With Twilight Princess HD having a pretty good run on the Wii U and Pokémon Picross already available on the 3DS for free, it came as no surprise that Nintendo would let us bear witness to another Picross game, although we were a bit taken back that it was Zelda themed and only available via My Nintendo, the new account system where gamers can receive points via purchasing content from the eShop, or seeing certain requirements are met. Nintendo’s first mobile app/game Miitomo is a great way of racking up those Platinum Points, as you can get a minimum of 35 a day, every day, giving you a possible 245 points provided you met all mission requirements.
My Nintendo: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Picross, may come at a pretty high price of 100o Platinum points, but then it is a “full game” with more than just one mode to play and plenty of puzzles to keep you playing for a while and it was actually possible to acquire the full fee within a 24 hour period of My Nintendo’s western launch, 12 if you’re from Northern America, where Nintendo was sending out codes to former America based Club Nintendo members, for a sum of 200 Platinum points. So if you haven’t made the “purchase” for the game yet, sit down, strap yourself in and feel free to check out our full review to see if you feel the game is worth parting with hard earned points, or using them to purchase something else entirely.
So how does it begin? Well it starts just like Pokémon Picross started, assuming that you have quite literally, never ever played a Picross game before, but don’t you worry because here to hold your hand and give you all the instruction you need, is the Twilight Princess herself, Midna. The basics take no time at all to pick up, but should you be new to Picross and accidentally skipped it all, you can also hit the “How to Play” option at the top of the lower screen of your 3DS/New 3DS. But for anyone who thinks this game, or just Picross in general is simple, it’s not. Sure it may consist of putting a couple of “X’s” here and there, whilst filling in boxes to form a much larger picture, which in this game consists of items and the like pertaining to the Zelda series overall and not just Twilight Princess, but Picross is a game of skill. It’s like a crossword or even Sudoku, it requires a certain mind-set, but for those who don’t have the right mind-set, it’s quite alright, there’s more than one way to play the game. More on that later.
After Basic Training with Midna, you can now choice between playing normal Picross, Mega Picross, which is the same as the ordinary version, except now the number hints you receive can pertain to two rows and take a bit more mental arithmetic to work out, then there’s also Micross. Micross is just like Picross, except instead of being a single puzzle that forms a picture, it’s a picture made up of 57 puzzles, so if you fancy clearing that, you’re going to have your work cut out for you, but that isn’t no reason to give up on the game straight away. Each puzzle comes with sounds and imagery straight out of Twilight Princess and any puzzle you can beat from Picross mode and Mega Picross mode (both of which have 45 puzzles each) unlocks a stamp which you can use for any and all posts you make to the Miiverse whilst playing the game.
Now as for the other ways of playing the game, well for the experienced you can just play it as it is, but for those of lesser skill, there are hints available, which you can enable every time you start a puzzle. Hints such as a hint roulette that will give you the solution to a random vertical and horizontal row and then there’s the auto correct, so feel free to make as much mistakes as you want with it, just know each correction costs you time and if it takes you longer than “60” minutes to complete, you won’t be able to receive a coloured version of the picture you just drew. Although you could cheat your way to completion, take a photo and then “solve” the puzzle well within the time limit.
As a another Picross game from Jupiter, it is fun and easy enough to pick up and play, but compared to Pokémon Picross, the game is somewhat lacking, what with less engaging variety, puzzles to be saved and even the lack of a rewards system and daily training, but then there is no need for either when the game doesn’t feature any in-game currency, although given as how this is an exclusive My Nintendo title, a little more thought should have gone into the game, such as assigning a couple daily missions to add to all the other current and mostly Miitomo based missions we have at the moment for My Nintendo. 
With all of that said and now out of my system, it’s time to scoot on over to a list of Pros & Cons:
The PROS:
- Cheap and affordable My Nintendo reward.
- Another slice of Zelda served up for us to devour and the return of Midna.
- Miiverse stamps.
- Puzzles for players of all difficulty.
- It’s Twilight Princess for the 3DS, minus the epic adventure.
The CONS:
- Compared to what we’ve seen from Pokémon, the game could have done with more variety, or at least some more puzzles.
Is it the best Picross game in the world? No, but it is decent nonetheless, even if you removed the whole Zelda connection and for a Picross game has hardly anything wrong with it, I can’t help but give the My Nintendo exclusive the score of 6.5/10.0 auto corrects. It’s not a game you need to play, but it certainly is a game you can choose to part with your points for and play for as much or little as you want, but it is a game only available on the 3DS, so if you’ve been saving up those points for it and don’t have a handheld, then you won’t be able to indulge in the game, at least until they port it to the Wii U, if they port it.
But as always, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are those of my own and it is encouraged for you to make your own.
