Sudoku was invented in the late 70's and introduced to Japan in the mid-80's, but it waited nearly thirty years to become a worldwide phenomenon. Newspapers publish sudoku puzzles even more prominently now than the crossword puzzles that have held dominance for nearly a century, and there are sudoku books, toys, and games everywhere you look: everyone is looking to cash in on the popular puzzle fad any way they can. There have been over fifteen different sudoku-based games published for the DS so far, and there are two others already available in DSiWare form: Sudoku Student and Sudoku Master. EA threw their hat into the ring in the middle of 2008 with their Sudoku iPhone app, and now they've brought it straight from the App Store to the DSi Shop. In a world already awash with sudoku mania, how does EA's foray into the well-known stack up?
If you've already downloaded EA's Sudoku for your iPhone, you should know that there's nothing new here gameplay-wise at all. It looks the same and buttons, stylus, and multiple screens aside, it plays almost identically as well. Sudoku promises 'thousands' of grids generated at random for the player and allows you to use either the stylus or buttons to play the game - during play, each button and game icon's function is laid out at the top of the screen in case you forget which does what, though the layout is pretty straight-forward and easy to learn. A selects cells and numbers to fill them with, B takes you back or undoes your last step, L and R turn Annotation on and off, X performs the Auto-Fill function and Y the Get Hint function. Using the buttons instead of the stylus for input would be great for being in a moving car or on a bumpy train ride, as the cells are naturally somewhat small, though the stylus is also excellent and easy to use for input as well. There are also hints and information that display above the button/icon explanations as you play, though if you decide you'd rather not see them, you can turn hints off entirely in the Options menu. The Annotation function allows you to fill in potential numbers (called Candidate Numbers) for each cell so that you have an idea of what's left to choose from. If you're in a lazy mood, the Auto-Fill function will annotate each cell for you. Even lazier? Choose 'Get Hint' to have the game fill in a cell for you at random.
There are three modes of play available to you: Normal, Newspaper, and Puzzle Solver (located under the 'Newspaper' option). 'New Game' starts up a brand new puzzle for you, and you may choose your difficulty: Easy, Normal, or Hard. Very Hard and Insane are also available, but are grayed out at first - they must be unlocked via playing grids on other difficulties and earning 'Journey Points'. For every grid you complete in Normal mode, you earn Journey Points: Easy gives you a maximum of 50 points per grid, Normal gives you 70 points and Hard gives you 150, with the points going toward unlocking the Very Hard and Insane difficulty levels. If you choose to Auto-Fill or Get Hint during play, you are docked points, but the game will give you a minimum of 20, 25 or 30 points respectively per grid you complete, no matter how many hints you take (fill in the entire grid using Get Hint if you like, you'll still earn points toward unlocking the harder difficulty levels). Very Hard requires 300 points before it will be unlocked, and Insane requires 600 total.
Before beginning your puzzle, you have the option to turn on Error Checking. This option will stop you from entering the wrong number into a cell (as well as tell you why at the top of the screen). If Error Checking is on, and it has to stop you from making a mistake, Journey Points will be docked from your end score; if Error Checking is off, you may change and rearrange numbers as you please (though you'll have to figure it all out for yourself). Note that you cannot turn this option on or off once you have started a grid; you must either play it through as-is or start a new puzzle. Thankfully you may stop your game at any time and pick it up as you please with the 'Resume' option on the main screen.
Under Newspaper mode, 'Enter Grid & Play' allows you to enter sudoku puzzles from magazines, newspapers or other games into this one, or even for you to make up your own grid if you like (though the player must be able to solve it logically; the game will tell you if guesswork is required, there are too few 'given' numbers, or if multiple solutions are available, and it will not allow you to play that grid until it's fixed). You may take a puzzle from a newspaper, enter it into the game and then take it along with you to play at your leisure without having to bother with pens or pencils or having to keep your newspaper from being crushed at the bottom of your purse or bookbag. You may also choose to use Error Checking once the game has decided a grid is valid, though it's worth mentioning Journey Points are not awarded for completing Newspaper grids. In 'Puzzle Solver', the DSi will solve the grid for you after you've mapped everything out, which is good for generating solutions to newspaper or magazine puzzles immediately (instead of waiting for the next day or next month for the solutions to be published).
Saving is a minor issue in this game. You have three profile slots available to you, but each profile is only able to have one game saved or in progress at a time (the 'Resume' option allows you to pick up a grid right where you left off). For example, if you have a normal game suspended already, but you had been playing a newspaper puzzle and wanted to have the game solve it for you, the game will warn you before entering Newspaper mode that you will lose your saved game should you continue. There is no option to write down a code for a particular puzzle (as in 'I'd like to try #322 again today because I couldn't solve it last week') either, so you will have to solve them as they come, play the profile-switching game, or hope the grid you were playing shows up again at random some other time. You could even write down the given numbers and enter them into Newspaper mode when you're ready to give that particular puzzle another try, but that's probably going a little far. People obsessed with solving every single sudoku puzzle they come across may find this irksome, especially if they get stuck and do not want to resort to hints.
The other bad thing about saving is that you cannot save puzzles after entering them into the DSi. If there is a particularly challenging newspaper sudoku grid you want to play through again a few months down the line, you will need to save the clipping and re-enter it when you want to play it. It's confusing at the very least, considering one of the features of this game is touted as 'build[ing] your very own collection', which can't really happen thanks to the lack of a save feature other than auto-suspend.
Under 'Statistics', for each difficulty level (and also for Newspaper mode) you can see how many puzzles you've completed versus how many you've started, your best time, and your average time for each. You can also see how much time you've put into the game total, as well as how many Journey Points you've earned so far.
At the title screen, the game is presented as if you are sitting within a building, looking out over the water and onto a Japanese-inspired landscape with a lone, gnarled tree, a few buildings to the left and a majestic mountain fading into sun-touched fog as a lone bird flaps its way across the top of the screen. Which is nice. Visually, the game is very clean and adult-looking compared to the aforementioned Sudoku Master and Sudoku Student: the colors are muted and fit well into the sunset-inspired scheme, and the fonts are crisp and elegant. There are no fuschia-fro'd assistants here to hold your hand, nor are there any cute little gloves or childish patterns and colors to distract you; this is a rather professional-looking game you would feel totally comfortable playing at work or showing off to your adult friends.
While the sound effects are nice and fit the atmosphere well, the music in this game is pretty terrible. It, like the visuals, are very Japan-inspired, with synthesized nature, koto, and flute sounds, but where the koto and birds are relaxing and monotonous enough to fade into the background and provide ambiance, the flute absolutely kills the mood. It is shrill and tinny, even coming from the speakers of the DSi, and every time it starts up it shatters any semblance of concentration you may have had going at the time. Thank goodness turning the music off is available to you in the Options menu.
Conclusion
How does this ported iPhone app fare as DSiWare? Surprisingly well. The controls are easy to pick up, the visuals are pleasing and you can turn off the music whenever you get sick of it. Though you'll probably spend most of your time playing in Normal mode, the Newspaper and Puzzle Solver modes are available if you get the itch to play different puzzles on your DSi. It's easy to unlock the hardest difficulty levels too, so it's not as though the game is deliberately keeping content from you, and the issues with saving are minor in the long run. Accessible to sudoku beginners and old hands alike without being too heavily focused on either skill level, and with those 'thousands' of grids available for a mere 200 points, you can't beat that with a stick.
Comments 26
Theres enough sudoku games on dsiware.
Edit: There is a wiiware of this and two other sudoku games on dsiware; no one thought of the title Sudoku until three tries.
I already have Sudoku Student so I should be fine with that.
My brain is going to explode with all the sudoku games.
BTW, good review.
Wow, you really can't beat that with a stick. I'm finally sold on a Sudoku game. Nice review Des.
@Ezekiel: there's enough sudoku games everywhere, lol, but I don't think this game is available for WiiWare. I know it was on the iPhone and has now been ported to the DSi and PSP.
But is it better than the Brain Age Sudoku?
Desiree???
I'm shocked.
I have the BT one and the Sudoku 150, so no. But good presentation
I've played it, and I agree with that score.
I'm glad this was a good rating. After all, you can copy a puzzle from a newspaper or magazine and play it from the DSi for later.
@JuneBelle: I haven't played the Brain Age 2 version, so I can't really tell you which is better. However, after watching a gameplay video, I can tell you off the bat that in this version, you hold the DSi normally (instead of turning it on its side as if it were a book), there is no zoom in/out feature, there is no option for handwriting recognition (everything is done by tapping/selecting icons, not writing out numbers), and aside from a few hints at the top of the screen about how this version of the game works, it won't tell you outright how to play sudoku (as in the numbers 1-9 are placed in to a grid made of 9 3x3 blocks and blah-blah-blah) outside of the game manual (located under 'Help' on the main screen). The graphics are (obviously) radically different, and I doubt the Brain Age 2 version has any of the Journey Points thing going on.
I also don't know how the Brain Age 2 difficulty levels work; the video I saw didn't really go over that (mainly because i have no sound on this computer ^^; ). This version also has the Auto-Fill feature that will automatically annotate each empty cell for you (if that's in the BA2 version, the video didn't show it off).
Also, to me, sudoku is sudoku is sudoku. I don't have any problems playing computer-generated grids versus hand-crafted ones, nor do i have any qualms about playing asymmetrical grids (some people like their sudoku laid out all even and pretty-like). If you do, this game may not be the version for you. :3
Really? Only a 7? Best deal on DSiWare IMO.
Woah, a new NL reviewer got two decent games in a row?
Watch out for next week, Des.
@theblackdragon:
Hmm.... I like the book format and the zooming. However, this one looks very pretty and seems to give a lot of content for a low price. I don't know why they wasted the top screen so much. I guess it's because it was just ported over from the iPhone.
I don't mind that it doesn't tell me how to play Sudoku. I seem to have gotten the hang of it.
Your screenshots seem pretty different in the placement of the number buttons and other things than in the IGN screenshots.... Are the number buttons movable from the side to the bottom?
http://media.ds.ign.com/media/023/023187/imgs_1.html
Hmm... I like inputting written numbers; but this looks like a pretty game with lots of content and potential content.
Thanks for your help!
@JuneBelle: IGN's screenshots are correct for the DSi version; no, you can't move the numbers around. The screenshots here seem to be from the iPhone version. Corbie would be the one to ask; he's the one who procured them. ^^;
@theblackdragon:
LOL I thought the screenshots looked a little too tall, making me wonder if the game was stretched across both screens. Time to give Corbie a smack upside the head for inaccurate screenshots.
@JuneBelle: Stay thy hand, lol -- turns out it wasn't Corbie's doing. Dazza told him to run the images as-is because EA didn't send any along, and what other images he could find were all watermarked. Hopefully EA will send some to replace these with soon. :3
@theblackdragon: Ooooops! Poor, Corbie! I smacked him too soon. LOL Yes, let's hope they send some along because I was genuinely confused by these. :-S x_x
Aw, that's too bad; I thought the screenshots looked quite nice, but now that I've seen the DSi ones, it looks rather badly ported. I don't know why they didn't create the game for the alternate holding style where they could have fit the images above onto a longer vertical space, then zoomed in on the other side for input.
I'm a big fan of this game and I've had no problems with the way you have to hold the DS. I've played other DS sudoku games, and this one has the best setup in my opinion.
Thats one comprehensive write up for a Sudoku game!! This looks to be the best of the bunch so far.I wonder when we will recieve another thrilling Sodoku game
vegeta what does the scouter say about the number of sudoku games on dsiware?
ITS OVER 9000!!!!
OVER 9000 that can't be right! nintendo has released WAY more than that
sudoku aaaaahhh!!!!!
I already have Sudoku! 50.... Should I get this?
Sudoku Student is fine for me, I suck at Sudoku but it's a great time waster and strangely relaxes me. I've only finished 4 of the 50, so no thanks.
I love this game. Irritating music aside, it's the perfect pocket Sudoku. Nice graphics, and a steal at only 200 points. Being able to set up your own games is a bonus, too. Highly recommend!
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