Piczle Lines DX: 500 More Puzzles

Sometimes people will ask me why I reviewed a certain game, and the answer is almost always the same: I look for games where I think I'll have something interesting to say. When it comes to Piczle Lines DX: 500 More Puzzles on the Nintendo Switch, I honestly don't have much to tell you. It's a simple puzzle game with an almost obscene amount of content that is perfect in handheld mode. It's also exactly what I needed after spending dozens of hours in We Happy Few and gearing up for many more in Yakuza Kiwami 2. I'm not saying this is going to be my most interesting review, but sometimes you need a good palate cleanser.

In case you couldn't tell by the subtitle, this is something of a sequel to the 2017 game Piczle Lines DX. Perhaps sequel is the wrong word, because this is really little more than an expansion pack that, as the title suggests, gives you 500 more puzzles to work out. If you loved last year's entry and want more of the same, then you can probably stop reading this review right now, because you know exactly what you're getting and nothing I'm going to say will change your mind. However, if you're like me and new to the series, then you may find that Piczle Lines DX is a nice diversion from the mindless first-person shooter you're probably playing right now.

This is a shockingly easy game to learn. In fact, I didn't even bother with the tutorial mode. It was obvious right from the jump that the goal was to connect a bunch of colored lines in order to build a picture. At first it's nothing more than a square grid with a series of dots. The trick is that each of these dots has a number that corresponds with another dot, with the goal to connect the dots in the right amount of moves. For example, if you're looking at a five dot, then that means you can only create a line that goes for five spaces.

The 500 puzzles are split up into a couple dozen different categories, including school subjects, fun and games, sports, media, big bellies and mythical beasts. There are also categories inspired by countries like France, Spain, China and Korea. This may be an obvious point to make, but I didn't play through all 500 puzzles. It's not the kind game where you beat it in a single sitting, but rather pick at it little by little when you have a few spare minutes. It's like a book of crossword puzzles or Sudoku. It's a nice time-waster to have ready to go on the Switch.

Even though it's incredibly easy to pick up, the game still does a good job of easing you into its subtle complexities. We start out with simple patterns constructed on a small 18 x 18 grid. But as you poke around the 500 puzzles, you'll start to realize that Piczle Lines DX can get tricky. You'll start to get larger 128 x 128 grids and stages where every dot is the same color. You'll have to wind and maneuver much longer lines and try not to get tripped up by similar (but incorrect) solutions. The stages can take anywhere from a couple months to solve to ones that had me stumped for the better part of an hour. It can be a challenging game at times, but never in a frustrating way.

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This is one of those Switch games where it's best to play it in handheld mode. You can obviously play it with a controller on the TV, but this is clearly a game designed with the touchscreen in mind. It's so much easier to draw the lines with your finger, and once you've played it like a tablet you'll probably never want to go back to using the Joy Con. It's nice that every single menu, puzzle and option can be accessed without a controller, so this works surprisingly well as a mobile experience.

Much like Sudoku and other puzzles, you're going to know immediately if Piczle Lines DX: 500 More Puzzles is for you. There's no hidden complexity or mode that changes everything; what you see is definitely what you get. And that's a good thing, because this is the kind of fun little time-waster the Switch needs more of. The presentation isn't going to blow you away and the puzzles can be incredibly repetitive at times, but it controls well and offers a lot of content for not much money. Piczle Lines DX is a nice respite from the typical action games and shooters.