Toon-doku review

Don't like numbers in your sudoku puzzles? No problem. Just bring a magnifying glass

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Unlocking images

  • +

    Solving the puzzles

  • +

    How long it lasts

Cons

  • -

    Tough to see at times

  • -

    Imperfect controls

  • -

    Possibly

  • -

    sudoku

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

As any of the roughly six zillion books filled with the griddy number puzzles would attest, it's pretty tough to muck up sudoku. One of the reasons this type of mind-bender has literally swept the world by storm - at least the portion that still does word searches and crosswords and cryptograms - is that it's conceptually simple and immediately accessible. You have a 9x9 grid. You have some numbers. And you have to fill in the rest of the numbers so that every column, row, and smaller, 3x3 sub-grid contains the digits 1-9 with no repeats. No math or trivia knowledge required; just logic. That's all there is to it.

Above: What visual clutter? By the way, the little baseball heads in the wayis what happens in multiplayer or boss battles.

It's tough to screw up, but your first reaction upon setting eyes upon Toon-Doku is that someone tried to do exactly that: tried really, really hard, in fact. It's mostly the fault of the tiny, fuzzy DS screen. It's one thing to have to make out numbers, but easily discerning a pie from a taco from a pizza from spaghetti can get really tricky. Sometimes, they even toss some busy wallpaper behind the transparent playfield, enabling the background to interfere with the symbols. To be fair, you can double-click a shoulder button to zoom in on one 3x3 grid at a time, but we found that view was actually too constricted - we were constantly forced to either scoot the grid around by hand or zoom back out and select a different area to magnify -neither of which were fun solutions.

More info

GenreFamily
DescriptionHow do you make number-puzzle phenomenon Sudoku jazzier? Swap out the numbers with symbols. How do you make it almost impossible to read? Slap the resulting mess onto a DS screen.
Platform"DS"
US censor rating"Everyone"
UK censor rating""
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
Less
Eric Bratcher
I was the founding Executive Editor/Editor in Chief here at GR, charged with making sure we published great stories every day without burning down the building or getting sued. Which isn't nearly as easy as you might imagine. I don't work for GR any longer, but I still come here - why wouldn't I? It's awesome. I'm a fairly average person who has nursed an above average love of video games since I first played Pong just over 30 years ago. I entered the games journalism world as a freelancer and have since been on staff at the magazines Next Generation and PSM before coming over to GamesRadar. Outside of gaming, I also love music (especially classic metal and hard rock), my lovely wife, my pet pig Bacon, Japanese monster movies, and my dented, now dearly departed '89 Ranger pickup truck. I pray sincerely. I cheer for the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox. And behind Tyler Nagata, I am probably the GR staffer least likely to get arrested... again.