Pokémon Picross (Free to Start) announced for Nintendo 3DS, out early next month

13 November 2015 Lite_Agent Jupiter, Pokémon Picross, The Pokémon Company

Yesterday, during the Nintendo Direct, a brand new Pokémon game was announced: Pokémon Picross. Just like Pokémon Shuffle and Pokémon Rumble World, it’s a Free to Start title, allowing players to discover a Pokémon twist on the Picross gameplay. When you complete pictures, you catch a Pokémon: you can then use them to help you solve other puzzles.

However, there’s a catch: after using its skill, a Pokémon has to wait before it can use it again. You can use Picrites in order to heal them instantlly, but this doesn’t work with Legendary or Mythical Pokémon. But what are Picrites, exactly? It’s an in-game currency you can use to heal Pokémon, but also purchase new areas.

There’s a limit to the number of Picrites you can purchase: 5000 (which will cost you 3 750 Yen). After that, they will become completely free. If you don’t want to pay, no problem: you can earn Picrites by playing the game normally, but buying them will obviously make things faster for you.

In the game, the Pokémon can have different skills. Here’s some examples:

Blue Force (Squirtle): changes the colour of hint squares (to blue) for those that can be filled in
Hyper scan (Lucario): scans the grid, and correct any mistake you might have made
Rising Reveal (Eevee): reveals all the squares in the same line (vertically) of the square you’re using it

Here’s the trailer for the game, which features over 300 levels: