Game Beat! Pokemon Picross (3DS)

Date Beaten: May 27th, 2022
Time to Beat: 76 hours, 41 minutes
Completion Status: 100%! All puzzles finished, all challenges complete, and got all achievements!

Picross games are generally tricky ones for me to talk about. They’re pretty simple to play number-puzzle games, so they should be easy to explain. I’ve even mentioned them plenty of times on my Youtube channel. However, Picross games tend to be very similar to each other (and rarely do games make changes to the rules), so I have trouble trying to talk about any one Picross game without constantly repeating myself. I could just not give an explanation every time, but they aren’t as well known as other puzzles like crosswords or Sudoku. Because of that, I feel like if I skip any sort of explanation, then most people won’t know what the heck I’m talking about (especially when I can’t get good footage to showcase my point). I think I just need to make a video or something about Picross in general, so I can just point everyone to that video and not have to explain the game every single time lol. Since that video doesn’t exist yet (although there might be someone else who has made a good intro video…), I’ll just give a super quick and dirty explanation on what Picross is, before getting into the actual game review.

What is Picross?

Picross is a puzzle game, where the goal is to fill in squares on a grid to make a picture. In each column and row, is a number or set of numbers that tell you how many squares should be filled in for the picture. If one row/column has a number 3 beside it, then that means there are 3 squares you need to fill in that row/column. If a row/column has a set of numbers beside it, that indicates that there are separate groups (with empty spaces between each group) that need to be filled in that row/column. For example, if a row had “3”, “7”, and “2”, beside it then that row needs a group of 3 squares filled in, then 1+ unfilled spaces, then a filled group of 7, then another 1+ unfilled spaces, and then a filled group of 2. The numbers MUST be filled in that order, but it’s possible for the row/column to start or end with unfilled squares.

Using these numbers, you find the squares that MUST be filled in, which will then narrow done the possibilities for other rows/columns, allowing you to fill in squares you couldn’t previously. Gradually you work your way through the other rows & columns until the puzzle is finally complete.

An example of a mostly completed puzzle from Pokemon Picross’s eshop page.

There are also a few common variants that change up how you solve the puzzle, such as Mega Picross and Color Picross. In addition, depending on which Picross game you play, there may be additional rules or features, such as time limits or hints for where you can fill in squares. However, I don’t really feel like going into that all here, so I’ll just leave that for a video or I’ll mention features on the specific game reviews.

Now that I’ve gotten that all out of the way, let’s get into some stuff that’s specific to Pokemon Picross.

The Review

Pokemon Picross is a free-to-play (or “free-to-start” as Nintendo likes to say) Picross game developed by Jupiter. Jupiter has made MANY Picross games over the years, and it’s essentially the only type of games they make nowadays. I’ve played a few of them in the past, and I find that they tend to be solid, well polished Picross games.

The Puzzle Modes

Before getting into the goods and bads and such, I just want to point out the main modes of the game. In this particular entry, you have:

Normal - Just the standard type of puzzles that I explained earlier.
Alt-World - Also known as Mega Puzzles in other Jupiter games, these are pretty much the same as the normal puzzles, except they have an additional type of number that spans multiple rows/columns. I don’t want to get into explaining exactly how they work here since they’re a bit more complicated, but just know that they’re there.
Murals - Here you have two giant murals made up of many smaller puzzles (which you unlock throughout the game) in which you can’t use any special Pokemon abilities. You only see the final picture once you complete all of the smaller puzzles. I’ve seen a lot of different names for these kind of puzzles, but in Jupiter’s most recent games they’re called Clip Picross.

These are all very standard puzzle modes, and are in plenty of other Picross games so there aren’t any surprises here. So, let’s get onto the pros & cons!

The Good

Pokemon Abilities

One of the big additions to Pokemon Picross is the addition of Pokemon and their abilities. Normally, this sort of PIcross game would just have Pokemon themed puzzles and end there. Here, however, after you complete the puzzle, you have then caught the Pokemon shown in the solution. With these Pokemon you catch, you can bring them in with you to future puzzles and you can use their abilities to help you out. These abilities vary from filling in a certain number of squares, slowing down or pausing the time, correcting your mistakes, plus a few others. These can really help you out if you’re struggling with a puzzle, and it’s fun to put together a party before starting one. You can’t constantly bring the same Pokemon for each puzzle, as most of them have a cooldown timer before you can use them again. The few that don’t have a cooldown have very weak abilities, but they’re nice to have early on in the game.

Challenges

The other big addition here is the challenges. Each puzzle has a set of challenges, such as finishing the puzzle within a certain amount of time, or using a certain Pokemon ability. They are optional, but you do get a small award for completing them. Usually it will either be Picrites (the in-game currency) or a mural piece for the Mural mode. It’s not a huge addition or anything, but I thought it was fun to try and fulfill these conditions with the best party I could.

The Meh

Challenges: Time Limits & Auto-Correct

Speaking of challenges, there were a few in here that were just way too irritating for me. The two big ones were some of the time limit challenges, and the challenges where you must use a Pokemon with an auto-correct ability.

The time limit one is actually normally fine with me, but where it can get annoying is that sometimes the time limit feels way too short for the puzzle size, combined with the other challenge requirements. Generally the challenges are very reasonable while still being challenging. However quite a few times (especially with the larger puzzles), the challenges ask you to go crazy fast without using any Pokemon abilities. I feel like I can solve puzzles very quickly, but there were plenty of these puzzles where I just could not solve them fast enough for the challenge, even after many attempts. In those cases I just went ahead and just followed a solution for the puzzle. Very annoying.

The challenges that require an auto-correct ability don’t seem so bad at first glance, but there’s an issue with how the ability is activated and when the challenge is considered complete. When you bring a Pokemon with this ability, it automatically activates at the start of the puzzle. The Pokemon will then fix any mistake you make, up to a certain number (the max number of corrections depends on the Pokemon). Once you finish the puzzle, the Pokemon will go on cooldown and you must wait before using it again. Challenge complete! However, what if you don’t make a mistake? Well, the Pokemon still goes on cooldown, but in this case the challenge is NOT counted as complete. This was so frustrating for me, as I often get into the zone while completing puzzles but I don’t always make mistakes. I worked around this by just randomly filling in squares until something gets fixed, but it was so annoying whenever I had to do that. Either count the challenge complete or don’t put the Pokemon on cooldown!

Challenges: Poor Wording

While most of the challenges are worded well enough, I was pretty thrown off by the “Use only the blah skill” challenges. I initially thought it meant that I could either only use that skill, or I could just not use any skill at all. Nope, it really means that I must use that skill at least once. Maybe the wording they used is clear enough to most, but I feel like “Only use blah skill 1 or more times”, would have been clearer. Maybe? Especially so since the challenges that restrict what Pokemon type to use (“Set only Dark-type Pokemon”, for example), can be completed without setting that Pokemon type. You just have to make sure that all the Pokemon you do set match that type.

Finding the Pokemon You Want

Some challenges require that you use a specific Pokemon, like Pikachu or Oddish or whatever. The game does have some sorting options to help you find what you want, such as Name, Pokedex Entry #, and what puzzle sizes you can use them for (weaker Pokemon can’t be used on bigger puzzles). You can also set a filter to only show Pokemon with the ability that you want. However, one thing the game doesn’t have is a search bar. Early on in the game, this is fine enough since you don’t have many Pokemon anyway. Once you get more Pokemon, however (apparently there are over 300 total?!), it very quickly becomes an issue.

Since abilities are tied to the Pokemon’s type (electric, grass, water, etc), if you know what type the Pokemon is, then that’s the easiest way to find them. The catch is that Pokemon that normally have multiple types, only have one in Pokemon Picross. There is some overlap in abilities, like with Rock and Ground, so a Pokemon like Geodude (rock/ground) is still easy enough to find this way. However there are still plenty of Pokemon types that don’t overlap. In that case, which type will a Pokemon be here? I have no idea, and I can’t seem to figure out the rhyme or reason to it! Just a few examples: Oddish (grass/poison) is grass, Gyarados (water/flying) is flying, Beedrill (bug/poison) is poison, and Quagmire (water/ground) is ground.

If you don’t know the Pokemon’s type, then you better get cracking at going through your collection of Pokemon! I’ve skipped over the Pokemon I needed plenty of times this way. Plus, while you can sort by Pokemon name, you can only sort from A-Z. You can’t jump to the end of the collection either, so if the Pokemon is closer to the end of the alphabet, you’ll have to scroll for a while. You can also sort by Pokedex entry #, but it has the same problem as sorting alphabetically and I’m personally not familiar with which Pokemon are what numbers anyway. What doesn’t help is that going through the collection is just a slow process regardless. Even better is when you don’t even have the Pokemon yet! I wish there was at least some indicator on the challenge that made it clear if you already caught the Pokemon (and can complete the challenge). Instead I had to tediously scroll through my current Pokemon, then question whether I actually did have the Pokemon and I just missed it, or if I hadn’t done the puzzle for that Pokemon yet.

Volume Controls

As in, there are none. Sure the 3DS already has that built in, but I really wished I could adjust the music and sound effect volumes separately. I don’t always want to listen to the background music, but I almost always want to hear the sounds you get as you fill in the squares. It just feels a bit jarring without them. This was especially noticeable for me during the Alt-World puzzles, as the music for them had this weird beeping noise in it that I kept mistaking for a complaining smoke detector with low batteries.

Energy System

Since this is a free-to-play game, there’s bound to be some sort of restrictions somewhere. One of these is the energy meter, which limits how many squares you can fill in. I didn’t find it too intrusive (at first anyway), but it still got annoying sometimes.

Legendary Pokemon

Unlike regular puzzles, the puzzles for legendary Pokemon aren’t always visible in the game. Instead, you have a random chance that one will show up, and will only be available for a limited amount of time (I think it ranges from 45mins to 1 hour 30mins). Once the timer runs out, then it runs off and you have to wait for it to show up again. If you start the puzzle before then and then complete it, then you catch the legendary Pokemon.

I kind of like this idea in theory, as legendary Pokemon are more difficult to find and catch in the main games. However, sometimes one will show up in an Area that you haven’t unlocked yet. It’s not too bad if you only need to do a few puzzles to get to it, but otherwise this situation can be annoying.

The Bad

The Stylus Requirement

To solve the puzzles, Pokemon Picross allows you to solve the puzzles with either the stylus or button controls. Both of these methods work just fine. However, for some strange reason, you must use the stylus in all of the menus. WHY?! There’s no reason why they couldn’t be navigated with button controls!

Sure, this isn’t a problem if you prefer to solve puzzles exclusively with the stylus, but I greatly prefer to use the buttons. Did Nintendo (who published the game) still think that they really needed to shove the stylus in your face? To make sure you didn’t forget about the 3DS’s unique features? Apparently the game came out in late 2015, but I don’t know if they were still trying to shove the features in everyone’s faces back then. If that’s not it, then I really have no idea why this is a thing.

Micro-Transactions Part 1: An Overview

Alright, here we go. The big elephant in the room. I’m not sure that anybody likes these, but they keep showing up cause they make the big bucks or something. Here, the micro-transactions center around the in-game currency, Picrites, and they are essential.

You use these buggers for a lot of things:

Unlocking new areas: There are 30 areas, each with their own set of puzzles. You must spend a certain amount of Picrites to unlock most of them, and the amounts required increase the further in the game you get.
Increasing the number of Pokemon you can take: You start with a Pokemon limit of 2 (I think it’s 2 anyway), and you can increase this limit up to 5. If you can take more Pokemon, then you can make the puzzle easier to solve. Plus, later challenges will start to require more Pokemon as you go on.
Resetting Pokemon cooldowns: I actually didn’t know this was a thing until I looked up the pricing for the various stuff, but apparently this exists lol.
Increasing the max amount of stamina: Your stamina at the beginning is fine enough, but eventually it will be so small that you will be heavily restricted on how many puzzles you can finish. You can increase this up to infinite stamina, in which case you don’t have to worry about that restriction anymore.
Restoring your stamina: You can spend a small amount of Picrites to immediately fill up your stamina meter.
Unlocking the Alt-World: You can’t do any of the Mega Puzzles until you spend those Picrites.
Unlocking puzzles for Mega Evolved Pokemon: Mega Evolved Pokemon are generally just stronger than normal Pokemon but with a few restrictions. You have to pay Picrites for a Mega Pencil before you can attempt these puzzles.

How do you get these Picrites? Well, there are a few ways:

Real money: The obvious and easiest one.
Challenges: Most of the challenges you complete will give you a few Picrites each.
Daily puzzles: Every day, the professor in the game will give you a few, very small puzzles to complete. If you complete all of them, you get a few Picrites. Each time you complete these puzzles, your Training Level will level up (up to level 10) and the set of puzzles will be more difficult next time. If you complete all of them within a set time limit, you get a few extra Picrites. The more Areas you’ve unlocked and the higher your training level, the more Picrites you get for doing the daily puzzles.
Achievements: Doing various things throughout the game will give you achievements. Each achievement gives you a few Picrites. Most of the achievements aren’t too difficult to get, but they often take a long time to earn them.

Micro-Transactions Part 2: The Virtual Cost

The problem with all this is that the free Picrite sources give a measly amount compared to how much you need to upgrade or unlock anything. I don’t really consider everything to be top priority (Mega Puzzles are not everyone’s cup of tea, restoring stamina/resetting cooldowns can be skipped, and Mega Evolved Pokemon aren’t particularly a priority in the slightest), so I’ll just mention the costs of the more essential stuff.

Increasing the Number of Pokemon You Can Take

Slots 1 & 2: Free
Slot 3: 50 Picrites
Slot 4: 70 Picrites
Slot 5: 100 Picrites

Total for max Pokemon: 220 Picrites

Increasing Your Max Stamina (Starts at 100)

Increase to 200: Free during tutorial
Increase to 300: 100 Picrites
Increase to 400: 150 Picrites
Increase to Infinite: 400 Picrites

Total for infinite stamina: 650 Picrites

Unlocking New Areas

I won’t list out the cost for unlocking every single area, as there are 30 areas (29 that require Picrites to access), but I’ll give some numbers on how many areas cost in a range of Picrite prices.

Excluding the first stage (which is free) the cost for the stages are:

< 100 Picrites: 5 stages
100 - 140 Picrites: 7 stages
150 - 190 Picrites: 7 stages
200 - 240 Picrites: 8 stages
250 Picrites: 2 stages

Micro-Transactions Part 3: Earning Picrites for Free

So with all that, how many Picrites can you get for free?

Achievements

3 Picrites each.

There are 100 of these total, but there’s plenty of them that you won’t be able to get until much later in the game. I’d estimate that only about 30 of them are ones that won’t take a super long time to unlock, assuming you’re trying to go the completely free route.

Completing the Puzzle Challenges

Around 3-5 Picrites for each puzzle.

The number of puzzles per Area varies quite a bit, so I found the average number of puzzles per area (removing some of the lowest and highest outliers to hopefully get a more accurate average). If I can math somewhat decently, then it should be around 10 puzzles per Area on average.

Using that, you should get 30 - 50 Picrites on average per Area.

The one thing I can’t account for, however, is that some challenges require Pokemon that you can’t catch until later stages. In those cases, you can get 1 or 2 Picrites for completing the other puzzle’s challenges, but you’ll have to come back to that puzzle later to earn the rest.

Daily Puzzles

4 - 10 base Picrites, plus 0 - 3 bonus Picrites.

Your base Picrite earnings are based off how many Areas you’ve unlocked. The more you unlock, the more the base amount increases.

The bonus Picrites depends on your training level. The higher your training level, the more you earn, however you only get these bonus Picrites if you can solve the puzzles within the target time. The puzzles are very small, but they’re heavily focused on completing them as quickly as possible. If you struggle with doing them quickly, it might be tricky to earn those bonus Picrites.

Micro-Transactions Part 4: The Progression Wall and the Most Powerful Card

As you can probably see from the previous parts, you’re going to hit a wall very quickly if you intend to play this game for free. Sure, you will get a quick burst as you unlock a few easy achievements, clear all the challenges available to you, and easily unlock a stage or two. That burst of progression will end very quickly though, and soon you will face the dreaded progression wall. You will run out of puzzles to complete and easy achievements to get, but if you don’t have enough Picrites to unlock a new area, you’ll be stuck with the Daily Puzzles as your sole means of earning Picrites. And man this is so slow!

If you’re incredibly patient, this might not be a problem for you. If this is you, then I really envy you because I unfortunately, am not particularly patient.

So if you decide to open the wallet, how much do these Picrites cost? I’d rather not get into the full breakdown of Picrite cost, as it’s the usual free-to-play model with different tiers and special one-time offers that are just super annoying. However the good thing (at least, the one thing that makes the micro-transactions not complete garbage), is that you can only spend approx $30 USD tops (plus tax I guess). While there is a cap at least, it’s still pretty high for a Picross game, and the amount of Picrites you get for that money is a lot more than you really need to comfortably play through the game.

I did end up spending that ~$30 USD (yes I make poor decisions at times), and I was able to get all the things plus I still had Picrites left over! If you avoid getting unlocking the Alt World until later (the puzzles in there don’t give you Picrites anyway) and only spent your Picrites as you need, you could easily spend much less than $30 and avoid that progression wall.

What is the magic amount you “should” spend then? I have absolutely no idea! I’m sure others have figured this out already (and I’m sure the people on the Pokemon Picross subreddit would know more than I would), but it’s just a bit too complicated for me to figure out. Of course, I’m sure that’s by design, but that just adds to my annoyance.

Conclusion

While Pokemon Picross has some good puzzles (as typical for Jupiter’s games) and has some fun additions, it is greatly overshadowed by how the micro-transactions are designed to be incredibly irritating. That plus the other much smaller but avoidable annoyances, make it hard to recommend. If you’re a die-hard Picross fan, and either don’t mind spending a bunch or are incredibly patient, then maybe this would be fine. Even then though, you would be much better off playing any of Jupiter’s other Picross games.