I’m still playing a little Arc Rise Fantasia here and there and making good progress, but I feel the need for something a little lighter and more relaxing from time to time. That’s why I started first Shepherd’s Crossing 2 and now Picross 3D for a brief change of pace. I started just three or four days ago, but I’m already up to puzzle No. 230. Not bad at all, given how much I suck at puzzles.
Picross 3D is similar to Picross and Color Cross in concept, but the added third dimension gives the gameplay a completely different feel. You use the stylus to twist and turn the puzzle slab, chipping and carving away pieces that don’t belong until you reveal the shape that’s hidden within. It can be something as simple as the puppy on the cover or as complex as a flamenco dancer or high jumper.
If Color Cross was like cross-stitch, P3D is like sculpture. Except you probably wouldn’t take wild guesses with your thousand-dollar slab of marble. That’s one thing about this game: they’ve made it much easier and much more rewarding to take calculated guesses on what your next move should be. Most natural objects are symmetrical to an extent, and there’s only so much tweaking a designer can do before a crocodile is no longer a crocodile. I’m sure every single puzzle can be solved through 100% logic, but I find guessing works tremendously well once you’ve eliminated a number of candidates. How else could I have made it this far?
To compensate for the reduced challenge compared to its predecessors, P3D has introduced time limits and strike penalties. Make 5 wrong moves or run out of time and you’re toast. A few puzzles have a one strike limit or a 5 minute limit you can only increase by chipping away tons of blocks. There’s a scoring system based on this that rewards you by unlocking puzzles if you get the right number of stars in each level. A perfect game (no strikes, within the time) = 3 stars and it goes down from there.
So far I’ve managed to solve everything within the time limit, though its presence adds an element of tension I really wish wasn’t there. I haven’t been Game Over’ed by strikes yet, but I don’t like them either. I understand why they’re necessary to deter guessing, but I think Picross had it right with strikes that didn’t lead to a game over. Next time they should consider a Casual Mode with all puzzles unlocked and no limits for people like me who play games to relax.
The controls are simple and easy to master. The rating says it’s suitable for 3 year olds, which I think is a bit generous, but 5 or 6 year olds could play it quite easily assuming they didn’t run foul of the above-mentioned limits. Turn the block with the stylus. Press Up and tap a block to destroy it. Press Left and tap a block to keep it. Tap the on-screen arrows to access deeper layers of the puzzle.
The only drawback is it’s all too easy, in the heat of the moment, to hold down the wrong button and get a strike for using the wrong command. When you’re fiddling around in the underside of a puzzle it’s also easy to tap the wrong cube because all the layers are in the same uniform gray color. I can’t complain too loudly, though, because sometimes those slips of the stylus leads to an unexpected bonanza. You don’t see me restarting in a rage when that happens, do you you? You just have to be careful and take the bad with the good.
Occasionally fussy controls aside, Picross 3D
The 3D models, your supposed reward for completing the puzzles, are… uhh, interesting. What’s a nice word for “primitive”? Sometimes you can recognize the object before you’re even halfway done, but most of the time you have to finish and let the game paint and animate the object before you realize, oh, it’s supposed to be a globe! You know, in the same way my nephew’s “drawings” are supposed to be a ninja riding a dragon. Still I’m more into the process than the reward, so I don’t care too much what they look like.
It’s only going to get harder from here on, but I’m committed to finishing the game if I can. I might post a brief commemorative message about it if I manage it. Until then.
. This time I made two bedcovers, saved and checked out all the male marriage candidates. Wow, could these guys be any less eager to marry me, do you think? It took Kai a while to even get his head around the concept, and this was after I’d spent ages persuading him that he couldn’t marry his own sister!
. From reading countless comments and reviews, I already knew not to expect much from the story or characters, but I was promised a cracking good battle system. Uhh, where? Still it’s very early days yet – about 5 hours, at least 1 hour of which was spent on boss battles and another 1 hour spent on getting lost.
