Picross is a simple and addictive puzzle game and that archaeologist Mario story fits here perfectly.
Basically whole the game is a collection of nonogram logic puzzles. You see a grid with numbers for every row and column. You know that those numbers refer to amount of hidden squares within the grid. And your task is to find all the squares the numbers refer to. If you uncover all the hidden ones the picture is revealed. For beginners there is also great tutorial in the game. Spend some minutes to study Picross strategy and exciting gameplay is guaranteed.
Game rules are easy and you have 30 minutes for each puzzle but if you chisel wrong tiles you loose your valuable time and the game may end very soon. Ahem... and sometimes I hardly get the point of availability to clear those already chiseled correct tiles.
Even after competing the game it don't get boring because Mario's Picross keeps track of your first time record, counts the trials, and keeps your best time record. Finally the Time Trial challenges you. If you beat the records in list you can enter your name. This time it is actually saved because Mario's Picross cartridge is battery backed.
Although the game is highly addictive unfortunately back in '95 the things didn't go so well. Due to disappointing sales, Nintendo did not release the Game Boy sequel Mario's Picross 2 outside of Japan. Even ScrewAttack.com voted this game one of the worst Mario games. I don't share the opinion that the game is boring and unplayable on original Game Boy screen. Not at all. Actually it feels perfect on it. Only thing to complain about is clearing saves. It is not very intuitive. You have to select saved game and then hold down A, B and Select buttons simultaneously. There is no menu option for clearing saves. But who would want to clear his records anyway.
Interesting is there are some very funny contradictions in this game. The game introduction says that "for hundreds of years the Japanese have enjoyed playing picross", but in fact nonogram puzzle was invented in 1987 by professional Japanese puzzler named Tetsuya Nishio. So therefore for this time the Japanese had chance to enjoy picross only for 8 years... Also there are many pictures archaeologist Mario uncovers that are absolutely not related to ancient Mayan or to Egyptian pyramids like antarctic penguin (8F), an ambulance car (8G) or backhoe (8H). Sometimes those uncovered tiny pictures hardly represent the items they're meant to. For example these oranges (7D) are more like two bruised potatoes and this bucket (7E) looks kind of creepy and this angel (7F) doesn't remind me angel at all.
Luckily the Nintendo DS title Picross DS features downloadable puzzles from the original game and other Nintendo-developed Picross titles. But the feeling of playing this old title on original Nintendo Game Boy is incomparable. Mario's Picross for Game Boy is another great game that never ages.