Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins

Well, what a month it has been! Certainly a busy one for the site leading up to the Nintendo Switch event we've just had which will undoubtedly mean an interesting future for the Virtual Console once it releases on March 3rd of this year.

Nothing is confirmed for certain but you can rest assured that myself and many other staff members will be there from launch day to cover everything, before we get there though there's around six weeks to launch in which I'm going to attempt to get up to date again, judging by the recent lack of further VC games being added to the service this should be achievable; then we can hopefully look forward to some newer experiences on the Switch with any luck.

So now that I've had a rest - reviewing Dragon Quest VIII in the process - it's time to get back to that weekly schedule that this article was once known for, in any case even if I had been up to date there would have been some weeks with no releases so at least now we can have a blowout of articles from now until March.

I'd just like to say thank you to regular visitors of N-Europe and also to those of you who still read this article, it's always nice to see that we still get a fair few views which enables us to carry on doing what we do for the love of videogames as an independent site. I hope that all of you had an excellent end to 2016 and here's to making 2017 a memorable one for gaming. Anyway enough from me and on with the game!

Available for download this week we have... 

My first taste of Picross was on the original Game Boy thanks to the excellent Mario's Picross on the machine which I picked up for a few pounds from a second-hand shop many years ago, I've always been glad of it because it provided a Puzzle game experience like nothing else before it and in fairness there isn't anything which realistically compares to the unique formula in the same way. In the original Picross games you are given a grid featuring an equal amount of squares, these have references along the horizontal and vertical axis leaving you to figure out which part of the grid you should chip away at; for example let's say that at the very top of a 12 X 12 grid you have the top horizontal line denoting that there are 6 tiles to chip away at yet in the middle there are at least two vertical lines which have 12 titles to chip away, logic would denote that at least one of your horizontal tiles has to be in the same line as that particular vertical being that it goes all the way down the grid, simple right?

It's one of those games where it's best to experience the action for yourself or at least look at a video but in essence once you hammer away all of the tiles in the correct places you complete a picture, then move onto the next puzzle where you'll rinse & repeat the same tactic as the grids become larger while the formations become trickier. Of course all the time you're attempting each puzzle you are against the clock which adds an element of tension, starting out with a generous amount of time (say half an hour) you'll probably think that the whole exercise will be easy; that is until the inevitably make a mistake which will cost you valuable minutes from that timer, you can also opt to mark squares which you think may contain areas which don't make up the picture to avoid accidentally going over them later in the puzzle.

This formula continued for most of the Picross games, including the Picross e series which we've seen seven entries of over the years on the 3DS made by the origianal developer Jupiter, (I personally need to catch up with these) yet for Picross 3D it was the turn of HAL Laboratory to take the reigns of development for this evolution in design which was a welcome surprise in 2010 and one which I didn't think we'd see again until we saw the release of Picross 3D Round 2 at the end of last year (expect a review when I get the time to play it) which added the only thing missing from the first title which we didn't even realise at the time (because it didn't exist) being that of the 3D effect from the 3DS itself which presumably elevates the experience to an even higher level.

Back to the first game though where instead of the grids of old, you now have a cube made up of smaller cubes, so you need to get rid of the ones which aren't required in order to reveal the three-dimensional object, character, animal or piece of junk which makes up the solution; this was the same in earlier Picross titles but here you just get a simple 3D model of it instead of what is essentially pixel art. Initially it seems like a dream come true as everything from the original concept had made it through into the third dimension relatively unscathed, though as the puzzles get a little larger it seems the control scheme can prove to be a bit sluggish at times if you're not used to it because while you can easily rotate the puzzle with swift stylus movements you need to hold up or down on the d-pad to distinguish between destroying or highlighting each block, it can become a trial not to chip away at a block you didn't mean to as you get deeper into the layers.

Otherwise though it's perfectly functional, there are three different difficulties including Easy, Normal and Hard but you'll need to try to go for sequential completion of puzzles if you want to see everything this game has to offer, which can be annoying if you get stuck on one in particular, such is the nature of Picross though that you'll likely just come back for another go later if you can't progress but hitting stumbling blocks can prove to be annoying. There's certainly value for money to be had here though as there are around 350 puzzles or more to complete, there used to be downloadable puzzles from the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection but alas it is no more; owing to the simple to use editor though plus the inclusion of Miiverse, I don't see why you couldn't just recreate the some of the dlc puzzles or some of your own and share them using the pictures as a handy reference for recreation.

...to this! Oh a Raspberry! That'd be nice in a pie.

Far from having visual flair there is nothing but very clean pastel-coloured presentation here which resonates from the menus, through to the very puzzle pieces, this was never designed to really push the DS in any way though as it's more about bringing the concept to life. All of the audio is relatively inoffensive, giving you a few tunes to hum along to if you choose but there's nothing remarkable here aside from some music which fits the relaxed atmosphere of puzzle-solving with some pleasant sound effects included for good measure.

If you're looking for your first Picross title to play then I would suggest purchasing Mario's Super Picross over this in order to appreciate the core concept, but for those of you who have dabbled in the games before then you really can't go too far wrong with Picross 3D as it provides a new twist on a much-loved puzzle game series. All of it translates very well to the Wii U Virtual Console as well thanks to the touch-screen on the gamepad (one thing it does well where DS games are concerned) though it's debatable as to how much you gain from displaying the top screen on the TV so having both screens on the gamepad might be preferable in this instance; regardless though this is a very solidly presented title which makes a welcome addition to the hopefully ever-expanding Picross universe, let's see more of those My Picross games please Nintendo in addition to a third Picross 3D game on the Switch perhaps? As another confirmed game for the lineup it certainly wouldn't hurt as a "launch-window" title. 

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!