DS Puzzler is an import puzzle game with two sections: Sudoku and Picross. As a big fan of Picture Puzzle on Neo-Geo Pocket and Mario Picross on Gameboy, this review will focus on Oekaki Logic (the Picross section of the game).
In Picross games, you look at a series of numbers for both rows and columns, and fill in spaces to create a picture. DS Puzzler does a lot of things right for this type of game, but its flaws keep it from being more than average. First, let's focus on what's good.
There are 500 puzzles! They are mostly 15x15, but there are some 10x10 boards in the beginning and some 20x20 later on. And even better, many of the puzzles are in color.
The interface is easy to use and well thought out. You hold the DS book style and control the game with the stylus. With some trial and error (after all the game's menus are in Japanese) I was even able to set up a save game with the screens flipped for my left-handedness. Stylus control is intuitive; you click on black or white (or colors on some boards) and simply draw on the board. Once you start drawing, the game maintains a straight line as well as counts the number of squares filled.
And now, let's look at the bad. The designs of the puzzles are uneven; once you finish a board about half the time you'll be trying to figure out what you've drawn. The levels often seem like they were designed by interns and not necessarily graphic artists. This is mostly noticeable on the black and white boards.
This is partly due to the lack of polish in the presentation. In other Picross games, the board is often colorized or animated after you complete it. Or at the very least the boards are simply drawn better.
So to sum up: Good interface and lots of puzzles, but sloppy presentation and lack of polish in general. For me, the color puzzles and stylus controls are the best parts of this game. I enjoyed playing through DS Puzzler, but I can only recommend it to other Picross fans.
P.S. there are also 500 Sudoku puzzles included in DS Puzzler. The interface seemed okay to me, but honestly I prefer the Sudoku in Brain Age.
2008 ben langberg, all rights reserved.