Review: Picross DS

While the Japanese have had their hands on Picross since the Super Famicom days, America finally gets its taste of the one-of-a-kind puzzler on the Nintendo DS. In a summer of exclusively casual first-party games for the Nintendo DS, Picross DS stands above all as the title to own.

For the uninitiated, Picross DS plays out like a blend of sudoku and minesweeper. The game is played on a grid of varying size, and each column and row has a series of numbers that denote the number of consecutive squares/spaces that are to be filled. For example, in a row of five, the numbers “3 1″ can only mean three consecutive dots followed by a single space and another dot. However, on a row of ten, it’s impossible to tell where the dots go and how many spaces are before and after each number group without some extra help.

Your extra help comes in the form of what I’ll call “bum” squares. Not only can you place dots in spaces where you know they belong, but you can also place bum squares at each point that you know they don’t. Eventually the placement of dots and bum squares will allow you to reason out the placement of more dots and bum squares until you’ve solved the puzzle. Each solved puzzle forms a picture which, if you finished in under an hour, animates. Though I have yet to encounter a puzzle that takes as long as an hour, your time is penalized by any mistakes you make in the normal scoring mode.

Picross DS comes with a variety of modes including daily play and ad hoc/wi-fi multiplayer competitions where you try to solve puzzles the fastest. You can even design your own puzzles and upload via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. In the future, new Picross puzzles should be made available via the service from Nintendo, but to date none have appeared. Believe me, I’ve been checking.

The graphics are only serviceable in Picross DS, but this clearly isn’t designed to be a visually stunning game. The music can also be a bit grating with only three tunes that you can manually switch among, but the soundtrack adds very little to this game and can be disabled altogether. I do personally enjoy the “slapping” sound of laying down dots in a row and dread the mistake squeak, though.

This game’s biggest flaw is that despite being a DS game, larger puzzles cannot be played comfortably with the stylus. Not only is the zoom system pretty unusable as it is, but even 10×10 and 5×5 grids suffer from inaccuracy in touch screen recognition. Since the game already penalizes you for mistakes, having the game make a mistake on your behalf because it thought you were touching an adjacent square gets old very quickly. No number of touch screen calibrations fixed this problem, and though another reviewer claimed to experience the same problem, he didn’t note it in his review because he thought it was just his DS. If that is the case, there may be some systemic problem with touch screen recognition because my friends and I have had the same issue. Stick with the control pad and face buttons on this game.

Where Picross really shines, however, is its ability to stimulate your reasoning skills. Though earlier puzzles always have some explicit “no option but this one” areas of the grid that make it easy to proceed, later puzzles will have you straining to find the little bit of logic you’ve overlooked that will allow you to proceed. You could always just guess and take the time penalty if you’re wrong, but guessing is never necessary to solve puzzles. In fact, if you guess when you should be using your brain, shame on you.

All in all, Picross DS is a must-have game for anyone that enjoys mind-bending puzzles in five- to thirty-minute increments. The minimalist, slick presentation makes it non-threatening to casual gamers, and the sheer number of puzzles included will keep you busy for weeks — longer if more puzzles finally begin to appear on the Nintendo WFC. But be careful, Picross is addicting!

We Liked:
tons of puzzles
inclusion of daily play
ability to share puzzles and compete online

We Didn’t Like:
shoddy touch recognition
small selection of music

OVERALL SCORE: 6 / 7
That’s right, we’re on a 7-point scale on WiiDS!

Upending

I read somewhere at a roundtable discussion during this year’s E3 that Miyamoto mentioned that the roundtable discussion had no actual table that he could upend. I remember thinking, “Why would Miyamoto upend a table?”

Someone who watches Miyamoto in the press more closely than I do could probably tell you the exact story where Miyamoto reputedly upended a table and told a team working at Nintendo to go back to the drawing board. That’s a pretty strong action for somenoe who appears to be a mild-mannered guy.

Anyway, only because I first heard of this situation recently does this snippet of an interview with Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma conducted by Wired Magazine seem so funny:

WN: Were there any “upending the tea table” moments with Miyamoto, this time [referring to Miyamoto's notoriety for telling a team they have to go back to the drawing board on a nearly-finished project]?

EA: This is a first for the Zelda franchise, but Miyamoto actually didn’t “upend the tea table” even once. I was really surprised. After we were almost done with the game, Miyamoto played it. I was bracing myself for the worst, but instead he said, “This is good!” And I was like: “…wha?” And it was probably because, for the four months prior, I myself had been upending various smaller tea tables.

While I won’t deify Aonuma, I’m grateful that he and his team decided to breathe some new life into the Zelda franchise. Twilight Princess left me wanting, and it very likely left me wanting this.

Ouendan 2 Import Preview

Here is 1UP’s import preview of Ouendan 2 for the Nintendo DS.

89% of Japanese Households Using the DS by 2011?

As handily summarized by Chris Kohler in the Game|Life blog, one group of media analysts predicts that the Nintendo DS will penetrate 89% of Japanese households by 2011. Staggering, I know. But given that they still have supply problems in Japan, I can’t guess that they are way off base.

When last I was in Japan around Tokyo Game Show, DS supply seemed to be short in Tokyo but not in Shizuoka or the Nagoya area. One of the friends I met actually bought a DS while we were hanging out together. Or two if you count my ex-wife’s mother; we are still friendly. More surprising, however, was the sheer amount of non-gaming software available at the time; since then, I’m sure the number has multiplied by several factors. Yes, the Nintendo DS plays games, but more importantly, it is becoming established as a viable software platform.

I spoke recently with my girlfriend about this, and she wondered aloud, “Why would someone buy a Nintendo DS to use software when home computers are nearly ubiquitous?”

“Cost and portability,” I answered immediately. “Not everyone has a mobile computer, and the Nintendo DS is quite suited to simple software applications controlled by a pointing device. Though there is a fabled notebook computer that is priced around $100, I haven’t seen it and I bet you haven’t either. Most people, on the other hand, can spend $129 without thinking. I could buy another DS right now if I didn’t already have two of them and not think twice about it.”

More so than America, Japan has a culture that widely accepts electronic gadgetry and video gaming, and that isn’t just speaking of the male populace. Because of this, it isn’t a farfetched idea to use the Nintendo DS as an educational tool or sell yoga, cooking, and make-up software.

The good news is that Nintendo’s two major consoles selling like crack-laced hotcakes, and there is a chance that the DS may enjoy Japanese-like success riding on the coattails of the Wii in western countries. Should this happen, we can probably expect a lot more non-gaming software outside of Japan. That means more people buying. That means more DSes in the wild. And that means more great games.

BioWare Sonic RPG? Good God.

Less than 24 hours after lamenting that I might have to forego purchasing an XBox 360 even though I desperately want to play through BioWare’sMass Effect, along arrives the news that BioWare and Sega are teaming up to make a Sonic RPG for the Nintendo DS. What?!?

I was late to the BioWare bandwagon, but Baldur’s Gate 2 is perhaps the most perfect RPG I’ve ever played. I’ve also heard nothing but good things about Knights of the Old Republic, KOTOR 2, and Jade Empire. It stands to reason, then, that I would anxiously anticipate Mass Effect. I never dreamed, however, that I might get a chance to play a BioWare game on my Nintendo DS using colorful characters. I can’t help but think that it’s going to be really good. Maybe Super Mario RPG good.

Well, I guess I had better finish Etrian Odyssey before then. Time to stop running from those second stratum FOEs!  

CNNMoney.com: Wii Will Rock You

Despite the cheesy title, this article from CNNMoney does an excellent job of explaining why Nintendo is the strongest business performer in this console generation. In particular, it explains very well a concept that almost completely lead to the conceptualization of this blog: that it isn’t very important what the hardcore gaming press thinks about the Wii and DS. Money tends to speak for itself.

Etrian Odyssey: First Impressions

I don’t know how many of you plan to play Etrian Odyssey for the Nintendo DS, but I think I’ve logged enough hours to talk about it a little.

I’ll preface this by saying that a couple of major outlets appeared to give this game a fair shake, and their reviews are linked below:

IGN: 7.4 / 10
1UP: 8 / 10

The consensus seems to be that if you think you will like this game, you will probably love this game. I will add to that that I thought I would like this game, and I’m having a lot of fun with it so far.

Etrian Odyssey is a fight-by-numbers exercise that takes place in a gridded 3D dungeon navigated in first person. The story is threadbare — explore this labyrinth and return alive! — and the game consists primarily of of two activities: crawling and cartography.

Dungeon crawling by itself is no special affair; first person dungeon crawlers have been around for years (Double Dungeons, for example, was re-released on the Virtual Console a few weeks ago). However, this game’s difficulty is nearly always mentioned in the first breath of describing it. Gamers used to RPGs that allow you to go several battles before healing and save anywhere will be in for the rudest shock of all. Upon entering a new level of the labyrinth — even the first one — you face the very real threat of death with each random encounter, the likelihood of which is given using a colored orb at the bottom-right of the top screen. When even a garden variety battle can result in the death of one or more characters in your party, you tend to take strategizing very seriously rather than dropping all your attacks on the default monster and seeing how long it takes them all to die. And the F.O.E.s (foedus obrepit errabundus, “wandering vile beasts”) are a different story altogether; I’ve had my heart stop from rounding a corner only to see an orange fireball that denotes the location of an F.O.E. only one step in front of me. F.O.E.s are the game’s hard-hitting minibosses, and they make random encounters seem easy by comparison.

The second major element to the game is cartography. While crawling is a buttons-only affair, cartography requires you to unsheathe your stylus to draw walls, paint in floors, and mark locations of interest. At first the concept of drawing walls seemed rather silly to me, but as I started to reach areas where I didn’t want to walk but could see, it became very useful to draw passageways and mark the general locations of F.O.E.s with which I almost scrapped — especially ones fond of chasing you around the dungeon. It is also nice to note the presence of anything you don’t understand or with which you are afraid to interact due to unknown consequences so that you can return later with ease. For example, I have marked several fruits on my map that I am afraid to eat as well as the location of a chase-happy F.O.E. that would easily wipe out my party who seems to be guarding a dead-end.

One final thing I should mention is that each character in your party is created, named, and given its class by you. It is easily possible to assemble a group of adventurers that do not fight well together that may make certain challenges in the game insurmountable. Moreover, even with the right group, it is possible to distribute skill points unwisely to reach the same conclusion. For example, I wiped within the first 15 minutes of the first level because I hadn’t distributed my skill points for my alchemists (the game’s “wizards”) in such a way that they could actually use damage-dealing techniques from the beginning. Since they are woefully ineffectual melee fighters, I couldn’t muster the damage necessary to handle even simple battles.

After you realize that nothing in the game comes gift-wrapped, you begin to play much smarter and appreciate the challenge afforded by the game’s design. It may be tough, but the numbers are fair. I have yet to reach any situation that better strategy or more leveling doesn’t make possible.

I’ll close by saying that if this sounds like fun to you, it will be. If not, stay clear. But I, for one, can’t wait to see what the hell that thing is on level 3 that scared my ass right back to level 2 …

Etrian Odyssey Questions Answered

As the penultimate entry in the Etrian Odyssey developer blog, readers were asked to submit their questions to be answered by the development team. I’ve only read a few developer blogs before, but I’ve found theirs to be remarkably informative and entertaining; more than anything else, it is the vision of Niinou-san and the rest of the Etrian Odyssey team that has convinced me to pick up the game.

I was pleased to see that my questions were answered in the latest blog entry. These were mine:

Were there any common features/characteristics of turn-based RPGs that the team specfically decided to omit in Etrian Odyssey? Why were they removed?

In most turn-based RPGs, so long as your party is alive, you have as many turns as you want to win a battle. However, if you look at screenshots of Etrian Odyssey, you can see a turn counter. In some battles, you’ll have to keep an eye on this, since completing a quest or obtaining an item depends on defeating the enemy in a certain number of turns.

That in itself isn’t so innovative, but each turn also corresponds to 1 space of movement on the map. When there are mobile FOEs in an area, you’ll have to finish the battle before the FOE arrives to join the fight, making your situation that much worse. Battles in Etrian Odyssey aren’t meant to be just survived–the turn counter is there to add tension and encourage you to finish them as quickly as possible.

How would you describe the role of music in the game? Was it added mostly as an afterthought, or was it being composed as the dungeons and gameplay were being designed? Is the sound in the game ultimately disposable, or is it an integral part of the experience?

The music composition was an ongoing process, involving several drafts and versions, some of the earliest of which were made available on a preorder bonus CD in Japan.

Given that the general purpose of the game is to try to reinvigorate a foundering genre of game, the sound is thematically integrated in that it, too, is a style of music that fell out of fashion. Yuzo Koshiro’s PC-88-based compositions are largely bypassed these days in favor of more symphonic music–but the game is striking a blow for the simplicity and “smallness” of games past, and in that respect Koshiro’s music couldn’t be more appropriate.

Is there anything the team wanted to do in Etrian Odyssey that they simply did not have the time or resources to accomplish? Can we expect these things in a sequel?

The game was originally scheduled for release in its home country of Japan several months earlier, but the project was shaping up so well that the developers were given extra time to complete their vision. So virtually everything Niinou and his team wanted to put in the game is in there, but I’m sure the remaining staffers at R&D1 have their own ideas that’ll come out someday in a sequel.

---

I can’t wait to get my hands on this tomorrow.

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword

Milky sent me a link to a blog entry of his pretty much the moment it posted. He then added, “That’s your DS saying, ‘WASSUP NOW PSP?!?!”

“Congratulations,” I responded after watching the video. “You just made Garden of WiiDS.”

As a fitting followup to “Stylus Pressure,” I present what may be the most eagerly anticpated stylus-only outing this side of Ouendan 2: Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword.

If you watch this video very closely, you may notice that stylus-only control is being discussed in the background. But Christ is it hard to take your mind off the visuals.

Stylus Pressure?

I recently read Chris Kohler’s review of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl on Game|Life, and one particular part caught my attention.

… the touch-screen implementation … feels half-baked — you can’t control the whole game with the stylus a la Animal Crossing, even though there’s nothing in the game design that should stop you.

My surprise wasn’t purely because I think the huge touchscreen buttons during combat are a great addition. Then today I found this editorial on GoNintendo that expresses concern for the pure stylus-based controls when the essence of 2-D Zelda controls were conceived using the control pad. I got some hands-on time with an early build of The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass at last year’s E3, and while at first a bit put off by the stylus-only gameplay, I quickly got the hang of it for the purpose of the demo.

I’ve owned a Nintendo DS since its launch date, and I’ve seen a number of well-thought-out control schemes as well as a ton of crap ones (especially around launch). Bad controls break the game — everyone knows that — and it’s no secret that Nintendo was putting on the pressure to utilize the touch screen early in the console’s life. But now that there has been a Meteos and a Nintendogs and a Brain Age and an Elite Beat Agents, is the pressure to use the stylus still so great?

Chris Kohler wanted the option of full touchscreen control in Pokémon because it was possible. Raw Meat Cowboy wants D-pad and button control for Zelda because it’s traditional. It’s hard to tell with developers whether the stylus pressure is off or on these days. What’s the right way to do things?

The answer to me seemed to come from an entry in the developer blog for Etrian Odyssey on 1UP.com. Designer Kazuo Niinou begins by saying the following:

I have a strange confession to make: I don’t like using the Nintendo DS’s stylus.

There are a few reasons for this. First off, it’s a portable game system, but because of the stylus you can’t play it while lying down. Second, since holding the system in one hand and a stylus in the other feels unnatural, it’s tiring to play for long periods of time. Third, if the pace of the game is slow, then your hand tends to cover the screen as you play.

However, there are many things that you can do only with the stylus, so you can’t count it out entirely. We think we can solve the problems above by making games designed not to be played that way.

And it just gets better from there. As an aside, I’m looking forward to this game because I like my RPGs like I like my women: smart, complex, long-lasting and with touch action.

Doubtless there is something to be said for innovative control schemes. Likewise, a longstanding franchise can avoid alienating its core audience by not trying to fix what isn’t broken. However, Niinou-san shows us that there is a middle ground — that the new thing, the old thing, and the right thing don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Developers that realize this are worthy of our support.