Collection essentials #214: Mario’s Super Picross (SNES)

Picross, also known as “nonogram”, refers to a specific type of picture logic puzzle. The idea is to use the number clues on either side of a square or rectangle to fill in spaces in a particular way to form a picture. This type of puzzle was invented in Japan in the 1980s, and it didn’t take too long for it to be adapted to video game form. Nintendo thought that it would be a good fit as a SNES game marketed with Mario.

How does one make sense of a Picross puzzle? Well, if you see a column or row with a series of numbers, that means you have to fill in a sequence of squares, and the number of squares filled in must equal the numbers shown, and in order. For example, you’ll see in the photo that I filled in a column with the numbers 9 and 1, first filling in 9 squares, and then 1 square after it. There has to be a gap of unfilled squares in between. The trick is that you don’t know where specifically the squares are supposed to be filled in, so you need to use logic to figure it out! It may seem hard to wrap your head around at first, but once you get going with it, this type of logic becomes second nature. It’s always best to fill in squares that can be 100% confirmed and then work from there. For example, if a puzzle is 20 squares wide and one row simply has the number “20”, that means every square in that row must be filled in. And then you can use those spaces along with the column numbers to deduce where to fill in next.

There are two general types of puzzles in Mario’s Super Picross: there are Mario puzzles and Wario puzzles. In a Mario puzzle, you’re competing against the clock. When you try and chisel the wrong space (the game represents the act of filling in squares as chiseling out a picture from rock), you lose time on the clock, and more time will be lost as more mistakes are made. In Wario puzzles, there’s no actual time limit, but the catch is that you are not notified when you chisel an incorrect square! That means you won’t technically know that you’re doing the puzzle correctly until it’s 100% done, so if you’re not careful and make a mistake, you can totally mess things up to the point where you have to start over.

More picross games would be released as the years went by, but I’ve honestly never played one as good as this. Mario’s Super Picross features a whopping 300 puzzles, which is a LOT, and it will take many hours to get through them all even if you already have picross experience. Not only is there a large quantity of puzzles, but with my modest picross experience I have never seen picross as challenging as the high-difficulty puzzles this game throws at you. It’s often not possible to 100% solve a puzzle with pure number logic, and you’ll have to consider the picture being formed in your decision-making. It’s really rewarding to solve these and I love it. My only real complaint is that this game doesn’t really take advantage of the Mario IP, as you’re almost never chiseling out images of anything in the Mario universe. The music is also not terribly impressive, though I admit it did grow on me.

This game was introduced to me when I was 15 by my online friend who now goes by the name Mr. Fwibbles. At the time, I had never seen Picross before, and he had to explain it to me. I was instantly intrigued. I didn’t tackle this game all at once, and I would occasionally revisit it until at some point years down the road I felt a determination to finish up all the remaining puzzles. I’m surprised this game didn’t release outside Japan back in the day, though there was a not-as-good Mario Picross on Game Boy that did. Since I first played this game, I have noticed picross gaining more popularity, with more picross video games getting a worldwide release, and I’ll occasionally glimpse other people playing some form of picross on their phone or something. But I always think of this game as the goal standard, as I have yet to play a picross game that truly tops this one. A most logical essential.