario’s Picross for the Game Boy, which for all extensive purposes bombed in North America. While the Big N decided not to bring the game’s sequel to the Americas after the seriously lackluster sales, thankfully it’s giving North America another chance to fall in love with nanogram puzzles with Picross DS. And if you give the admittedly simple-sounding-game a chance, chances are you’ll do just that: fall in love."
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Advanced Media Network
"Picross makes its return to the DS and it is far from a shoddy port. Picross DS is a full-fledged game, complete with online play and user-created digital distribution. If you are not familiar with Picross, it’s a puzzle game using a grid with a set of pre-determined numbers, a la Sudoku. You fill in boxes to reveal a picture, such as a star or a phone. This game is an absolute blast, whether you’re pushing through the countless single-player puzzles, battling or sharing with friends over Wi-Fi. For only $20, this is a great steal for you puzzle lovers or anyone in need of a game with plenty of bang for your buck."
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Total Gamer Zone via
Gonintendo
"I've got something you've probably never heard before. Games aren't for crazy people like us any longer. They are for all of the normal people out there. Nintendo's latest foray into this market is a Touch Generations puzzle title called Picross DS. Before you read any farther, if you don't know what Picross is, make sure you check out our preview for the game. It'll explain just how you play."
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Nintendo World Report
"The incredible popularity of the daily Sudoku newspaper puzzles (as well as the umpteen Nintendo DS games) has set a fire under Nintendo's butt to go back to its classic roots and revive one of its less remembered Game Boy games. Picross has been around for years and has a place in many gamers' hearts, but clearly without the Sudoku craze Nintendo arguably wouldn't have brought back the design. It's a good thing it did: Picross DS is easily one of the most addictive and engaging pick-up-and-play puzzle games released on the Nintendo DS, and the clean, sterile Nintendo DS redesign fits the "casual gamer" demographic perfectly. Pass this one up and you'll be missing out on one of the finest DS titles yet created."
Full Source:
IGN
"Picross, short for picture crossword, is a puzzle not entirely unlike Sudoku, in that it forces you to use logic to deduce the particulars of the puzzle. But rather than focusing solely on numbers, Picross has you using numbers to determine which boxes in a grid get punched out to eventually form a picture or a pattern. With a ton of puzzles to keep veterans busy and a helpful tutorial mode to get new players up to speed, Picross DS is the sort of game that will keep you staring at your Nintendo DS long into the night."
Full Source:
Gamespot
"You hate math? Yeah, so do I. So that means we probably agree that Sudoku is an exercise in mind-numbing tedium at best and a blight upon mankind at worst. It's interesting for a little while, until you realize you're basically just arranging and rearranging the same nine-by-nine grid of one through nine, nine times apiece. Like me, you probably hate the way that stops being a game after a while and degenerates into mundane obsessive-compulsion.
Picross DS, though -- Picross is great! Really great. Which is weird, because it's a game about math. Well, sort of. It's not so much about fitting numbers into a grid as it is using numbers to create pictures in the grid. Picross -- that is, "picture crossword" -- includes a hundred or so different puzzles to solve."
Full Source:
1-up
"The concept of Picross has been around since the 80s and most recently on the SNES in 2000 as Picross NP, so it seemed inevitable that a new version would finally arrive on the DS. For those not in the know, Picross DS is an odd hybrid of Minesweeper, crosswords and Sudoku that has never bothered pushing the limits of presentation, opting to keep things visually simple while delivering a challenging puzzle experience that will more often than not make your brain hurt.
Trying to explain the basic premise can be an exercise in futility, but here's a little run-down: Along the top and side of the puzzle are sets of numbers that represent clues as to how many blocks are represented in each row and column. So if a column has 2-1-2 at the top then you know it contains 2 consecutive blocks, followed by a single and 2 more blocks. By referencing the numbers given on the side of the puzzle, you can deduce the pattern you need to complete. Sure, it sounds boring as hell and for many of you, it probably isn't much fun. Picross is for the Sudoku crowd, not the Meteos group and you should be clear on that before entering the fray."
Full Source:
GameAlmighty
"Picross DS is very much a puzzle game, despite its attempt to lure you in to its grids with a slow, comforting pace of gameplay. It can instill those emotions of tension as the clock ticks away or those almost-insurmountable mental hurdles we stumble upon so frequently in the genre arise, however. So, in a lot of ways, Picross DS is a genre-breaking title, taking things here and there, patching them together into a brand new game. A fun game."
Full Source:
DSFanboy
"When it comes to puzzle games, I'm not usually the guy you'd go to. Crosswords make me cross-eyed, word jumbles often cause hemorrhages in my brain, and aside from the "uber-hard" word searches there aren't too many logic or word puzzles I can really get into. Once sudoku hit DS along with Brain Age, however, I was hooked, and while I'm not the best logic puzzle guru out there (I'm more prone to online matches of Tetris DS than going head-to-head with local sudoku pro Craig Harris) DS got me absolutely hooked on the game."
Full Source:
IGN
"Picross is a simple puzzle game concept that has been around almost as long as video games. Given the current popularity of Sudoku, many people will draw comparisons between the two games. Firstly, both games don't require any sort of electronics. Traditionally they can be solved using just a pencil. They also both take place on a grid of squares. That is where the similarities end though. In Picross you never actually write a single digit. Instead you use the clues given to fill in certain squares in the grid. When completed, a pictures of some sort is revealed. Interestingly enough, Picross DS is not Nintendo's first release to feature the puzzle game. Mario's Picross was released in 1995 for the original Game Boy. Picross DS will actually feature some of the puzzles from that original game."
Full Source:
Nintendo World Report
"There are plenty of puzzle games on the DS, but the bulk of them fall squarely into the "block manipulation" category. Well, block manipulation and a few sudoku variants. What if you want a change from the typical puzzle action? Then, my friend, you're going to want to check out Nintendo's upcoming Picross DS. We've spent some time with the import version, and it's gotten us even more fired up for the North American release next month."
Full Source:
Gamespy
"'Looks aren't everything' is the sort of wisdom a dutiful mother bestows on her pasty-faced offspring. It might be good for their self-esteem, but it shouldn't give them too much heart when trying to chat up the prettiest totty on the Friday night dance floor.
When it comes to the latest instalment in Nintendo's extraordinarily popular 'Touch! Generations' series though, it's fair to say one of the plainest games ever released on DS demonstrates hidden depths. Picross DS is so devilishly addictive, it could carry a government health warning."
Full Source:
Pocketgamer.co.uk
"To most people, Picross just sound like any other Japanese logic game out there - after all, there are hundreds of different puzzle games out there, each trying to be popular as the reigning champion, Sudoku. But Nintendo’s puzzle choice has been Picross since the original Game Boy game in 1995. In Japan, we’ve had not only two GB incarnations, but an amazing nine Picross games for the Super Famicom through their downloadable distribution system. And now that we have the first official game for the DS released, can it exceed other versions of the game, and maybe even beat Sudoku from the top spot in the puzzle world?"
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Cubed3
"Don't I feel the fool? I've just scrapped the first attempt at an introduction to this review after discovering that both Picross and Sudoku are actually a whole lot older than I thought they were. Both games were invented in Japan in the mid-late 80s and have been popular ever since, and Nintendo has even released a whole host of Picross games from the mid-90s onwards (almost all of which were Japan-only). So yeah, egg, face, etc. Not that you're ever going to see what I originally wrote, but essentially this is the first time I've come across Picross, and along with most of the Western world, Sudoku only came to my attention as the craze steadily built over the last few years."
Full Source:
IGN
"Although Picross has been available for a while in Japan, the North American release is coming out on July 30th, and Nintendo had it on display at last week's Nintendo Media Summit.
The premise behind Picross is kind of hard to explain, but I'll try anyway: It's a type of mathematical crossword puzzle with an image-based theme. It kind of feels like Minesweeper at times but kind of feels like Suduko at other times. As you can see from the screenshots below, you are given a grid with numbers on the outside edge. You have to figure out from the numbers what pattern of squares should be filled in on the grid, with mistakes costing you big penalties on your overall time score. Once you've completed the puzzle, you reveal a picture in the pattern on the grid. The larger the grid, the more complex the picture."
Full Source:
Joystiq
