Mario's Super Picross (1995)

Preliminary: So I started this early cuz a) Rayman had frustrated me that night but was worth taking a break and returning since it had good Look Sound and controls, and b) becuase I knew how long the gameboy game took so I could only imagine this one. At first I was meh about the Look and Sound of the intro screen, but I like that the original GB tune is recreated for the level itself. And I forgot how nice and fast the small Picrosses are :-p I feel like I shouldn't even do Level 1 but I assume you gotta complete them all for 100%? And I assume I will be talking myself into 100%ing? :-p

Ooooo I love the music and Look of the save select screen

I'm surprised you can't reassigm buttons. Imma have to do that by other means. I also don't love that you can go off the puzzle, I liked speed scrolling across. You'd think there'd be an option to toggle that for people who want that ability and those who don't. Cuz beyond the new Look and SNES level sound and whatnot, that's really the only significant gameplay change I'm seeing. And these extra sound effects and tunes that really are just annoying or unnecessary and should be able to be toggled off, I just will stick to the level tune that's a recreation of the GB game one :-p

I'm finishing these puzzles real quick tho :-p As I should at level 1

Day 1

Welp I finished Level 1 with a quickness. Oooo I can now do Wario's Picross. Hmmm. Oh it's just normal Picross again lol they amde it sound like unique rules.

I'm not as in love with teh finished drawings in this because they rely on colors to make them look like they're supposed to. I already ahve a hard enoguh time with visualizing like that, let alone with color allowing them to say a mermaid for what it sotherwise just some lines to me lol. And less endearing not seeing things like the Link's Awakening shovel in it. But I assume later ones will have uh Link to teh Past items in it?

Ohh nevermind I have to scroll over for Wario's Picross. And I like the tune and colors here. It's basically the Time Trial version that you unlock in the original. It's neat anda good call that all levels are instantly available at the start, but a secret/unlockable factor is nice and the sense of progression in the first one is nice. I assume that's mostly because it was the first of its kind on a gaming device. But also I assume/hope there are unlockables in this. I also hope there isn't cuz 100% would take... a long time. And I didn't love the Time Trial /Wario mode. Not that I dislike it but I just got used ot the original mode. And the sense of a time going down. Wario has a great tuen for the levels tho.

Day 2

Welp as of 2/1/26, I'm officially on this game for the backlog anyway. So I didn't start that early (mostly since I didn't play Rayman or Clock Tower as long as I expected), and will finish up the initial review after getting through maybe Levels 1 and 2 of both versions. Then return when I 100% to finalize my review of this. Because I know how long 100%ing a Mario Picross game takes and I know I like having a picross available to take a break from other games periodically.

I'm sorry but the solutions/images are so lame lol. The mailbox one... Reference Mario games cmon! Well to be clear, the images themselves are pretty and good for SNES, I just mean not referencing something cool and doesn't really look like anything I dunno how to explain it. Just disappointing. i also don't love the color scheme of Mario's Picrosses.

I'm flying through these, because I came straight from Star Course/Time Trial levels on the GB game :-p But already through Level 2 of Mario's. And I was only planning Level 2 of each version hmm

Lol! The Deserted Island one to start Wario's... silly but kinda cute. And Wario's have a better color scheme and I like the tune.

Oh shoot well I had a moment of clarity and relaized there has to be more than the 4 levels of each mode and even just one more secret level for each or whatever... yep. there's like 11 for each mode lol. so i guess i will post the review at the first 4 levels of each mode. and then slowly chip away at the full game. I think this is the last Picross game on my backlog for a while so I got a while :-p

I love love love the music that plays during Wario's puzzles. I'm nervous tho cuz I relied on the Clue aspect to the very end of the GB game, only doing one Time Trial version which was Wario style. We will see if I can really get through the 4 levels for the review, let alone all 11. But I'm flying alogn Level 1 at least for Wario :-p Still with these super silly solutions. Cicada?...

Let me just say again, I love the Wario levels music. And I love picross. Even if I kinda prefer the GB version this is still amazing and great music and I can't believe I found a puzzle I love and could play infinitely (with breaks).

I wonder if there's a way to change the color scheme of the Mario levels, cuz they aren't jiving with my eyes. The Wario ones were much better for that.

Oh nice there is some customizability with what song to pick, but not with the colors.

A negative for Marios Picross series forever is that it will remind me of my 10 hours in the ER. Trying to play it uncomfortable at the ER lol. (the last levels of the GB game). Welp I'm already part way through Level 4 of Mario and Level 2 of Wario. So the Level 4 plan seems reasonable for now!

Day 3

Welp finished Level 4 of Mario's. Time to properly delve into Wario's. I'm glad the color scheme is easier on my eyes here.

Welp it's probly the burnout from playing the original so much mixed with that day at the ER playing the first one for so long, but I'm kinda burning out in Wario level 2. Or it's because of the Wario rules which again I didn't do much Time Trial. And I know I have this to slowly chip away at forever. I think I will stick to my 4 levels for now, but may take a break for tonight.

Day 5

My burnout is definitely becomimng real at 4-C of Wario's. But I am almost at my goal gah! I mostly blame how much I was playing the GB version up until right before starting this. So I will be curious how my rating changes over time.

Day 6

Uff yea Wario's 4-C kept taking me a while but I eventually got it without any errors so that's nice. All that for a "flying carpet" which looks nothing like a flying carpet lol. THere just isn't much to go with in 4-D. I miss the hints of Mario :-p But I keep thinking of new ways to narrow things down so that's a bit empowering just prefer the Mario's style and a bit overwhelmed that there are ELEVEN levels and this is only 4. (Tho I did wind up having much more fun with 4-D and got it quite quickly)

Al of a sudden I'm fully in the zone again flying along.. My husband came in to watch and guess the iamges (tho this game is terrible for that, the GB game was much better for him to guess based on the pixels... this never looks like the final image), and I suddenly got my groove back!

Day 7

Ugh running out of tricks up my sleeve in Wario's 4-L. Definitely ready to play different games and reutrn to this for chipping at some point (and maybe just do the Mario version). I feel like at a point with Wario's version you have to take a risk and just guess and see if it turns out right, but I'm never fan of that in Sudoku or in Picross. I like cross outables. I usually end up finding another cross outable tho. Hopefully I eventually do here... Lol! Turned out to be something very simple and obvious I was missing >.< Only one more to go! (Oh wait that was the alst one. Nice!)

What do I do, I peek at the next level . And uff da! 20 box rows??? But not in Mario's Level 5. Omg! I forgot how much more enjoyable and aesy the Mario style is lol that's the picross I prefer and like. I did one of those and time to move on. I will slowly chip away at Mario version, and if feel motivated enough, can do that with Wario's too but meh.

Look: 8/10 Great overall and love the colors but a bit hard to see the puzzles and the solutions were not nearly as good as the GB solutions

Sound: 9/10 Love love love some songs, would be higher if the post-puzzle tune wasn't dungeon-y/meh. And even higher if the click sound effect was togglable.

Play: 8.5/10 One of the struggles of sequels is not trying too hard, especially with puzzle ones like Puzzle Bobble 2. It started out real smooth and fun but definitely felt the need to take advantage of the SNES capabilities rather than just keeping it fun. Plus the solutions simply weren't as fun to see come together. But it's still picross and still great and very addicting.

Feel: 9/10 I doubt I'll stop playing it tonight so... Lol

Attachment: 9/10

Overall: 8.7/10

Completion: So far at the time of this review, through Level 4 for both Mario and Wario, and 5-A of Mario

Playtime: So far at the time of this review, 11 hours

I was probably one of the only people excited to have seen this show up on NSO, but I was quite excited. Less excited that it wasn't translated, but I still got my way through in freetime over a few months last year.

More recently, I realized there was a set of RetroAchievements for it, and an English translation patch. So despite having just spent so many hours getting through it on the Switch where I didn't "get anything" out of it, I went back at it.

Much nicer with the translation. Much nicer with the Acheivements. Still great Picross either way. Technically I only got through about 75% of this playthrough "for real". It was getting to the point where puzzles were taking 20-30 minutes each again and I decided that since I technically already did all of these, would have transferred my save file if I could have, and there is plenty of Picross out there to do still, I just started looking up the puzzles and getting them done. Kind of would have preferred to have real times in this "forever" save file, but also, really just wanted to take my Achievements and move on.

Anyways, not much else to say about Picross. Maybe this is lacking some of the features of later/bigger versions like giant pictures across multiple puzzles, or even just bigger puzzles in general, but this is great.

I liked the original Mario Picross on the gameboy, so when I saw they added the sequel to the Nintendo Switch Online service I immediately started playing through it, and I liked it! The game was super rough and clunky, especially when compared to the modern picross standards. However, it still had a certain charm to it and It was surprisingly long as well.

Gameplay-wise It's picross. The game is picross. And while picross games are fun, you have to consider that this game is from god-damned 1995 and the feeling of comfort wasn't invented yet. Every single quality of life mechanic that modern picross games might have is absent from this game, and you have to do literally everything by hand. I wouldn't say this is a bad thing, in fact it kinda added to the charm of the game, however getting used to it is very hard and will take you a lot of time.

And i'll say that, even when everything is so old and rough, the game works perfectly. Everything might take more effort to do, however there are some really fun workarounds to the missing QOL features, like activating a mode that takes you to what's basically an alternate dimension where you can try a bunch of stuff without the game punishing you, just for you to punch all your progress into the grid at the same time. It's so weird and I love it.

The most surprising part for me was that there were around 300 puzzles to be solved in this game. I have played so many modern Picross games with less than 200, so seeing so much content in a game from almost 3 decades ago was surprising. Plus considering the fact that the puzzles take more time than usual since everything is clunkier, you'll be playing this one for a long while.

The game takes a turn around halfway through, where instead of Mario it'll now feature Wario. It might look like just an aesthetic change, but it does shake up things quite a bit: During the first half, every mistake you make is automatically corrected by the game (even if it gives you a time penalty). During the second half, there's no more hand holding, you're on your own against giant puzzles, where the time limit is now a timer to see how long it'll take you to solve them. It's a cool thing to see, almost like the first half was nothing more than a tutorial for it and I love it.

I was kinda bummed out Mario wasn't really a part of the game. Aside from showing up in a few cutscenes where he says a bunch of japanese words I can't understand, the puzzles are all regular real-life stuff and almost none of them relate to Mario. It's like nintendo made a totally unrelated picross game and their mascot on the cover at the last minute. it doesn't affect the experience, I just wish they would've integrated the franchise into the gameplay a bit more.

In conclusion: I was surprised by this game. The game is rough, clunky, punishing, old, and it makes some really weird design choices along the way. However, it never feels like any of these things are bad, but rather they just make this game different from any other in the genre. The game ended up being really fun and charming, and just like most picross games, it was a fun and relaxing time. 8/10

It's picross. Basically sudoku meets Minesweeper, and you end up chiseling out a simple pixel picture, one stone block at a time. I've been playing this off and on this year on the Switch, ever since it was added to the SNES Online app. This was a Super Famicom game for Japan only back in the day, so a lot of the pictures are clearly for a Japanese audience. (Also worth noting, the first eight puzzles are katakana characters spelling out Mario Picross in Japanese -- just a head's up for anyone starting the game and wondering if there are ever going to be any actual pictures in the game.)

I expected there to be a bunch of Mario and maybe some Nintendo themed pictures, but I haven't come across any so far. (I've done about 60-70 puzzles.) So don't get too excited by the Mario half of the title, I guess -- he's just there, wondering what the next game is that he'll be tacked onto.

This is a rare case where I'll allow the "(game) is perfect on the Switch!" meme. Sudoku by its nature is a very pick-up-and-play sort of game to kill an odd 5 minutes of idle time -- these sorts of brain teasers are thus well-suited for handhelds. But if you've got a friend who also needs to kill an odd 5 minutes of idle time, the game actually supports 2-player co-op, making it worthwhile to throw on the TV if you're both in the mood. It at least works nicely as a convenient way to teach a newcomer how to play sudoku.

Picross should be in the newspaper. I understand it has a bit of a niche appeal, but it is better than the jumble. I would place it a little higher than Sudoku and a little below the crossword. The crossword is the newspaper GOAT and I wouldn't dare tear it from its throne. But Picross has the same math-y appeal as Sudoku except at the end you have a nice picture! If you put that in the Tribune, you would see businessmen in raincoats scribbling in boxes on their Metra ride downtown.

Mario's Super Picross is a very charming albeit short and easy Picross game. The puzzles don't get too difficult. I've beaten the main game and I haven't seen the puzzles expand to 20x20. Perhaps they do in some of the bonus levels which I will play in the coming weeks. The main game will correct you when you've filled in the wrong square lowering the difficulty a bit more. There is a timer on each level, but I never once came close to the thirty minute clock hitting zero. There are roughly 300* puzzles in the game. A lot of the easier puzzles will only take you a minute or two and even the hardest puzzles the game offers can be beaten in under ten minutes.

Despite the game's relative short length (by 2020 standards) and ease, it is exceedingly fun. Nintendo's signature flare comes across even here. The music is energetic, weird, and robust. Your Picross creations will waggle as a reward once you finish them. You even unlock little secrets as time goes on. It is all very delightful.

There are lots of little adjustments I would love to see if Nintendo did this again today. For instance, they should include greater options for puzzle note keeping, The ability to turn off corrections for greater challenge, and a puzzle of the day so the game has greater replayability. But if you are a Picross junkie like me or a person who has never tried the puzzle before, Mario's Super Picross is a fun Picross experience.

If you have Nintendo Switch Online, you should try it out. The game is sitting in your NSO Super Nintendo games for your enjoyment.

*I originally wrote it was 168 puzzles... Uh I don't know where I got that number from! I was finishing up working 80 hours a week when I wrote this and was probably sleep deprived. I'm going with that. Otherwise I need to reckon with there being something wrong with my brain and I'm not willing to admit that yet.