Ah, the Picross series, possibly the most straight-up reliable and consistent puzzle game franchise out there. Having iterated and added features throughout the lifespan of the Switch, the challenge at this point, aside from simply making loads of new puzzles, has been how best to try to capture people’s interest. Lacking any clear new puzzle types or quality-of-life changes to add, it seems that one road they can take is to get cracking with different themes.

I’ve absolutely enjoyed the retro video game iterations that honored both Sega and Namco, but they’ve also had some other versions like Kemono Friends and LogiartGrimoire as well for different looks and some variety. Now they’ve come to the table with a new look and feel, courtesy of partnering up with the Rising of the Shield Hero anime series as well.

As you’d expect, this has made for different looks for the menus as well as the puzzles themselves, giving this version a fresh look. What I like even more is the option to play through the puzzles as episodes, both giving it all the feeling of a bit more guided structure, but also helping you continue to vary up which puzzles you’re tackling and with which complexity. 

In typical Picross titles everything is simply arranged by puzzle type and then ordered by size and difficulty. Here, you’ll be moving around a bit more and taking on larger-scale challenges more quickly, but then returning to simpler fare. For me it’s this variation and moving up and down in complexity, rather than essentially becoming numb by plowing through everything at that same level at once, that helps this pack stand out and helps to make it feel worthwhile even if you may not be familiar with the series.