Gaming What are some good Japanese puzzle games for English speakers?

[GatorDeb]

Don't know a word of Japanese. What are some good Japanese puzzle games (jigsaw, picross, etc.) that someone who doesn't know Japanese can enjoy?

Thanks!

 

[Paulitix]

Puzzle Series Vol 5 - Slitherlink
Puzzle Series Vol 11 - Nurikabe

(I may have transposed the Volume numbers but those are the two)

 

[unz]

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=129565

 

[incognito54]

Slitherlink is awesome, I completed all puzzles! Here's a link that might help you get started link

 

[GatorDeb]

Thanks, I'm going to try those out! Keep them coming!

I think I have all jigsaw games. Let me know if I missed any:
- Jigsaw Puzzle DS - de Meguru Sekai Isan no Tabi
- Jigsaw World - Daigekitou Jig-Battle Heroes
- Puzzle Series - Jigsaw Puzzle - Koinu Mekuri Hen
- Puzzle Series - Jigsaw Puzzle Oden Kun
- Puzzle Series - Jigsaw Puzzle Oden-Kun 2
- Puzzle Series Vol. 1 - Jigsaw Puzzle
- Yukkuri Tanoshimu Otona no Jigsaw Puzzle DS - Sekai no Meiga 1
- Yukkuri Tanoshimu Otona no Jigsaw Puzzle DS - Sekai no Meiga 2

(that includes one in English... I don't think there's other jigsaw DS games).

As for Picross, there's of course Picross DS, Colour Cross (Europe only), and the Japanese Puzzle Mate Oekaki Mate. Are there more?

Thanks!

P.S. There's no Kuru Kuru Kururin for the DS, is there? I loved the GBA game!

 

[Gwendall]

Definitely have to give another vote for Slitherlink. I never thought much of it at first glance, but holy cow is it addictive.

Kind of reminds me of Picross in that regard.

 

[leonster]

Thanks, I'm going to try those out! Keep them coming!

I think I have all jigsaw games. Let me know if I missed any:
- Jigsaw Puzzle DS - de Meguru Sekai Isan no Tabi
- Jigsaw World - Daigekitou Jig-Battle Heroes
- Puzzle Series - Jigsaw Puzzle - Koinu Mekuri Hen
- Puzzle Series - Jigsaw Puzzle Oden Kun
- Puzzle Series - Jigsaw Puzzle Oden-Kun 2
- Puzzle Series Vol. 1 - Jigsaw Puzzle
- Yukkuri Tanoshimu Otona no Jigsaw Puzzle DS - Sekai no Meiga 1
- Yukkuri Tanoshimu Otona no Jigsaw Puzzle DS - Sekai no Meiga 2

(that includes one in English... I don't think there's other jigsaw DS games).

As for Picross, there's of course Picross DS, Colour Cross (Europe only), and the Japanese Puzzle Mate Oekaki Mate. Are there more?

Thanks!

P.S. There's no Kuru Kuru Kururin for the DS, is there? I loved the GBA game!

Have you tried all those jigsaw games? If so... what one or two are the best? Interested in trying a game or two, but don't really want to wade through lots of titles to find the gems.


As for more suggestions....
Puzzle Series (dunno volume numbers but...) Kakuro, Hitori, Akari, and Nurikabe are all good, and playable without knowing Japanese (SlitherLink is the best so far, though, for me)... also in the series, Sudoku 2 Deluxe is good.

The best Picross I've come across is Illust Logic DS & Colorful Logic. (That's one game by the way, the full title.)

Another great, great puzzle game is Pic Pic. It was released in Japan and Europe (so, in English!) but not the US. It's actually three games in one--two of the games are decent, but the one called Drawing is amazingly good.

I've heard good things about Loopop Cube - Loop Salad, but haven't gotten around to playing it yet.

 

[GatorDeb]

THANKS everyone for the recommendations. The only one I've tried so far is Illust Logic... that thing is like 900 puzzles long! Awesome!

I love me some Picross. BTW I did 1 and by the time I went back to it after exploring the other ones I had managed to delete my progress

Will try all the ones in this thread eventually.

Leonster, the controls are different in some of them. I've been thinking about this for a couple of days, and I can't say I prefer one over the other, I do them all

I'd suggest trying all of them.

 

[MasterPenguin]

Space Bubble Bobble. Epic.

 

[B-Blue]

You have to try Theta DS. Very abstract, and of course VERY HARD!!

 

[GatorDeb]

I tried Theta and didn't get it. I don't really like really hard games, especially if I can't understand them

 

[Triforce]

Rupupu Cube * Lup Salad DS

it's one of the only puzzle games i keep on my flash card after all this time.

 

[Hehe Moo]

There's an old arcade game called Puzzle Fighter; it's an excellent puzzle version of Street Fighter where you need to delete blocks. It's kinda like Tetris mixed with Puzzle Bubble.

It's hilariously fun, especially when your character attacks your opponent using a Street Fighter move like "Hadouken"... Multiplayer too.

Try and get an arcade emulator for it. One of them is called FinalBurn Alpha I think...


-Sorry if it's not DS, but still a great puzzle game

 

[agony]

Not really a puzzle but a spot the difference game. Unou no Tatsujin Soukai Machigai Museum 2 is quite challenging if you like to spot the difference. There's Illust Logic but I think someone recommend and you already tried it.

 

[GatorDeb]

I love spot-the-difference games, thanks!

What are you supposed to do in Slither Links?

 

[leonster]

I love spot-the-difference games, thanks!

What are you supposed to do in Slither Links?

Ok I can try to explain SlitherLink... although it's gonna sound confusing, if you actually try it out it's not.

Ok, boot it up... it's in Japanese but just keep hitting A until you get to a puzzle.

You'll see a grid with some numbers in it, anywhere from 0-3. What the numbers mean, is that *that* number of sides of that square must be colored in red. So, for example, a 0 will have NO sides in red. A 3 will have 3 sides of the box red, and one left blank. A 1 will have one red side, and 3 uncolored. Etc.

Use the D-pad to move the cursor around. (I find the button controls much simpler and less fussy than the touch screen controls.) When the cursor is on a box, you can use the four face buttons (A B X and Y) to mark the sides of that box. So, for example, A marks the right side of the box, B the bottom side, etc. So if you want to mark the right side of a box red, you hit A one time. If you *know* the right side should NOT be marked red (should be uncolored), hit A *twice* to put an X on that side.

The overall goal is to create ONE loop that "slithers" around all the numbers, "linking" them all. You can't have any intersections with more than one line. You can't have any gaps... it must be a continuous loop.

There are some tricks you'll learn. For example, if you have a zero, you can mark all 4 sides with an X. If you have a zero right next to a three, you can mark the three sides NOT next to the zero red. If you have a 1 in the corner, you know the two outside edges are X's, because you would need to mark TWO red if it went into the corner, and it can't be two, as it's marked as a *one*. If you have a 3 in a corner, though, you know that the 2 corner sides MUST be red. Etc.

I'm sure that sounds confusing as hell to just read about... but if you read it while trying to play, it might help you. Honestly, it only takes 5-10 minutes to get the hang of it.

On wikipedia there's an example of some tricks that always work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slitherlink#Solution_methods

This game is incredibly fun--maybe even better than Picross.


Again, I highly, highly recommend Pic Pic (Europe) for another great puzzle game. The game "drawing" in it is amazing.

If anyone still isn't sold... here's a link to Eurogamer's review of these two games... both received PERFECT 10/10 scores from them:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/pic-pic-review
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/puzzle-s...therlink-review

 

[ainaratxi]

hello! I'm from Spain. I love these games like Picross, Pic Pic, Colour Cross, Illust Logic,... I have gamed all them.

Now I'm gaming Puzzle Mate Oekaki Mate but I don't know where are the colour puzzles, I only see puzzles black and white. Do you know how can I access to them?

thanks and sorry for the language

 

[GatorDeb]

Hey I sent you back a PM re-color puzzles in Oekaki... they come automatically after you beat some easy black and white ones

I finally figured out Slither Links yesterday after doing some online at a website that generates them.

What I don't get, is that when I get to puzzles, they're EXTREMELY HARD. I've been able to do ONE and I'm stuck in the second one

I can't believe those are actually the easy ones and that I haven't stumbled into the hard section by mistake. It's fun but extremely difficult

 

[leonster]

Hey I sent you back a PM re-color puzzles in Oekaki... they come automatically after you beat some easy black and white ones

I finally figured out Slither Links yesterday after doing some online at a website that generates them.

What I don't get, is that when I get to puzzles, they're EXTREMELY HARD. I've been able to do ONE and I'm stuck in the second one

I can't believe those are actually the easy ones and that I haven't stumbled into the hard section by mistake. It's fun but extremely difficult

It takes a while, but you'll get the hang of it. If you play several dozen puzzles, move on to harder ones, then come back to the first few... you'll see that they actually are quite easy and you can do them in 2-3 minutes.

 

[Jei]

It isn't exactly a relaxing puzzle (like jigsaw or picture-cross like the ones mentioned before over the topic), but it gets extremely addictive: Yosumin.

The goal of the game is to do squares/rectangles with the four edges of a same color, example:

YBY
BBB
YBY

Y: Yellow
B: Blue
You need to click once each of the Yellow pieces, so it marks a full 3x3 square and it gets replaced with other pieces.
Tip: clicking once on each diagonal edge automatically selects the whole square/rectangle - it's a technique you must learn to mark the forms quickly since it requires only two clicks.

You must keep on chaining squares/rectangles to meet the total of pieces asked beforehand.

It gets pretty difficult on the later levels and there's even achievements to meet, like erasing 1000 pieces of the same color and such.