PictoQuest Reviews

  • AstaritusAstaritus425,595
    29 Jul 2024
    0 0 0
    The world of Pictoria is in danger! All the magical paintings that were so highly valued by the inhabitants of the country have been stolen by the terrible villain Moonface!

    Only brave heroes will be able to set out on a dangerous journey through lands teeming with monsters to return the magical paintings and rid the world of the power of evil!

    😍Liked:
    👍 Availability of achievements
    👍 Localization into several languages, including Russian
    👍 Simple controls
    👍 Pixel art images
    👍 Anime style
    👍 Boss battles
    👍 Two heroes to choose from
    👍 Availability of additional tasks
    👍 Character upgrades
    👍 A variety of bonuses
    👍 More than 100 pictures
    👍 Constantly increasing difficulty

    🤢Disliked:
    👎 Machine translation with errors.
    👎 Choosing a hero doesn't make sense, since the characters move together.
    👎 A bug with the Wooden Boss's dialogue, in which the same phrase is repeated several times by all the characters.
    👎 A bug with the Mermaid's dialogue, in which there is untranslated French text.

    Conclusion:

    "PictoQuest: The Cursed Grids" is a small sudoku puzzle created in an anime style by NanoPiko. In this game, you will have to show your logic and deduction to recreate images. Be prepared for difficult puzzles that not everyone can handle!

    Although the game is translated into several languages, the quality of localization leaves much to be desired - an online translator was used for translation, which has a limited vocabulary. Because of this, when reading the characters' dialogues, you may encounter errors and incorrectly translated words. However, localization does not affect the gameplay itself, where words do not play a key role.

    At the beginning of the game, you can choose one of two heroes, who differ not only in gender, but also in backstory, which, unfortunately, does not affect the gameplay or the ending of the game. And the choice of character actually does not matter much either, because the heroes will move around the playing field and participate in dialogues and cutscenes - together. The choice is made only for the sake of visual display of the selected hero on the map.

    The gameplay is quite simple: the player needs to gradually clear the playing field of enemies by drawing the required images according to the rules of classic sudoku. However, for the dynamics and excitement, monsters and bosses were introduced into the game, which attack the player if they make a mistake or after a certain amount of time. Therefore, players have to quickly and accurately select the correct cells on the field to avoid damage, because the death of the character will force you to start the current level over again.

    For the convenience of the player, “PictoQuest” has an in-game store where you can buy items that speed up the drawing of a picture or add “hearts” to increase the maximum amount of health. Coins are awarded for completing levels, but their number is limited, so you often have to rely on logic and luck. It is important to remember that after death, used bonuses are not restored for re-use

    Buying items in the store is not the only way to get bonuses. There are NPCs on the map who need help. If you solve their puzzles, you can get free items and bonuses.

    The second way to get free bonuses is to act quickly while solving Sudoku. Sometimes the game offers bonuses for coloring certain lines in the image. If you color the desired area correctly and manage to do it before the offer ends, the bonus will be added to your inventory and will be available for use at any time. But remember that the inventory is limited and it holds quite a few items, so you will have to choose which bonuses to use now and which to save for the next battle, or the Orc's shop, where the prices for the goods you sell are reduced by almost three times (which makes selling extremely unprofitable)

    In addition to fighting monsters, you can also stumble upon chests, mistakes in solving puzzles in which do not spend the character's health, but his gold. This can lead to the fact that in some situations you will lose more gold than you get for solving the puzzle. However, completing them is necessary to advance the plot, so be patient and have money.

    "PictoQuest: The Cursed Grids" is a small but addictive puzzle game that will provide many hours of enjoyment for those who love complex tasks. Thanks to its simple gameplay and stylish anime design, the game is suitable for players of all ages and skill levels. If you like solving Sudoku, then this game will definitely become your new favorite.
    2.5
  • blitzfire23blitzfire2318,324
    09 May 2022
    0 0 0
    PictoQuest is a fun Nonogram puzzle game with a handful of RPG elements. If you're looking for RPG fun, this is not the place to look for it. The only RPG elements here is the combat system and the shop system. Everything else are puzzle elements. The achievements aren't challenging as you can complete them by finishing the playthrough. I would love to have achievements that would make me play seriously. There is only one achievement here that would pose a challenge but is more grindy than brain-crunching. The game is pretty straightforward with the puzzle difficulty rising up gradually in every area. If you are a fan of Nonogram puzzle and are looking for something to spice up your puzzle-solving skills, this game is for you.
    4.0
  • missiloonmissiloon523,956
    20 Feb 2020 20 Feb 2020
    0 0 1
    Approximate amount of time to 100%: 12h
    Estimated achievement difficulty: 2/10
    Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
    Has it been in a bundle: No
    Is there a good guide available: You don't need a guide
    How many people have completed this game at the time I'm writing this review: 1 on Astats

    Multiplayer achievements: No
    Missable achievements: No
    Grinding Achievements: Yes, at this moment there is 1 grindy achievement, but the developers are thinking about making it less grindy.
    DLC-Only achievements: No
    Time-gated achievements: No
    RNG-achievements: No
    Does difficulty affect achievements: No difficulty option
    Unobtainable/glitched achievements: No

    This is a fun picross game, with an RPG theme loosely pasted on. I didn't feel the theme, but that didn't matter, because I still had a lot of fun and the game looked very nice with this theme. It is most of all just a picross game, but you have 3 lives and monsters will attack you when you make an error in the puzzle and after every few minutes the monster(s) attack. You can buy 2 more hearts during the game to make it easier.

    The achievements in this game are nice: you get around 80% of them for just playing all the levels and use some of the in-game items, like health potions or spells with different effects. The grindy one at this moment is getting 5k. I highly suggest getting that one before buying any health upgrade, because the health upgrades cost 1k gold each. That means you'll have to grind 2k more if you bought the health upgrades before you unlocked that achievement. To get to 5k, just play the game as far as you can and enjoy it. When it gets too hard for your taste, go back to the beginning and keep completing the star level which gives 10 gold for every time you complete it. You can complete that level in a few seconds. As stated in the list above, the developers might change that achievement to make it less grindy.

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    4.0