Picross S5

Genre: Picross Puzzle

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

(Note: Due to the similarities between this game and Picross S4, I’m copying most of this review from my Picross S4 review… which in turn was mostly copied over from my Picross S3 review… and changing the details that have changed. As you can probably guess, that’s not very much.)

Picross S5 is of course a Picross game that offers players four different types of Picross-style puzzles – the game includes 150 traditional Picross puzzles, 150 “Mega Picross”-style puzzles where some of the numerical hints combine multiple rows or columns at once, 30 Color Picross puzzles, and 150 unlockable “Clip Picross” puzzles comprised of numerous smaller Picross puzzles. This game also includes 2 large “Extra” Picross puzzles, with an additional three unlockable if you have save data from the first three games in the series (one for each game). No bonus for owning the fourth game though.

This is much in line with prior releases in the series. And much as with prior games in the series, this content is paired with a pretty good presentation, with clean, colorful visuals and five relaxing songs (well, four relaxing songs and one terribly annoying one) to choose between while you play, as well as the option to just have background traffic sounds as you play.

Beyond this, the controls are good, the options and tutorials are solid, there’s decent 2-player Co-Op… really, this game does just about everything I want in a good Picross game, although for the first time in the series there are no significant new features or modes added in the game. Also, it still has the same big flaw every other game in the series did – this game has absolutely no touchscreen controls, which I’d argue is kinda’ a staple of this genre on any platform with a touchscreen.

I should also mention one other flaw this game has – not all of its puzzles are original. Rather, the Mega Picross mode re-uses some of the puzzles from the traditional Picross mode. It’s fine, as the different modes make each of these puzzles play differently, but it’s still a bit of a let-down to solve a puzzle and see an image you already have in your collection.

At this point, if you’ve been reading my reviews of this series, you know the drill. Picross S5 is a nearly ideal Picross game, blah blah, lack of touchscreen still disappointing, blah blah. However, it’s getting really hard to ignore how lazy these releases have become. The developers have done nothing with the prior game rather than bringing in new puzzles, and completely ignored the one major flaw. I can really only recommend this game if you already have Picross S4 and want… well, more of exactly that (and nothing new whatsoever).

tl;dr – Picross S5 is a Picross game with 150 traditional Picross puzzles, 150 Mega Picross puzzles, 30 Color Picross puzzles, 150 Clip Picross puzzles comprised of multiple smaller puzzles, and five “Extra” puzzles. Like previous games in the series, this one has a superb presentation and a solid array of features, but this nearly-ideal version of Picross shares the main flaw of its predecessors – a lack of touchscreen controls.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Laziest Copycat

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