Puzzle Series Vol. 5: Slitherlink Comments by John Walker

TEN? I am a sucker for good puzzles. Please say that this is coming to Europe!

CHRIST TEN OUT OF TEN

So, it's like Minesweeper.

Where did this come from?! This needs to be secured for the better half ASAP.

try the new picross game from nintendo, Japanese only, but simply awesome!

Unexpected score-arama!

Personally I think you were a bit harsh on some other DS games - rocket slime in my opinion is a 9 or 10 for example. This looks like perfect on-the-train fodder anyway.

Er. So, which is the jump button again?

Does this make this the best DS game yet? Have any others had a 10?
It does look great, like a more complex minesweeper.

Yes, better than any of those, by any quality criteria you care to measure.

Whoah, this came out of nowhere, and the review has me salivating. Is an English version announced? Otherwise I may as well order it now...

Yeah - is there a US release of this?

It's only £15 on play-asia.

/buys

Go hug a tree you Eurogamer Hippies!!!

First DS 10 on Eurogamer I believe, unless Zoo Keeper was a 10.

Isn't it "Sudoku"? Or is Suckodu another puzzle, I'm not aware of? Because with Sudoku you NEVER have to guess either, there's always a logical next move too, if you can't find any, you're not thinking hard enough.

Anyway, any chance this gets a PSP release?

So how much of the menu and stuff is in Japanese? Will I be horribly confused and end up quitting instead of saving if I import this?

Ordered it (with UPS shipping even).

CURSE YOU!

ROBIN GET THE BATMOBILE.

US RELEASE?!! LANGUAGE BARRIER!>!?

/explodes

Oh man, you get these in Sudoku books sometimes and i've been searching for a book with just them in it. NOW THERE IS A DS GAME. I've died.

The menus present an obstacle for about the first 30 seconds, and then never again.

FINE, I'LL BUY* IT.


*illegally download

Every time I see a comment starting with the words "better than", a little bit of me dies inside. When oh when will that get old?

Rest assured, the people posting "better than" messages have died inside a long time ago :)

Look at these graphics:

http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/artic...

Look at this score:

10/10

See? You don't need cutting edge hardware to make a good game.

Where do I buy, where do I buy?

Fantastic, might have to pick this up for the GF (well, and myself of course!)

As far as I know, there's no English language release planned of any of the excellent Hudson series. However, perhaps this review will encourage a publisher to take a look.

However, as I said, it's really not a problem.

phl0w: Suckodu is my HILARIOUS Rory Bremner Satire name for Sudoku. Also, you *do* have to guess at the high end. The super-difficult book Sudoku Genius by Tom Sheldon discusses the pros and cons of this, and highlights those puzzles that require it so sensible people can ignore them, or scribble on them with a marker pen. Also, it would be a disaster on the PSP, without the stylus controls.

IAmBatman: If you follow my super-excellent instructions in the review, you'll have no troubles at all. The first time you run it it will ask for a name, save slot, etc, but that's all fairly obvious too. Plus you get to invent a Japanese name for yourself!

lambtron - I don't think I was harsh on Rocket Slime. I gave it an 8 because it was very good. And said how madly lovely it was, over and over : )

JetSetWilly:

As someone else said, the best place seems to be Play Asia. I can't find it anywhere else. And it's a measly £15 for over 200 hours of puzzle joy!

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-9g-4...

(John Walker is not sponsored by Play Asia, although he wishes he were, as it would save him a lot of money)

Wonderful!

I'm enjoying these 'tea break' titles on the DS more and more.

If you haven't already, also check out:

- Big Brain Academy (vastly superior to Brain Training)
- 4 Games in 1 (Boggle will have to do until Bookworm makes it to the DS)
- Quickspot (spot the difference)
- and 42 All Time Classics, which is just PERFECT.

The status at Play Asia has just changed from "ships in 24 hours" to "ships within a week" - they must be mystified as to why so many Europeans have started buying it in the last hour...

Actually, Slitherlink would work fine on PSP, as it also supports d-pad-and-face-buttons control, which is in fact the Control Style Of Champions. It might miss the top screen, but the wider display would be a boon on later puzzles so it'd be swings and roundabouts.

mine! (£14.67 from yesasia with free shipping!)

but hang on: playasia are listing at least 12 games in this series so far!?! where on earth did these come from?? i'd never even heard of the series until today.

has anyone seen any reviews of any of the other games in the series? or better yet, an overview of the series as a whole?

botherer: Cheers for the link, I'm sold!

erp:

The series is of varying use to a non-Japanese speaker. And to those who really don't need any more Sudoku puzzles in their lives.

For instance, two of them are Crossword games, which are obviously a bit pointless without the language. Then Vol 8: Nankuro isn't understandable either.

Vol 1 is jigsaw puzzles : )

However, Vol 10 to 13 are all very interesting looking, and perhaps might get reviews some day.

Oh, and Vol. 4: Kakuro will entertain.

You can see them all here:

http://www.hudson.co.jp/puzzle


(er, for no reason that link is splurging gibberish. Delete after "puzzle/")

And I think there's playable demos on that site, but I'm stuffed if I can remember how to get to them. And of course a quick Wikipedia search for each will offer comprehensive instructions.

Several of the Puzzle Series titles are reviewed here, along with other DS puzzle games:

>http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.co...

Most of the ones not covered in the roundup above (eg Crossword and Nankuro) absolutely require a full command of Japanese, being word-based.

Try it online

If you can read german: Play "Schlangenlinie" and a numerous other puzzles (incl. rules).

Buy 'beyond suduko' at your local whsmiths to see the current crop of crazy jap games. My fave are the mosaic, battleships and dominoes ones.

Slitherlink are a bit more annoying than them.

Of the three newest releases in the Puzzle Series, Akari is a little bit like Slitherlink For Kids, cute but very very easy; Hitori is ideal for slightly lazier thinkers as it's rather more forgiving of trial and error; and Nurikabe is brilliant brain-twisting stuff, probably the third-best in the series after Slitherlink and Illust Logic.

wtf?

10? Oh man, and I was only looking forward to picross until I read this.

I was convinced from the word "Picross". One of the DS Sudoku games has a load of Picross puzzles included, but the Sudoku part put me off a little. This looks pretty exciting too.

Extra: Illust Logic is also Picross? I'm off to Play Asia.

The Nintendo DS Picross game is terrible. For Picross on the DS, get Illust Logic or Essential Sudoku instead.

I play this constantly, as does my missus. I see Slitherlink in my sleep, it owns me. Love it to bits.

Very interesting.

However, as lemon said:

So, it's like Minesweeper.

I had that impression, too. Is it really a much better game, or are you also a hopeless Minesweeper addict, John? ;)

It's nothing at all like Minesweeper.

The DS Picross game is absolutely sublime, i've been playing it for a while now.

Does anyone know if there's a DS game for the Bridges puzzle? You get them in Sudoku books sometumes.

UncleLou, try the online version linked somewhere above. It really is, to paraphrase Pulp Fiction, pretty fucking far from Minesweeper.

/is sold

Play online

Once the page has loaded, click number 4 and you should be able to play the game, if you don't have a pop-up blocker turned on :)

Cheers guys, I'll try the link. I could do with a great puzzle game on the DS.

Sorry, I can't take your DS puzzle reviews seriously. Not after how completely and entirely wrong you were about Picross DS.

Whenever I see puzzle games such as this, Sudoku or something similar where it is likely that an algorithm has generated the puzzle I don't want to 'play' the game.

Instead I find it more challenging thinking of how to code that generator and that's all I'd think of. The menial task of solving generated puzzles do not attract me.

Been buying the slitherlink puzzle books from japan regularly. They're great fun.
Don't see how it's supposed to work on the DS though - the puzzles are too small to be interesting.

@disc: Buy the books from Nikoli - ALL of their puzzles are hand created, and they are MUCH more satisfying to solve.