As I feared when its release was announced, I played through the entirety of
Mario's Super Picross on the Switch SNES emulator. This is a game that at the time was never released outside Japan, because its predecessor on Game Boy, Mario's Picross, did not sell well in the US and Europe. It so happens that I have a nostalgic tie to Picross because I bought the Game Boy game during a trip in Japan back in 1995. Why feared you ask ? Well... because picross puzzles, also known as
nonograms are a bit like sudokus, in the sense that they are solved through mechanically applying several methods. The only Eureka moments you get are at the beginning when you figure out the solving methods and after that it's a bit of a grind that rarely provides more than the most limited of satisfaction. They are literally time wasters, so a lot of time has been wasted....
I'll let you check the wikipedia article to understand the details of this type of puzzles, but the super short version is that you have to fill a grid based on numerical clues for each lines and columns. The easier puzzles use a 5 by 5 grid, the hardest (or at least the longest) are on a 25 by 20 grid. The game is roughly split in two : the Mario puzzles and the Wario puzzles.
In the Mario puzzles, you have 30 min to fill the grid properly and every time you make a mistake you lose an increasing amount of time (something like 2 min, then 4 min, then 8, etc). If the time runs out, it's game over and you have to restart from the beginning. Even without being familiar with the game, you can deduce the main quality and the main problem of this design. The main quality is that it creates a tension, albeit not a very pleasant one, when your time is running out and can't afford any error or when an error suddenly forces you to rush and focus to finish in time. The main problem, is that the problems are static. So when 20 minutes just went down the drain because of a game over, redoing the puzzle is even less satisfying than the first time, because you just start by filling stuff you remember rather than re-deducing. A less obvious problem with this design, is that there are situations in which the info you get from a minor penalty is worth more than the 2 min you lose.
In the Wario puzzles, there is no timer (well... there is a timer but it is counting up and there is no limit), but there is also no feedback when you make a mistake. Again, the good and the bad are what you would expect : there is a tension related to the uncertainty (am I doing this right ?) but there is also the very real possibility of making an error that creates contradiction way further down the road, making it impossible to easy find where the error lies, basically forcing you to scrap it all and start over. In fairness, successfully fixing a mistake in Wario mode is one of the most satisfying thing in the game, but it's more of a relief than a thrill I guess.
Something else that is a bit unpleasant, especially in some of the later puzzles is that it feels the tool set we have to solve problems is not enough. You are forced to explore "what if" scenarios and hope contradiction appear rapidly to invalidate them, or are forced to use "soft" methods, such as making educated guesses or using the picture being drawn as a guide (using things like outlines being continuous, etc). I have mixed feeling about this. Making good educated guesses is a proof of education, but guessing in a logic puzzle game is a bit.... strange. It should be noted that in the Mario puzzles you can take a hint at the start, solving a random line or column (or both ?) and during play you can buy such hint for 5 minutes. That also does not sit well with me as it feels like a game design crutch : "I am not sure that puzzle can be solved without guessing, so let's add hints to be in the clear !"
Something one can't complain about is the quantity of content. The finish line is pushed back several times, and, even after you clear it and get to see the credits, you unlock more levels and even gain access to secret levels. All those are more of the same, but in the end you get a big pile of 300 puzzles. I did not time the play through, but the clear times go from one minute to one hour, with an average at around 15 minutes maybe ? As I said, a lot of time has been wasted !
On a side note, being on Switch, I could play through it all while listening to some twitch stream or youTube videos, just like I played the GameBoy version during commutes. I have a hard time imagining who would play a game like Mario's Super Picross back in the days on their TV.