Pokémon Picross Arrives On The 3DS eShop Early December

Looks interesting, I'll probably pick this up cause wynaut?

If you ask me, It looks stupid. Just like every other Pokemon.

Is it a free to play game?

Whoop! Can't wait! I love Picross, I love Pokémon. Doubt I'll be using those cheat powers though, I don't want a couple of rows revealed for me, figuring them out is the fun of the game!

@MegaBeedrill Ha! I like what you did there

Love Pokémon. Love Picross. HATE THIS FREE-TO-PLAY CRAP!!!
takes deep breath
I HATE IT! I HATE IT! I HATE IT!!

This is arguably the kind of game Nintendo should be releasing on smartphones, not the 3DS.

I'm sure this one will be like the third pushmo game. Free to start and you can purchase certain sized packs for the full experience. Purchase everything and you get bonus levels.

Looks like another smartphone application is coming to both smartphones and 3DS!

The only thing I hate about Picross is when it's generic, not that I love Pokemon, but I'll happily download this.

I love Picross and this was actually my favorite surprise from the direct, but I hate how every Pokemon spinoff is getting shoehorned into f2p. I want to pay my $6-$10 and be done like with the Picross-e series. Hopefully the pay model will be generous enough to either let me buy a full unlock or at least play a couple puzzles a day for free.

I'll definitely give this a download!

@Radbot42 : I wish that were the case, but they've confirmed that Picrites, an in-game currency, can be purchased with real money. In other words, no full-game unlock.

@sillygostly It could still end up being something like with Rumble World where there's a max limit to how many you can buy and buying that many is essentially like unlocking the full game. Fingers crossed.

I don't know why this isn't on smartphones like Shuffle. I would play this all day long on my phone but I'm starting to get tired of lugging my 3DS everywhere. SOMETHING Picross should be an app, I love that game.

This was the best surprise of the Direct for me, although I'll probably never use the special abilities because that just seems like cheating to me. I'm concerned, though, about it being free-to-start and the in-game currency being used to "prolong play sessions." Does this mean players will only be allowed a certain amount of time in-game per day without paying for it? Will there be ways to earn currency without spending real money? I'm a HUGE Picross fan, so this should have been an extremely easy sell for me, but I still have a lot of questions about this game.

@Dief88 Examining videos and screens, it looks like Picrites are needed to unlock stages, and also there's an Energy Meter that tops out at 200 and goes down by 1 every time you place a pixel. This has a timer under it so I assume it slowly refills, and it has a Y button icon so I assume you can spend Picrites to refill it. Also, according to Serebii it has a spending cap much like Rumble World did.

Actually, this game was announced back in 1999 for the gameboy. Duke nukem forever's 14 years development cycle record has been broken folks.

@Joelahughes Pokemon is Nintendo's best series....

still getting this because it's Picross and Pokemon. My two favorite series.

@melvin2898 Mario is Nintendo's best series

I like Pokemon and Picross... this being a free title makes things better.
The fact that there was once going to be a Pokemon Picross game through the GameBoy makes this announcement more interesting...

I'm not going to lie - this looks amazingly boring compared to the other two freemium games which I got hyped for,and loved both. This one, however...could have been a GBC game. @_@ Probably not going to download this, amazingly...

I'm spending less money on Pokémon spin-offs thanks to these stupid F2P games.

@BooJoh: Here's hoping… but how much money will they want? $10? $20?! This should be a $6.50 game, just like every other Picross e game (except the first, which, for whatever reason, costs a dollar more in Australia).

I love both Pokémon and Picross. I've played Mario's Picross for 75 hours, most of it in time trial mode. I hope it has the puzzles from the game they were making for GB. I've solved those that can be found from screenshots of the game. I don't really get why anyone would want to use those Pokémon powers though since the fun of puzzle games is to solve the puzzle not let the game solve it for you.

I love Picross and I like Pokémon, but I don't know if I need these 2 to combine.

I like that when I do a Picross it could turn out to be anything... if I'm just drawing different Pokémon that takes a large part of the fun away for me...

F2P Picross could be a dangerous affair for a Picross addict like me...

"Pokemon Picross"
OOH! Two great things that taste great together! I'm in! How much?!
"Free to Start!"
brain explodes Come on Nintendo, you know your fans hate when you give em stuff for free Honestly tho, I'm totally in. Shuffle and Rumble get a lot of my f2p time during breaks at work.

I would rather have Picross 3D 2 than another free to start, expensive to finish game.

Oooh! I for one am excited for this, we need Picross 3D 2 to rear its head sometime soon too.

@DarkKirby I'm generally not a fan of Nintendo going mobile (like most of us here, I'm hoping for the best), but I would absolutely love Picross on my phone. It's so much better than most of the garbage "match three" puzzle games on iOS. Pokémon or not, I would absolutely pay $5 or so for a solid Picross outing on my phone.

Excellent work, Nintendo. This is what all of us were waiting for. Pathetic.

Gonna give it a go - great stuff 😄

Hmmm, ANOTHER 2d picross. And this time even in the nonsensical free-to-play format. Where's picross 3d 2 and the new rhythm tengoku?! And has Nintendo forgotten that there is more in the world then just picross (a new Eartbound, real Metroid, etc)?

Might still download, but the time aspect sounds worrying. I don't want to pay for extra time!!

@BooJoh Same. Stretchmo is truly free-to-start because it's free to start, and then you need to pay in order to play the full game. That's not sleazy, and is actually more like a pack-in demo than a game. Pokémon Shuffle on the other hand is just pure evil. That game is pay-to-play, which means that you can't just buy the full game. At least there's Trozei for people who like Shuffle's gameplay. There's no paid equivalent to Pokémon Picross, so they had better not screw it up.

@TheLobster You're "lugging" your 3DS? Get yourself a man bag and you'll be able to fit lots of other interesting things as well.
I myself love going out well equipped, cause it's never a problem to stay out longer that way.

@LemonSlice Well, I have a PURSE, but it's rather heavy with all the stuff I have to fit inside it. You would be surprised at all the stuff a lady carries around with her all day! One less thing to worry about is always welcome.