2025 has, quite frankly, been a truly awesome year for video games. So much so, I’ve been having a tough time keeping up with them. While I’ve managed to see end credits for the likes of Clair Obscur, Donkey Kong Bananza and Kirby Air Riders, I am still working my way through runs in Hades 2, yet to scare myself silly in Silent Hill f, and now just became aware of the highly addicting Absolum. Then Jupiter drop another bomb and announce not one but two Picross games, each focused on a publisher and their retro catalogue. Why do you do this to me Picross gods?!
If that opener hasn’t already heavily hinted at, I happen to be a rather big Picross fan, playing them since the ‘e’ series back on the Nintendo 3DS. It’s the simplistic brilliance that keeps me coming back over and over, the tease of a pixellated piece of art awaiting after every completed puzzle and most importantly, the effortless fun to be had from what is nothing more than filling in boxes in a grid.
There isn’t much point in reviewing Picross S Capcom Classics Edition and Picross S SNK Classics & NEOGEO Edition separately, to be honest, the games offering pretty much the exact same from a content perspective. For returning Picross… ers then, it’s pretty much business as usual, both games offering a smorgasbord of increasingly tougher Picross puzzles, only this time with some added Capcom or SNK/NEOGEO flavour.
That means instead of gradually unveiling pixelated interpretations of flowers, cassette tapes and kangaroos, you’ll be spoiled with the likes of Street Fighter, Mega Man, Ghouls ‘n Goblins, Breath of Fire and Final Fight in all their retro glory with the Capcom Edition and Metal Slug, Fatal Fury and King of Fighters in SNK’s. While it’s certainly been fun revealing the most mundane of things in pixel form, these sprite-based items, characters and more feel like a more natural fit for Picross. Of course, expect a good number of music tracks from both Capcom and SNK’s catalogue, every mode completely customisable as to what you listen to.
As for the modes, alongside your standard vanilla Picross, you’ll also find Mega Picross (clues offering hints to pairs of lines and rows instead of just the one), Color Picross (which adds colouring to the mix), Clip Picross (smaller puzzles that all piece together to create a giant picture) and a handful of mammoth grids. A new time attack mode challenges players to complete puzzles within a set time, whilst an art gallery wraps things up nicely. All in all, you’re getting a lot of content.
A few neat quality-of-life updates have been made, including grid references, making it easier to decipher certain squares on a grid (making it an ideal feature during multiplayer), alongside mouse support for Switch 2 players. While I wouldn’t recommend using the mouse option if you’re resting the control on your leg, I will say playing on an actual tabletop worked really nicely and alongside touchscreen and traditional button controls, you’ve an option no matter where you’re playing.
Jupiter has already worked with SEGA and Namco, giving them each their own Picross package, and CAPCOM and SNK’s addition to that list only makes me more excited for future team-ups. Konami? Square Enix? Nintendo? With so much to do and a wealth of nostalgic references in both games, what you pick really comes down to where your own affection lies. Either way, you can’t go wrong.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch
Review Copy Provided by Jupiter
