Title: PictoQuest: The Cursed Grids
Platform: Nintendo Switch eShop
Developer: NanoPiko Games
Publisher: Plug In Digital
Release Date: August 8th, 2019 (NA)
File Size: 417MB
Review copy provided by NanoPiko Games
This is quite the interesting game. The reason is, is because the 3-person team behind the game all worked together at both Arkedo and Pastagames, on games like the Arkedo Series and Pix the Cat, among others.
PictoQuest had an unusual marketing cycle… if you can technically call it marketing. See, the team at NanoPiko deliberately kept the game a secret until the day it released, so as to not risk over-hyping people and such. Did they make the right call? Does it live up to its hype? Wait, that was the point! 😛 Anyway, let’s find out how the game even is!
Our main heroes; Flöh and Arvel!
PictoQuest is a simple game. Really it’s a variant of the classic Picross genre of puzzle games (fun fact; Nintendo themselves own the Picross trademark!). What is Picross you ask? It’s basically based on the Nonogram, essentially a puzzle where you make out a picture using a grid and filling out squares. The same holds true here. This is also similar to Sudoku where you have to use numbers to fill out the right squares, but rather than putting numbers in the squares, you use the numbers on each column and row as a reference. A sort of X + Y = Z sort of thing if that makes sense.
For example, on a 5×5 grid, say an X axis’ column shows the number 4, that means four of those five squares have to be filled. Then, if a Y axis’ row shows a 1, then one square and only one has to be filled. The key to finding which squares to fill involves process of elimination. You have to take each row and column’s numbers as a hint on which ones to fill. Luckily, once you complete one, said number will go hollow, letting you know that row/column is complete. Upon filling out all the correct squares, you will complete the picture, which can be pretty much anything, and you even get a little animation of said picture.
The main baddie; Moonface!
With the concept of Picross/Nonogram out of the way, let’s talk about the game itself. The story begins when an evil wizard named Moonface steals of the paintings of Pictoria, and your job as a boy or a girl (named Flöh and Arvel respectively) is to set out and reclaim the paintings… and that’s sort of it. You travel a linear map not to dissimilar to say Super Mario Bros. 3 or the modern New Super Mario Bros. games. Choose the first spot and a puzzle begins. Here, the Picross gameplay holds true, but there’s some twists. You start out with some coins, and with every incorrect square filled, you lose some, with a higher amount taken away the more you get wrong. Upon beating the puzzle you get some coins. And don’t worry, you can replay puzzles to grind coins over and over again!
A bit into the game, puzzles start to take a slightly different form and becomes a bit like an RPG. Here, you face monsters, and every completed row or column attacks the monster, but every wrong square has the monster attack you. You start out with three hearts, with seemingly half of one being taken off for each hit. Sometimes items will appear on the edge of a row or column where the number is, and if you complete said row/column, you acquire it! One example is a fire move that exposes the right squares in the row AND column you pick in a cross pattern.
An example of a battle and the usage of the fire move to reveal which spaces in a cross pattern are the correct ones. Note the black squares are the correct ones, and the “X” ones are the wrong ones.
Sometimes on the map, you can talk to NPCs who will challenge you to redoing a puzzle seemingly at a time limit. Winning these can earn you free items at the store (in two cases so far they were half heart potions). Speaking of, that’s where the coins come in. As you’d expect, you can spend your coins at the shop for items, and even upgrades like an extra heart for a whooping 1000 coins! Might I recommend grinding the Twinkle puzzle for 10 coins uber quick and easy? Took me maybe 15 minutes or less of grinding to reach 1000 coins for the upgrade. 😛
Visually it’s pretty pleasant. It’s not uber flashy or anything. it’s simplistic, yet very colourful. It really does feel like a game from the folks behind Pix the Cat, Pang Adventures, etc. it runs smoothly at 60fps and seemingly 1080p in docked mode (it’s very crisp). There’s little to no loading screens at all, it’s very quick to do a match and then do another. Character designs are great, especially Flöh and Arvel who look absolutely adorable (they got no eyebrows!)! The Picross pictures look good for what they are, I mean they’re 5×5 and later 10×10 grids, they’re not going to be super detailed! lol Overall a pleasant looking game.
Here’s the shop where you can buy power-ups and upgrades.
Audio-wise, it’s not complicated either. There’s some music and very minimal voice-acting (sounds like gibberish which is really cute). Again music-wise nothing blew me away or anything but it works. That’s kind of it on that!
Overall this is a cute simple game and one I think is a good entry point for new Picross fans. Obviously veteran Picross devs Jupiter have quite a number of their own games on the Switch eShop if you’re looking to graduate onto the series that literally put Picross on the map, but this is a very nice start. It’s pretty cheap at only $9.99 USD. I definitely recommend this game!
You’ll Love:
+ It really pretty with its colours and simplicity. The main heroes also look adorable!
+ The Picross gameplay is definitely challenging to learn but it’s really cool to master once you “get” reading the numbers.
+ Item usage is pretty cool, like the fire move, it’s very helpful.
+ Being able to replay puzzles to grind coins is VERY helpful as well.
+ Basically no loading so everything moves on super quickly.
+ Has screenshot and video capture support.
You’ll Hate:
– Music was only alright, nothing that memorable.
– The RPG mechanic is a bit as I read someone call it; window dressing. It’s neat, but not essential in my personal opinion.
Score: 8/10