Technical Information

Developer: Tamsoft
Publisher: D3 Publisher
Release Date: August 30, 2001

Hello Kitty: Illust Puzzle is a Hello Kitty–themed nonogram game.
You have a limited amount of time to complete a drawing on a grid. You need to fill in the spaces based on numbers on the X and Y axes, and for each mistake you make, you lose an amount of time in minutes.

Final Thoughts – Analyzing the Game as a Whole

Graphics and UI

All the art styles are based on a pink and cute theme, meant to be reminiscent of Hello Kitty.
But unfortunately, the nonogram illustrations aren’t Sanrio-themed. They are just random objects and images. It was a huge disappointment for me. 🙁

The entire game is in Japanese, but it’s not mandatory to know the language to play. You can memorize what each menu option does, and everything works fine.

Soundtrack and Sound Effects

At first, the gameplay music is nice and very energetic. But after a few hours of playing, it gets annoying.
There is no option to select the background music, and it’s the same track throughout the entire game.

The sound effects are okay and give the game a good level of polish.

Gameplay

This game was my first experience playing a 2D nonogram. And I say 2D because almost a decade ago, I played 3D Picross on the Nintendo DS, but until then, I didn’t know this kind of game existed in 2D.

The game has a text tutorial explaining how to play, but it’s useless if you don’t speak Japanese. The game itself is very similar to Sudoku, so you just need a bit of attention to understand how it works. It’s perfectly friendly for non-Japanese speakers.

Hello Kitty: Illust Puzzle has three difficulty levels, with two groups for each one.
Even in the hard group, the game is not that complex because once you correctly fill in a line, the corresponding numbers turn blue. This gives you a good sense of direction on how to proceed.
The game also has screen wrapping, which makes the gameplay smoother.

You also have hints! They work through a random selection that fills in a certain line and cost five minutes from your total time.

It’s important to pay attention to your save progress, because this game doesn’t save automatically. You need to select the game card and save manually.

Replayability and Game Retention

This game took me around 15 hours to beat. It’s a fair amount of time, considering it was my first time playing this kind of game.
For someone who isn’t familiar with this type of game, I believe it’s a good choice to start with.

I confess this game opened my eyes to a new world. Nonograms are my newest passion! Loved it! <3
I’d definitely play it again in the future.