Piczle Puzzle & Watch Collection from Score Studios and Rainyfrog is a most excellent homage to the Game & Watch series that you have to check out on Nintendo Switch. Read our Piczle Puzzle & Watch Collection review!
Piczle Puzzle & Watch Collection from Score Studios and Rainyfrog is a most-excellent homage to the Game & Watch series that you have to check out on Nintendo Switch. It’s a love letter to the good old days of physical LCD games like the aforementioned series from Nintendo. You’ll get to enjoy one of three logic-based puzzles that look and feel as if they had been released way back in the 1980s-1990s. The three games included in this collection are Piczle Cross, Piczle Pattern, and Piczle Loops.
Piczle Cross has you complete the 200 10×10 nonograms it offers. If you’ve played other games from Score Studios, such as Piczle Colors and Pizcle Cross Adventure, then you know what to expect from this one. The twist is that it offers a Game A and Game B option, and for Game A, you need to complete each 10×10 nonogram puzzle before you make three mistakes, or else you’ll have to start over again! If you select Game B, then you can play each puzzle at your own pace without worrying about making one mistake too many.
The number on each row or column represents how many squares must be filled out inside of that line or column. If a line has the number three, then that means that out of the ten squares for the line, three continuous squares must be changed to black. If there is more than one number present in a row or column, then this is a clue to let you know that there must be at least one blank square between the sets of black squares that the aforementioned numbers are asking you to fill in for that row or column. If you know that a square is to be left blank, then you can mark it with an X so that you don’t make a mistake.
Then we have Piczle Pattern, which will require that you turn every square in a 5×5 grid black by using a cross pattern. You will move the cross pattern around and find the best way to make every grid black in as few moves as possible, starting either from a blank playing field or, if you’re feeling lucky, have a go at it from a randomly generated grid. Every time you use the cross, every single square inside of it will change color, so you’ll have to plan accordingly and adjust as needed so that you can fill up every square as fast as possible.
The last game in this collection is Piczle Loops. For this one, you’ll be taking on 72 logic-based puzzles in which you need to draw an uninterrupted looping line on the grid by following the numerical clues on it. You must draw this line without it overlapping or intersecting with itself. The puzzles are split into the Game A and the Game B sets. The puzzles included in the Game A set go from easy to moderate difficulty, while the 36 puzzles in the Game B set go from a moderate to hard difficulty, bumping up the challenge.
As for the clues, each square will have a number on it that will let you know what needs to be done. If it has a zero, then that means that none of its four sides may contain a line segment. As you’ve probably guessed by now, if a square has a one, two, or a three, that means that only one, two, or three of its sides can contain a line segment. If a square has no number inside, then that means any of its sides may or may not contain a line segment, making them the trickier ones to use in your favor!
Score Studios did a marvelous job with the three games, going as far as having them display on the screen as if you were playing them on physical LCD consoles, showcasing the game’s covers, D-Pad, and buttons for each game, with each one offering a different layout. A recent update to the collection has also now made it possible for you to zoom in on the LCD screen to make it easier to see the action. The patch also fixed some grammar and spelling mistakes, and it also allows you to switch the inputs for the A and B buttons for Piczle Cross by using the right analog stick.
On top of this, we get an experience that needs to be mentioned: you will get to unbox these digital LCD consoles! We all know that unboxing a new console or a new game is an experience that we all love, and you can do that with the three games in the Piczle Puzzle and Watch Collection. You’ll get to see each console’s packaging, the console itself, as well as read through each individual manual so that you can learn all of the basics. It really makes you feel like you’re about to play with an old-school physical LCD unit! You can then go into the 3D viewer to turn each console around to get a closer look.
As a fan of all of the many puzzle games that Score Studios has released on Nintendo Switch and of the Game & Watch physical consoles from Nintendo, I was looking forward to playing Piczle Puzzle & Watch Collection. I’m happy to report that it’s a solid group of games that emulate the look and feel of the old portable LCD consoles of the 1980s and 1990s. Piczle Puzzle & Watch Collection is out on Nintendo Switch with a $7.99 budget price, making it an easy one to recommend.
Disclaimer
This Piczle Puzzle & Watch Collection reviews is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Score Studios.
