I’ve been playing my DS quite a bit lately, and I love puzzle games. I recently traded away Picross DS after completely clearing the game. It was a really good, enjoyable game. When I first heard about Colour Cross and it’s similarities to Picross, I instantly wanted it. I now have a copy, and you can find out my opinions after the break.
OK, so in Picross, you were presented with a grid of squares with numbers at the edges. The numbers represented how many squares in each row you had to fill in, and what formation they would take. For example, if a row had ’15′ next to it, then that row needed to have 15 consecutive squares filled in. If the row has ’7 1 6′ next to it, that row would have a group of 7 consecutive squares filled in, then one seperate filled in square and then a group of 6 squares filled in, with a gap of at least one square between each set.
Colour Cross follows this same formula. However, each puzzle has several layers to solve, each with a different colour. You can switch layers at will by tapping the paint tube next to the puzzle and selecting a new colour. The puzzle is complete once you’ve successfully filled all layers in correctly.
The controls are faily simple. You control everything from the touch screen. There is the afformentioned paint tube to switch layers, and arrow icon to move the whole puzzle around (and some of them are huge) and an ‘x’ icon, which you use to mark squares you know are definately empty.
You are the winner!
The puzzles are split into groups of 15, with each group having a theme, such as ‘Science-Fiction’ or ‘Baby’. You are timed for how long it takes you to complete each puzzle. If you fill in a square incorrectly, you get a time penalty and the square gets an ‘x’ in it. This penalty increases with each mistake you make.
Sadly, there are some fundamental issues with the game. For instance, on the larger puzzles, the squares on the grid are quite small. There is no way to zoom in to the puzzles, so you have to rely on pinpoint accuracy with the stylus. Unfortunatly, the touch screen isn’t as accurate as this game needs you to be, so you end up making mistakes, which is hugely frustrating. I recalibrated the touch screen 3 times and it didn’t improve things.
When you change colour layers in a puzzle, the background – essentially a moving patterned wallpaper – changes colour too. Unfortunatly, there are a number of times when the background colour will change and pretty much match the colour layer you’re using, making it very hard to see what you’re doing.
Some of the big puzzles take a while to complete. But you are unable to save mid-puzzle, so you either have to complete the puzzle in one sitting or else turn off the system and start again from scratch next time you switch it on.
Also, there are no online features at all and very little to do once you complete every puzzle. This sort of game would lend itself extremely well to a level editor, but there isn’t one.
So overall, you’ll need a lot of thought and a LOT of patience to play this game without losing it and considering throwing your DS across the room. There is a good, original puzzle game in this, Unfortunately, the lack of variety and the glaring flaws in the design make this a real chore overall. Still, if you love this sort of puzzle game and you can find it, it might be worth some time if you can get it cheap.
PROS
- Simple, easy to pick up control scheme
- Quite a lot of puzzles to go through
- Nice soundtrack
CONS
- No zoom function
- Could have done with a level editor or some other game modes
- No mid-puzzle save ability
- Background colour changes can obscure what you are doing
NTN SCORE – 5.8
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