Brief Review:

I took about 19 hours to complete this game. It is an interesting way to develop a game about Picross - by linking Picross to the robot sidekick SCOUT, the game of Picross itself takes on a different character. I also appreciated the time-based Picross challenges, although I wish the developers would throw you more than 5 to complete (especially when the stakes in the narrative are high.)

I think the game does suffer from a lack of strong characters and/or narrative. As a Phoenix Wright-inspired game, the game also follows the 'core' of Phoenix Wright - Honor, SCOUT, Detective Cross. But that is where the similarity ends, for better or for worse. Cross is very similar to Gumshoe, yes, but KC is no Larry. The characters also don't get enough time to be as fleshed out. I feel as though some of the episodes were written to allow for side characters to be featured in, for instance Case 3 for KC (marginally). Nonetheless, I appreciate the LGBTQIA+ friendly content in this game, and that is quite novel for such a game.

The narrative based on SCOUT seems a bit forced - we only catch glimpses of it throughout, and the rest of the narrative is entirely isolated from SCOUT's character arc (of sorts). I felt like the game could also be longer in terms of narrative - perhaps a 5 case structure would be better (and allows for characters to be fleshed out too)

I also think there could be more music. Especially where the stakes are high, the music should be more intense and ideally different. (e.g. when you are hacking, the music should be thrilling and not idyllic). Characters should also get their own themes where possible, just to make them stand out more.

One final issue is that although the Picross puzzles were good, towards the end I found myself getting tired of doing the Picross puzzles. Perhaps some more variation towards the end would be good.

Overall I would give the game a 7/10. It's good for beginners to Picross and the narrative is not the worst, but I think it would be best to play the game in small blocks to not tire yourself out.

Brief Review: I took about 19 hours to complete this game. It is an interesting way to develop a game about Picross - by linking Picross to the robot sidekick SCOUT, the game of Picross itself takes on a different character. I also appreciated the time-based Picross challenges, although I wish the developers would throw you more than 5 to complete (especially when the stakes in the narrative are high.) I think the game does suffer from a lack of strong characters and/or narrative. As a Phoenix Wright-inspired game, the game also follows the 'core' of Phoenix Wright - Honor, SCOUT, Detective Cross. But that is where the similarity ends, for better or for worse. Cross is very similar to Gumshoe, yes, but KC is no Larry. The characters also don't get enough time to be as fleshed out. I feel as though some of the episodes were written to allow for side characters to be featured in, for instance Case 3 for KC (marginally). Nonetheless, I appreciate the LGBTQIA+ friendly content in this game, and that is quite novel for such a game. The narrative based on SCOUT seems a bit forced - we only catch glimpses of it throughout, and the rest of the narrative is entirely isolated from SCOUT's character arc (of sorts). I felt like the game could also be longer in terms of narrative - perhaps a 5 case structure would be better (and allows for characters to be fleshed out too) I also think there could be more music. Especially where the stakes are high, the music should be more intense and ideally different. (e.g. when you are hacking, the music should be thrilling and not idyllic). Characters should also get their own themes where possible, just to make them stand out more. One final issue is that although the Picross puzzles were good, towards the end I found myself getting tired of doing the Picross puzzles. Perhaps some more variation towards the end would be good. Overall I would give the game a 7/10. It's good for beginners to Picross and the narrative is not the worst, but I think it would be best to play the game in small blocks to not tire yourself out.