Skyward Sword Month

It's Skyward Sword month! Skyward Sword HD for the Nintendo Switch will be available next week, where this is Nintendo's "big" release for July 2021. As a perfect fit, the Pyramid calendar actually has the key artwork from Skyward Sword picked for this month, which probably was just lucky, but it is great nonetheless.

At the moment I'm currently revisiting Skyward Sword on the Wii (U) to refresh my memories of how the game used to play and look, so I will be able to make better comparisons to the HD remaster next week. But there will be a separate post about this coming up in the next days.

On July 16th Skyward Sword HD gets officially released, together with the themed Joy-Cons and the Zelda & Loftwing amiibo, and should entertain Zelda fans for a little while. For some it might only take the weekend, others might be busy for the rest of the month or even longer, where it really depends on how familiar you're already with the game and how much time you have.

If Nintendo were amazing, which they rarely ever are these days, they would repeat what was essentially the "Twilight Princess month" from 2016 and finish things with a free Skyward Sword Picross game for the Nintendo Switch. This could be part of MyNintendo or the Nintendo Switch Online service, it doesn't really matter, as long as it's a free gift of pixelated entertainment later this month. Do it, Nintendo!

Come to think of it, when Majora's Mask 3D was released in early 2015, there also was the "Majora's Mask Pack" as a DLC for Hyrule Warriors a couple of weeks before, which could get people in the mood to try the new remaster or vice versa. But this was always spanning two different Nintendo systems with the Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS, where here you only have the Nintendo Switch (which is good). Still, a free game based on Skyward Sword could get people interested in buying the remaster nonetheless.

Skyward Sword Picross?

History seems to be repeating itself from five years ago, at least when it comes to the Zelda franchise. The situations in early 2016 and early 2021 are remarkably similar, where we're heading right into the next big anniversary for the series. The next big Zelda title is currently in development and we might see it in full action during this summer, where it's likely that the game won't be released before early 2022.

In the meantime there is a new Hyrule Warriors game to tide us over, which will be supported with DLC until the end of the year. And if that's not enough for you, there also will be the next HD remaster of the 3D Zelda game that is getting ten years old now. The release timings are of course somewhat different between now and five years ago, but the overall picture feels very similar.

However, there is one part of this picture that is still missing... 2016 had another Zelda spin-off in its pipeline, which went hand in hand with the new HD remaster: My Nintendo Picross – The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It was a free title as a My Nintendo reward and is to this day probably the single best thing that ever came out of this service.

My Nintendo has been changing quite a bit lately, though. You can finally get physical rewards, like in the good old Club Nintendo days, but Nintendo wants you to pay for the shipping and you can only do so via credit cards, which is stupid for countries where the usage of credit cards is rather uncommon. The discounts for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U are gone, while the Gold Points are now primarily used as a cheap discount device in the Nintendo Switch eShop...

You can still get the Twilight Princess Picross for 1000 Platinum Points and I can only recommend you to do so, because it's a fun little puzzle game to pass some time. If you don't have a Nintendo 3DS, then we can only hope that Nintendo finally decides to provide something for the Nintendo Switch on that service. And what better start than My Nintendo Picross – The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword to offer some nice hours of filling up Fi, Ghirahim and Groose pixel arts?

It's even weird how they introduced the "My Nintendo Picross" brand just for the Twilight Princess version, but then completely dropped the idea of doing any other small Picross games like it. Well, of course it's not very profitable to make games completely for free, but in the least this would serve as a nice promotion for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD.

Alternatively, they could do a whole "Zelda Picross" game for the 35th Anniversary that spans the entire series. But something like that probably wouldn't be for free, of course. And the focus that Twilight Princess got with its Picross title was actually very nice, where this could also work really well for Skyward Sword as well. Unintentionally suggestive wordings included.

"Master, there is a 99% chance that you need to fill this hole."

Nothing on My Nintendo

In April I couldn't wait to finally get the 1000 Platinum Points for the Twilight Princess Picross, but by now I've accumulated over 2000 Points, where I have no idea, what I should do with them. To make things worse, these points expire after six months, so starting from November I will basically hit a maximum of points, where I lose as many points, as I get per week.

Unless of course there's something in the meantime that's worth getting, e.g. another Zelda Picross game. Skyward Sword Picross, The Wind Waker Picross - I don't really care, something. The Twilight Princess Picross is only available until October 1st, so that's where I hope that we'll get the next Zelda Picross installment, basically one per half-year.

But by now I could buy two Zelda Picross games and there doesn't seem to be anything interesting on My Nintendo. I don't care about Miitomo, I haven't even used it yet, so I can't even get the free items. There was this My Nintendo Link HOME menu design that I got for Nintendo 3DS, but I'm not using that either, because I'm very happy with the golden Majora's Mask design. Nothing beats that thing.

Discounts are also lame, especially low discounts on games that don't interest me. And many of the current rewards are tied to Gold Points, where you need to buy other games on the eShop. Usually retail versions of the games are cheaper and you can always re-sell them, so you don't save any money in this system. Interestingly I got ten Gold Coins from buying Majora's Mask on the Wii U Virtual Console. I "only" paid 1.99€, because I already had the game on the Wii Virtual Console, but this discounted purchase still counted towards the 5.00€ to 9.99€ range. But I probably never will be able to use them and I could have 30 Gold Points already, if DLC did count. But it doesn't... So, the only thing that you definitely want to get from the eShop, gets excluded for the rewards program. Thanks, Nintendo.

So far My Nintendo is a giant disappointment. I'm happy with the Twilight Princess Picross and I hope that there will be more like it, but otherwise this thing is a big fad, where Nintendo tries to cut the expenses of the original Club Nintendo and where they try to get more people to invest in the eShop.

But they should try a little harder. They have a vast library of Virtual Console titles that they can use. And don't just give us discounts for them... They could even put the Four Swords Anniversary Edition on there for anyone, who missed it back in the day. But that's probably not happening.

Skyward Sword Month?

In March 2016 we basically got a "Twilight Princess Month" with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD on Wii U and My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for Nintendo 3DS.

And I would assume that we're getting something similar with Skyward Sword later this year, maybe even around its five year anniversary in November. I doubt that it's going to be an HD remaster, but they still haven't released the Wii game on the Wii U eShop yet, which they might have saved for a special occasion. And alongside the eShop re-release they might offer the next exclusive My Nintendo Picross in the form of a Skyward Sword edition. I can already picture, how Fi guides you through the tutorials... But the Twilight Princess Picross offer ends on October 1st, where a Skyward Sword Picross might as well be the replacement.

Anyway, I certainly want to replay Skyward Sword, before Breath of the Wild comes out. I played the game up and down, both in Normal and Hero Mode, when it got released, but I never really attempted another playthrough afterwards and I'm excited to give this game another go. But I'm probably going to save this for last.

Twilight Princess Picross (Review)

The only real worthwhile reward for your Platinum Points on My Nintendo at the moment seems to be My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, made by Jupiter. You can get this for 1000 Platinum Points and it's only available til October 1st.

There's still enough time to receive this reward, since you can score up to 120 Platinum Points per week (see here) even without using Miitomo. We don't know, if this game will disappear into the same limbo, where the Four Swords Anniversary Edition went, so it's best to get this in any case, before it's gone. If you're still undecided, this review might help you out, but it will also give some general impressions about what may or may not be the start of a new series.

This review was written by a Zelda fan, who has never before played Picross, and is aimed at a similar demographic.

Zelda Themed Picross

If you've never heard about Picross before, it's a puzzle game, where you fill out little pixel graphics based on numbers. These are called "nonograms" and the best way to describe it would be "Pixel Sudoku". For each column and row you get a set of numbers telling you about the adjacent squares in the specific line. "3 5" means that there are three squares next to each other, followed by another piece of five squares. It doesn't tell you about the empty spaces around the pieces and that's what you have to find out in order to complete the picture.

The nice thing about these puzzles is that you never have to guess. If you have to, you probably made a mistake somewhere. But the puzzles are all designed in a way that there are always clear assumptions to be made of what can be filled in or crossed out, even if it's just a single square. For example if you have an "8" in a line of 15 squares, you know for sure that the square in the middle is always filled. That's where you start and this way you methodically carve out the whole picture, which rewards you with a colored pixel art at the end:

What makes this game "Zelda" is the sole fact that all the art pieces and the background music are based on Twilight Princess. You get various items, characters and even places from the game as charming little pixel artworks and you get some nice remixed music pieces. Unlike Hyrule Warriors, where they also tried to incorporate Zelda gameplay elements into the Warriors formula, this stays as a pure Picross experience with a Zelda theme.

The only exception might be Midna, who's basically your guide through the game, also giving the quite lengthy tutorials in the beginning, where she explains EVERYTHING again and again, which makes you want to hate Midna, if you didn't already. This can be quite annoying, if you already understood the mechanics and just want to get started. It also has some rather questionable dialogues...

Controls and Hint Systems

You have two control schemes: one using the Stylus and one using the D-Pad and buttons. The Stylus controls are much faster and preferable, but you have to swap between the pen to fill out squares and the cross to mark empty squares using either the D-Pad or the Slide Pad. The L button probably would have been more comfortable for this, but otherwise the controls are fine.

At least the various options around the hint mechanics leave nothing to be desired and show Jupiter's experience with these type of games. You can activate an auto check for the hint numbers, where it automatically checks off any numbers that are already present in the line, so you don't have to keep track of all of it by yourself, which certainly makes playing a lot more relaxing.

In addition there's the "Navigation", which is similar, but somewhat more advanced. This can be toggled on and off at any time with the ?-symbol on your touchscreen or the shoulder buttons and it marks every line, where you can fill in or cross out something, in a blue color:

This also speeds up the gameplay quite significantly, because again you don't have to go through every line in your head individually. Instead you can focus on the lines that matter. This may make things too easy and maybe you only want to use this feature, whenever you're stuck, which is why it's very nice that it's toggleable.

The blue help lines can also be confusing at times, because it's hard to grasp at what the game really wants from you. Sometimes it's just a single cross missing somewhere and sometimes it's a lot easier to ignore certain blue lines and focus on others instead.

A more drastic hint feature is the "Answer Autocheck", where it automatically tells you whenever you fill out a square that isn't there. It replaces it with a cross and gives you a time penalty, which will mess heavily with your highscores. Without it you may get into a situation, where you've made a mistake and then have to correct wider parts of the whole picture in order to find the solution. But without it you can also just try out variations and then remove the variable parts without any penalties, which is probably why it's a good thing that you can turn this off globally.

The "Hint Roulette" can also be turned off completely or otherwise it will ask you, if you want to play the roulette in the beginning, where it solves one randomly selected row and column for you, giving you a head start, which feels a little bit like cheating...

Puzzles and Game Modes

Ignoring the tutorials, there is a total of 91 puzzles in the game spanning three different game modes and sizes. There's your standard "Picross" mode and the more complex "Mega Picross" mode with 45 puzzles each and one big "Micross" puzzle.

The Picross puzzles give you the pure experience with 45 puzzles in the following sizes:

• 10x10 puzzles (15)
• 15x15 puzzles (25)
• 20x15 puzzles (05)

It's best to start here and follow the mode to the end. The 10x10 puzzles in the beginning are easy enough and can be solved pretty quickly even by inexperienced players. The 15x15 puzzles then increase the complexity and may take around 15 minutes to solve. However, after a while you learned most possible patterns and the game starts to feel more and more like a chore, instead of a puzzle. This is where things can get a little boring and stale, where you might only want to do one or two puzzles per day, which is even why this review took three months.

But this is also, where the Mega Picross mode comes in. It's essentially a "2nd Quest" for the whole game, since it features all 45 puzzles from the normal Picross mode with a twist. You now get large numbers that span two lines, where you literally have to think around the corner. There are usually only one or two of these combined lines, but they add a new dimension to the puzzles, which makes them more interesting and challenging. It even plays a remix of the eerie Twilight Palace music in the background to make it all feel more serious.

The Micross mode then gets even more epic with the Ganondorf battle theme in the background and a large 80x80 puzzle. To make this work you get a global 8x8 puzzle, which you fill out in the beginning. Then each filled square turns into an individual 10x10 puzzle. Those are all quite easy and quick to solve, especially if you're already used to the larger puzzles or even the Mega Picross mode, but it's the sheer size of the whole picture, where slowly everything is coming together, which makes this mode really fun and addicting.

Sadly, there is only one of these Micross puzzles and compared to other Picross installments the Twilight Princess outing seems to be thin in content. At least another Micross puzzle featuring Twili Midna, whose beautiful face is nowhere to be found in this game, would have been lovely. Still, it takes around 20 hours to solve all puzzles and if you really enjoy them, you can also replay them for better times.

Conclusion

Since this is essentially available for free and there's nothing much else available on My Nintendo, you should get this, whether you're a Zelda fan, a Picross fan or both. It's a solid puzzle game with a Zelda skin that leaves little to be desired. And right now it looks more like a smaller Picross game in a potential series, where other (3D) Zelda games will be getting their own Picross installments in the future, e.g. a My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword release in October, which probably would be something to look forward to, if the Twilight Princess Picross is any indication.

+ Nice puzzle gameplay with a Zelda theme
+ Charming pixel arts
+ Extensive hint options
+ Free for all
- Annoying tutorial
- Can get boring after a while
- Stylus controls could be more comfortable
- Only one Micross and no Twili Midna

Still no Zelda Picross

Well, that's a close one... I just want to get the My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess game, but I'm exactly 10 points short. Nintendo really wants you to use the Miitomo thing, apparently. I currently don't have a working Smartphone available, so I can't just grab the Miitomo points. But I can wait one more week.

And for one month this certainly isn't bad. Well, many of these points were from the pre-registration and Nintendo account linking early on, but you can also get up to 120 Platinum Points per week by doing the following:

• Collect the coins on the ground
• Visit Miiverse
• Visit the eShop
• Visit the official Nintendo Homepage

The latter is actually not listed in the missions and you just receive the 30 points automatically. Some people might miss this though, so it's probably good to mention it.

Anyway... I will be able to play the Zelda Picross next week and maybe share some thoughts about it then!

My Nintendo and Miitomo Launch

My bet for Nintendo's next generation: it will be all digital. No cartridges or discs anymore. Physical releases will have download codes inside. Nintendo is already testing this with releasing Pokémon Virtual Console games in retail or with Starfox Guard. And now they're pushing the eShop a lot more with their new My Nintendo rewards nonsense.

I liked the Club Nintendo, collecting stars and "buying" some merchandise. This sadly is now gone and the whole new My Nintendo rewards system looks like an early April Fools' joke instead of a meaningful replacement. I personally just want to get this:

A Twilight Princess Picross? Why not? However, you can't just buy it in the eShop, you can only get it through My Nintendo, where you have to jump through hoops to get enough Platinum Points for the game. I'm not interested in Miitomo, so the only way for me to get enough points is visiting Miiverse and the eShop on a weekly basis. That's not a big deal, because I do that anyway, but accumulating enough points for the Zelda Picross will take many weeks and it's all so boring.

The gold point reward system is even less exciting. You get discounts for buying games on the eShop? Too bad that the prices on the eShop usually are a lot more expansive than in retail, so it doesn't really save you any money.


Anyway... for Nintendo going all digital is very convenient and also more profitable, since they would save the costs and losses for distribution. So, I can see, why they want to push into this direction. I'm just not sure, if I'm a big fan of it. On the one hand I like having download versions of the games, because it is very practical, if you don't have to change cartridges and discs all the time. On the Wii U both physical and download versions share savegames, so sometimes I even like having both. A disc release for my collection and the download version for playing. On the Nintendo 3DS this doesn't work, because the cartridges keep the savegames on them. With all four 3DS Zelda games I own two different copies and I somewhat feel inclined to also complete them both, which I recently did with A Link Between Worlds. It would be more convenient, if the savegames worked like on the Wii U, though. It would keep my Backloggery a little bit smaller.

If Nintendo goes all digital, there still might be something left for collectors. The GB Pokémon retail versions actually come with maps and other extras, instead of just housing a download code. I always loved the NES and SNES times, where retail releases had colorful and detailed manuals full of artwork. A Link to the Past came with a map of Hyrule and so on. Today you get a recycling box with nothing but the game in it and some sheets. But Nintendo could return to the old sensation of boxed games, if they want to still sell retail versions and especially Limited Editions in an all digital era. The irony will be that these boxes will have everything, except for the game...