Free-to-play 'Pokemon Picross' arrives this week on Nintendo eShop

Nintendo has announced that “Pokemon Picross” will be coming to the Nintendo eShop this week, specifically on Dec. 3. The game will be a free-to-play title for the Nintendo 3DS and is a crossover with the popular “Picross” games that have come to the handheld as of late.

Gameplay sounds simple, but is likely harder in execution. The game has players solving puzzles and eventually revealing portraits of something, in this game’s case, all of the portraits are various Pokemon from the hit game series, according to Game Informer.

There is a slight twist to the mechanic, as “Pokemon Picross” doesn’t just unveil portraits of Pokemon. Upon solving all of the puzzles, players can then capture the Pokemon and add it to the collection. This does have the “Pokemon” brand in the title, so fans will want to catch them all like in the memorable theme song of the show.

Most of the puzzle solving mechanics relies on players having to deduce how the numbers of squares that is in a row. The more numbers are solved the more the portrait is revealed and once its finished, players can capture the Pokemon.

Another slight twist in the gameplay is how the Pokemon are involved. According to Vine Report, players can use the various skills of the Pokemon to make puzzles easier to do, which is why catching them all will be an important aspect in the game.

Of course the skills are limited and once they’ve all been used they will need to charge for a while before they can be used again. Since this is a free-to-play title, fans can choose to either wait for the time to finish or use in-game currency to refill them.

It will be interesting to see how the game does, since Nintendo seems to be doing well with these types of games. “Pokemon Shuffle” was a huge hit when it came out and has since been ported to iOS and Android devices. There is also plenty of excitement for the upcoming “Pokemon Go” project, which has gotten fans old and new interested in picking up the title when it comes out.