YMMV / Picross

aka: Marios Picross

• Americans Hate Tingle: The first game got a bad rap and was a commercial failure in western countries, the main reason being the complaint that the puzzles were too hard to see on the Game Boy's tiny screen. However, it was a success in Japan. This led to the sequels getting No Export for You until Picross DS.
• Awesome Music: The soundtracks for the Picross S series are known for being quite a good mix of calming or snazzy jazz. An official upload of the S through S9 soundtracks can be found here.
• Cult Classic: As said above, the first game wasn't really liked in western countries by the general public but gained a fanbase over time. Sadly, the only way to play any subsequent games for the next decade would be to import.
• Fridge Brilliance: Mario's Super Picross and Picross 2 feature a "Wario's Picross" mode, in which there is no time limit, but your mistakes aren't automatically corrected either, making it much pretty much exactly like a traditional nonogram. At first this seems backwards, since Wario seems more like the kind to punish a player for mistakes, until you realize that these playstyles reflect not the characters' personalities, but their playstyles in their own games. Mario's games involve quick reflexes and thinking on your feet, reflected in the timer and low tolerance for mistakes, whereas in most of Wario's games, it's a lot harder to lose, but more critical thinking is required to win, reflected in the lack of a timer and having to self-correct.
• Game-Breaker: The majority of Legendary and Mythical Pokémon in Pokémon Picross will basically play the game for you. However, they have a very long cooldown to compensate, around 24 to 30 hours real-time that can’t be shortened using Picrites, so it's difficult to abuse them. That being said, once you have enough, you won't need to abuse them, because you have so many to choose from.
• Older Than They Think: Picross isn't the first name of this type of puzzle, and it certainly isn't the last, either; however, the original concept is known as a Nonogram, and it dates to about 1987. Interestingly, this means the concept of a Nonogram is narrowly fresher than the NES, despite the earliest incarnations being in magazines, and not video games.
• Paranoia Fuel: Any time you need to figure out which cells to fill but you don't have enough information to decide for sure; play it safe and try to think harder, or guess and risk a penalty on the magnitude of minutes. ^note The Virtual Console versions of both Mario's games have save state-like restore points that completely removes this kind of stress unless you decide to play fair and square, but the later games have no such thing. And then there's the One-Time Challenges in the 3D games, where a single mistake is an immediate game over.
• Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic: Originally, the Picross S games did not have touch control compatibility despite the Nintendo Switch having a touchscreen (albeit a capacitive touchscreen that's only compatible with fingers or certain types of styli), to the detriment of those who prefer that control scheme on Picross DS and the Picross e series. Fortunately, when Picross S9 was released, not only did it bring back touch controls, but that same control scheme was backported to all previous Picross S games in updates for them.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • In the first game, you can't save data! Did your batteries run out, or you just want to close the game? Say goodbye to all that progress! Thankfully, this is corrected in the 3DS re-release, with suspend points.
  • Picross DS features a handy zoom feature for puzzles larger than 10x10... the problem is, you have to be zoomed in to draw any squares or spaces. This makes it easy to lose your place, as well as greatly increasing the amount of time it takes to complete a puzzle in general, as you'll be spending at least as much time scrolling about or zooming in and out as you do actually working on the puzzle.
  • In Picross S2 onwards, Clip Picross pieces can only be unlocked by playing standard Picross puzzles. You don't get any for playing Mega Picross or Color Picross, which is a downer for those who prefer those modes.
  • In the Color Picross mode of Picross S3 onwards, you can choose from one of several different control schemes with varying degrees of ease-of-use and number of buttons assigned. The "Direct" control scheme maps each color to its own fill button, as opposed to the other control types which each have one or two "cycle color" buttons; this can allow a player to solve puzzles much faster than on the other control schemes. Unfortunately, Direct control is also the only control option that doesn't allow you to change marking color.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: The series has been adding new beginner-assisting features over time, such as navigation (indicating which rows or columns can be solved given the information you currently have) and Hint Roulette (solves randomly-chosen row and column for you). S outright lacks a mode where mistakes cost you completion time; while you can turn on an autocorrect feature, you still won't get penalized specifically for errors. Additionally, while most games will hide the current puzzle when paused (so as to avoid cheating the timer), S only shows the pause menu box over most, but not all of the puzzle, allowing you to abuse pausing to some extent.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Mario's Picross and Mario's Super Picross have you starting with 5x5 puzzles and gradually working your way up, with the original having a maximum puzzle size of 15x15. Picross 2, however, starts with 15x15 puzzles and then immediately moves onto 30x30 puzzles. And to top it off, each stage has a bonus puzzle that can only be unlocked by clearing all previous puzzles in that stage without using hints, timing out, or restarting.
• That One Level:
  • The aptly-named "Brutal Blocks" book in 3D: Round 2. Make one mistake? Game Over.
  • Picross S has P091, a 15x15 puzzle that is, by many players' accounts, significantly harder than same-size puzzles before it due to the small hint numbers and the fact that many strategies that worked up to this point end up in situations where you still can't narrow down to one possible solution.
  • Picross S2 has CP03_12 (the 12th sub-puzzle in Clip Picross puzzle 3), which has two 15s and the rest of the hint numbers are all 4 or less. And there aren't enough numbers to reliably use the "count from opposite sides" strategy.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Mega Picross is a neat idea that shakes up the standard Picross formula, but starting with Picross-e6, all Mega Picross puzzles are just rehashes of existing standard Picross puzzles, which was not well-received by veteran players since now they have to basically complete the same puzzles twice.
• Vindicated by History: The first game received a bit of a chilly reception due to most players not knowing what to make of the concept. Over time the series became a cult favorite, with many fans rejoicing when Picross DS and 3D Picross made the trek outside Japan, even leading to both new Picross games by western developers, and even various Picross puzzles appearing in other puzzle games (such as an implementation in Deadly Rooms of Death).

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