Nintendo's Pictonico! is a chaotic and unexpectedly good time
Key takeaways
- It’s like Wario Ware, but you and all the people you love are the main characters.
- Screenshots/Cheyenne Mac Donald I'll admit that I was a bit put off when I learned that Nintendo's new Wario Ware-like mobile game, Pictonico!, would need to use pictures from my phone's gallery.
- While Pictonico! is free to download, the game itself is not actually free beyond the short demo it offers.
It’s like Wario Ware, but you and all the people you love are the main characters.
Screenshots/Cheyenne Mac Donald I'll admit that I was a bit put off when I learned that Nintendo's new Wario Ware-like mobile game, Pictonico!, would need to use pictures from my phone's gallery. I'm pretty selective when it comes to giving apps access to my photos, and the idea of a game possibly being filled with pictures of my own face just didn't really appeal to me. But weird little games are kind of my thing here, and if Pictonico! is anything, it's weird. So, I gave it a go — and to my surprise, it won me over pretty fast.
While Pictonico! is free to download, the game itself is not actually free beyond the short demo it offers. Once you complete that, you have to purchase game packs (or volumes, as Nintendo is calling them). Vol. 1 contains 20 stages and costs $8, and Vol. 2 costs $6, with 12 stages. These stages are made up of rapid-fire microgames, each stage requiring you succeed at 10 of these games before you can move on. And the games are wild. You might be shown a picture of yourself or a loved one with a nutcracker-style jaw, which you then need to use to rapidly chomp a bunch of items coming down the line. Or maybe you're a flower whose petals must be plucked. Or a grumpy banana waiting to be peeled.