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[DSi] Art Style PictoBits: Sexy NES chiptune remixes and block-dropping beats
Lunker
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A slow video tutorial
Art Style: Pictobits (known as PicoPict on the JP DSi store) is a lo-fi DSiWare puzzler from Skip, makers of the routinely awesome Art Style games. It's 500 points and is a fully touch-screen spin on the classic block-dropping puzzle game that also offers amazingly great remixes of NES chiptunes (done entirely by apparently well-known Japanese artist YMCK).
It follows a somewhat similar setup as Tetris DS: You work on the puzzle on the bottom while sprites from classic NES franchises appear on the top. The whole game is pixels: The colored blocks (callled bits) that you match up on the bottom actually flow to the top screen and draw in sprites. To clear bits, you either connect horizontal/vertical lines of 4 or more bits, or squares/rectangles of 2 bits or more. You move bits by tapping them with the stylus to suck them up into your palette, then tapping in an empty space to spit them out. You continue playing until you've completed the sprites on the top screen or you fail out by letting blocks reach the top of the bottom screen.
The game has 30 stages in all: 15 regular stages and 15 "Dark" versions that are much more brutal in difficulty. Each one has a different visual theme, colors of bits and chiptune BGM; part of the fun is running through the game and trying to figure out what game the tunes are from, since the remixes all start very simple and build up to the NES original sound before completely flying off the handle and creating its own sound. Tiny Cartridge has a few of the tunes on its site: the Super Mario Bros. flag theme and Bowser's Castle remixes are especially awesome, and I won't spoil the credit song for you.
It starts simple, but by the last few regular levels you'll be sweating from difficulty, and the Dark stages completely take the kid gloves off. Challenge isn't an issue, and as you play you'll also earn coins which can be used to buy a multitude of unlockables, including the Dark versions of each stage and a music player that lets you buy different versions of the game's chiptunes (and play them with the DSi lid closed, a great touch!).
I picked this up yesterday on a whim and I think it's awesome. Along with Art Style: Aquia, it's easily one of the best games on DSiWare (and both only 500 points, so you can use your free points on both!) right now. Consider the Art Style games two of the best free launch titles to come along in ages.
Art Style: Pictobits (known as PicoPict on the JP DSi store) is a lo-fi DSiWare puzzler from Skip, makers of the routinely awesome Art Style games. It's 500 points and is a fully touch-screen spin on the classic block-dropping puzzle game that also offers amazingly great remixes of NES chiptunes (done entirely by apparently well-known Japanese artist YMCK).
It follows a somewhat similar setup as Tetris DS: You work on the puzzle on the bottom while sprites from classic NES franchises appear on the top. The whole game is pixels: The colored blocks (callled bits) that you match up on the bottom actually flow to the top screen and draw in sprites. To clear bits, you either connect horizontal/vertical lines of 4 or more bits, or squares/rectangles of 2 bits or more. You move bits by tapping them with the stylus to suck them up into your palette, then tapping in an empty space to spit them out. You continue playing until you've completed the sprites on the top screen or you fail out by letting blocks reach the top of the bottom screen.
The game has 30 stages in all: 15 regular stages and 15 "Dark" versions that are much more brutal in difficulty. Each one has a different visual theme, colors of bits and chiptune BGM; part of the fun is running through the game and trying to figure out what game the tunes are from, since the remixes all start very simple and build up to the NES original sound before completely flying off the handle and creating its own sound. Tiny Cartridge has a few of the tunes on its site: the Super Mario Bros. flag theme and Bowser's Castle remixes are especially awesome, and I won't spoil the credit song for you.
It starts simple, but by the last few regular levels you'll be sweating from difficulty, and the Dark stages completely take the kid gloves off. Challenge isn't an issue, and as you play you'll also earn coins which can be used to buy a multitude of unlockables, including the Dark versions of each stage and a music player that lets you buy different versions of the game's chiptunes (and play them with the DSi lid closed, a great touch!).
I picked this up yesterday on a whim and I think it's awesome. Along with Art Style: Aquia, it's easily one of the best games on DSiWare (and both only 500 points, so you can use your free points on both!) right now. Consider the Art Style games two of the best free launch titles to come along in ages.
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I actually prefer Aquia over this, honestly, but so far PictoBits is pretty bangin'. The nostalgic fanservice is really too powerful to resist, but even aside from that there's a lot of complexity to the puzzle game. Each level tracks your high score and time completed, and as you play you can earn coins to unlock the harder difficulties and tracks for the music player.
There's a remix of the SMB underwater theme that's awesome (Part 3, I think), and I'd forgotten how great the Wrecking Crew theme is.
dream a little dream or you could live a little dream
sleep forever if you wish to be a dreamer
Some of the later stages have me sweating as i play, and even though I have been unlocking them, I haven't even attempted to play the dark stages yet....I'm scared of them.
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I'll probably pick this up along with the next decent DSiWare game that gets released.
I'm now going through the stages to see if I can complete them without using the POW block ... if you do, you get the star icon next to your score. This is also to keep me occupied while I gain more coins to unlock more Dark stages, because shit, I'm spamming the POW block all the time in the Dark stages.
The chains get really complex once you know how to look for them. Figuring out how to complete all of a falling block in one go is really satisfying, and it uses the touchscreen really well. It reminds me of Picross in a way, only super-ADHD Picross.
anyone know if anything special happens if you get stars for all the stages?
edit: oops, just noticed lunker linked some of them already!
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They're worth a second link, though, the songs are ballin'. I think my favorite so far is SMB Part 3 (the underwater theme), though hearing the bike engines in the Excitebike song is really too cute.
I've managed to get stars on all 15 normal worlds (the last three stages were killer, but I felt like a god when I was able to do them without using the POW block), and I haven't gotten anything. Besides the warm satisfaction of knowing I'm a bad-ass, anyway.
It's coming out on Wiiware.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
And bring a jacket with you when you go out! It's cold outside!
It's possible, though with the ridiculous sales figures and the gigantic hype thread the system had here, I think it's a lot more than you think.
The Art Style games have been really pleasant surprises; I haven't picked up any on WiiWare, but they look really good. And Aquia and now PictoBits have just blown me away. Seriously, my DS backlog isn't getting any smaller because I'm too busy playing $5 puzzle games.
My 12 year old sister wanted the soccer game. I said, I am only buying you points so I can get you this game, since the DSi doesn't have the gifting function. She was disappointed. She started playing it and said it was weird but she'd play anyway. I checked later when she was still playing and she sighed and said "I guess it's okay." And now she is playing it constantly.
Maybe some of us are contrarian and just like to comment at bizarre times of the day...
Anyway, this game looks great. I'm still waiting for Art Style Code, which really should be just 200, but I'll give them credit for this game. I'm surprised NOA is bringing these games out so quickly; the intense localization it would take to bring these simple titles over must have those guys burning the midnight oil.
To the second part of your comment, there will be no truly great new match three game until Nintendo rereleases the awesome 3D cylindrical design they used in Pokemon Puzzle League. It's amazing what Nintendo can do with extremely simple concepts.
anyway, i posted a new song ripped from PiCTOBiTS -- it's the first part of YMCK's Zelda remix.
I think one of the problems is that every week they release a new damn clock, and people are starting to not take the DSi shop very seriously.
I'm working on the dark worlds....I've yet to get any stars.
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It's not match-3, though. Not a Bejeweled clone in the least; Aquia kind of is, but it still has a pretty cool spin on it. The closest analog to PictoBits is maybe Tetris, except it controls like Picross.
If true, I think almost everyone has forgotten how terrible the early days of WiiWare, XBLA and PSN were. The pattern has almost always been a smattering of mediocre launch titles with one or two standouts (Geo Wars, My Life as a King, dunno about PSN), then a drought of pretty flimsy titles and finally some more meaty titles about 6-8 months in. I'm a big devotee of digital distro and to have two killer puzzle games (Aquia and PictoBits) and a great port of Dr. Mario is pretty awesome for a service that's one or two months old. I can understand people not being interested in puzzle games, maybe, but these are pretty ballin' puzzle games and I've always felt handhelds = puzzlers.
IMO, the lack of demos is really what stagnates people's interests in WiiWare and DSiWare.
And yes, PSN, XBLA, and WiiWare all started off pretty slowly, but all three are packing awesome content now, and I'm also an addict for Dig Dist nowadays. XBLA and WiiWare...and now DSiWare all practically own me.
This is one of the finest and enjoyable puzzle games I have played in years.
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the closest analog i've seen to pictobits is Konami's Quarth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NvfOvdZKzA
but yeah, it definitely has elements of tetris and even picross to an extent.
just picked it up and started playing
after failing that first map miserably, and realizing i had no idea what i was suppose to do, i did the tutorial
this game is crazy - never played a puzzler like this, and i like it
worth the free i paid for it, twice
is 1000 DSi points = $10 USD?
i'd pay five bucks for this game.
Yes to 1,000 DSi points being $10, and you would've been pleased regardless, since it's 500 points ($5). I still maintain that since you can buy this and Art Style: Aquia together with your free points, they make the most badass pack-in games for any console ever, barring the NES cart with SMB/Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet.
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Colors too similar? Isn't that part of difficulty, and part of the design? I thought they liked forming images of Nintendo characters; you can't do that without the original color schemes.
I think it's a big fat 0 right now, though I might have done the first one if I'm lucky—will check later. I've starred all of the regular levels, but then the Dark stages just bring the rain and I can't help but POW my way out at least a few times.
Re: the GS review: The game seems quite difficult at first—and the Dark stages really, really are—but you also need good strategy to figure out how to clear blocks as best as you can. I can't find any good pictures, but occasionally you'll see a giant megabit with multiple colors falling, and all it takes is one single block in the right place to let the other colors in the megabit fall to the ground and clear each other out. Instead of being purely reactionary, if you're strategic with how you play your colors, it'll make things a lot easier for you.
And you really don't have to clear every single block that falls. A lot of times, I'll let some slide right to the bottom since it gives me more colors to work with. And if you chain a lot, make sure your final part of the chain is with the color that you need the most number of bits with, so that you're not clearing colors that you don't need anymore.
It's a surprisingly deep game, and I disagree that there's little replay value (the implication the reviewer gave for why no multiplayer was a big minus). Though I find it strange when critics say "This game is too hard, I can't finish it" and then go on to say "There's no replay value." Why would you worry about "replay" value when you haven't finished your first "play?"
The chip tune music is pure bliss. The underwater Mario theme and the overworld Zelda theme are two of my favorites.
And Lunker, if I start getting overwhelmed, I usually focus on just at least getting the X blocks gone, as a few of those can completely screw your game over.
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Does anyone remember an NES puzzler game like this? You controlled a spaceship that shoots small squares, and your goal is to advance forward by filling in incomplete shapes until they become squares, erasing them?
scroll up :P
if the gamespot reviewer had actually bothered to listen to the music, he would've seen there was plenty of replayability just in trying to earn enough coins to buy the complete tracks.
and as lunker said, some stages that seem impossible become manageable as soon as you figure out the tricks of where to place single blocks to clear different formations.
KWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARTH!
hi5s all around!