As the resident Picross girl, it's my duty to tell you about every picross game and how good they are. And I'm here tonight to tell you that Picross S: Genesis & Master System Edition is... kinda mid. There's so much wasted potential in this game and so many weird choices the game makes that make an idea as cool as this seem kinda boring.

Gameplay-wise, it's picross. Presentation-wise, it's picross. Story-wise, it's picross. This game is, in fact, picross. Look, you don't play a picross game because they're innovative and life-changing. You play them because it's god-damned picross and picross is fun. The way I see it, every picross game has two key factors to it: What it does to make itself stand out from the rest, and how good the puzzles are.

The idea behind this game is pretty brilliant. See, instead of taking random stuff, pixelating it and then making the player solve those puzzles, the game takes already existing sprites from old SEGA games and uses those as the puzzles. It's fun, it's nostalgic, it's interesting. However no matter how cool this idea is... it never feels right. Every puzzle is either just a section cropped from a bigger sprite, or a random background object or item used in the game. I understand why they do it, because sprites have a different resolution to the 10x10 or 25x25 grids the game uses... but then why not just make the grids 8x8 or 32x32 instead? It feels like the game is afraid to stray too far from the usual Picross S formula, even if it hurts the overall experience in the end.

I'll say the nonograms themselves are very well made, the game has close to zero corner solutions so that's always a plus. The game offers a few other modes to keep you engaged. They're all ok, however the Color mode is over way too quickly, and the Mega Picross mode just repeats the same puzzles as the regular mode. So while these two gamemodes have great puzzles, they're not that remarkable in the end.

There's also a "Clip Picross" mode where you solve a giant mosaic of the title screens from three games. You don't get to solve the entire title screen, though, just bits from it. The idea is super cool, but the execution feels random and disconnected. Just like the rest of the game, it could've been better.

In conclusion: The game is fun (it's picross), but it feels like every good idea it has has some sort of downside to it. The game tries to convince you this is a cool and special version of Picross S, yet refuses to do anything unique other than put some sega sprites in it. It could've been so, so much better. 6/10