This is a picross/nonograms game. Each level is a grid where standard picross rules apply: the numbers in the rows and columns indicate how many squares are filled in in a row (or column), and the amount of numbers indicate how many clusters of filled-in blocks there are (with the order indicating where they’ll be in relation to each other). The trick is that you don’t always know how many blank spaces are between the filled-in clusters, so you need to use process of elimination as well as comparisons with other rows and columns to uncover all the filled-in squares. You can also put an X on a square to help you keep track of squares you know can’t be filled in.

What separates this game from other picross games is the battle system. Some levels will have you encounter a chest, which effectively plays out like a normal picross game in that you can take your time, but each time you fill in a square that isn’t supposed to be filled in, you’ll lose a coin and an X will be locked into the square (each mistake increases the penalty by an extra coin). Considering items cost upwards of 30 coins (and the fact that you’ll often get more coins after beating a level), the penalty is laughably minor.

However, other levels have you encounter an enemy or three, and they work off a modified Active Time Battle system: when an enemy’s meter gets full (or if you fill in a square that wasn’t supposed to be filled, resulting in another locked-in X), it’ll attack you, dealing either 1 damage, 2 damage (critical), or 0 damage (miss). The only way you can “fight” back is by filling in all the squares on a row or column, at which point the enemy takes damage and also gets its ATB gauge lowered, delaying its attack. If there are multiple enemies, they’ll each have their own ATB gauge, and you’ll have to switch between them regularly so your “attacks” keep any one enemy from attacking. It’s an interesting concept, but there’s a few problems, namely the fact that picross is a puzzle game. Adding a time limit runs counter to the initial concept of puzzle solving since now you don’t have time to solve said puzzle. If you know picross, you’ll know that most grids only give you enough info to fill in partial rows and columns at first (with the completion of said rows and columns not happening until after you’ve worked out half the board), so it isn’t uncommon for it to be better to make an educated guess and risk a single attack for a wrong square than to try working it out and taking multiple hits before you can finish a single row or column.

And let’s not forget the most blatant oversight: even if you do lose and have to start over with a blank grid, you can just take a screenshot beforehand (or even outright remember what you had for the smaller boards) and fill in what you had much quicker, pausing the game each time you look back at the screenshot. It’s hilariously ironic how the developers of this puzzle game didn’t think things through.

There are also boss fights, but they only differ from normal battles in that, when their ATB gague is full, they either deal 2 damage or send out a ghost to remove some of your Xs. Often, bosses are easier than group battles since you don’t have to worry about switching between enemies and can just focus on filling in the grid. Even the final boss wasn’t all that noteworthy or different from previous bosses.

So yeah, I wouldn’t recommend this one. Sure, the actual picross elements are fine, but when you consider the fact that there are plenty of free picross/nonogram apps that don’t awkwardly stitch antithetical mechanics to unrelated genres, it becomes obvious that the glorified time limits are the game’s only real selling point. To be clear, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t change up a formula; in fact, Twilight Princess Picross showed how to do this right: it had Mega Numbers, which indicate clusters that stretch across two rows or columns. That’s how you do a twist on the formula: it adds a new mechanic while still staying true to what people like about picross (only problem was that all the boards that had Mega Numbers were duplicates of earlier ordinary boards). In fact, everything this game tries to do, Twilight Princess Picross does better (and Twilight Princess Picross is basically free, only requiring silver My Nintendo coins to get), so I say just get that game instead.