Well, hello again! David/Kavi here with yet another review. Now, I’m almost as much of a puzzle lover as the next guy, but if you’re looking for something different in the puzzle genre or just something to waste some time on your shiny new DSi, then this game easily takes the cake. From the fine folks on the Art Style team comes a whole new way to look at classic masterpieces: PiCTOBiTS!

In Art Style: PiCTOBiTS, you have but one goal: using square, colored pixels, called “Bits” to make 2×2 blocks, lines of 4 or whatever shape you feel is necessary with falling groups of Bits, called “Megabits”, and clear them away, sending them to the top screen to recreate a character or two from classic Nintendo games. You start with a few rows of randomly colored Bits to pick up, a basic bassline of the song your character comes from, and a pallete to your left side, ready to hold up to 8 Bits at a time. Soon, Megabits fall from the top of your touch screen, slowly coming to a halt, and falling one line every few seconds (or sometimes faster!). You can place your Bits anywhere on the touch screen, allowing you to start clearing blocks as soon as they appear. Letting a Megabit fall completely or touch a Bit that would not make the required combination forces it to shatter, thus giving you more bits to pick up. If you let your scereen fill up, of course, or place Bits at the top of the screen so Megabits can’t fall down, well… you better move them within 3 seconds of the Danger warning, or you-know-what happens.

You can gain Coins (game currency) by clearing Megabits before they touch down anywhere. In addition, there are “Permabits”- Bits with Xs on them that you can’t pick up; you must clear them by setting Bits and making Megabits fall on them strategically. This is important, as these little guys net you one Coin each. If you’re in Danger, you have the option to POW your way out– That is, hit the POW button on the bottom of your pallete to knock out the bottom two rows of Bits and send all other Bits cascading to the ground. However, use it wisely– this locks a spot in your pallete, and the only way to get it back is to pay 5 Coins to unlock it again for use in that stage. You can also use your Coins to buy the game’s music, and also to unlock the special “Dark” stages – increased difficulty and more chances for Coins are yours once you buy them at multiples of 20 Coins apiece.

This game is a lot of fun to just look at, and the music builds from simple beeps to the songs you remember from days past with some surprisingly groovy additions here and there. I had a lot of fun playing through the first few stages, and when a simple 4-bleep bassline turned into a nice remix of the Super Mario Bros. theme, I found myself bobbing my head and humming along merrily. Which… makes me weird, I guess. But! The point is, it’s highly addictive and enjoyable (I’ve stopped at least 3 times now to pick it back up), and, at just 500 DSi Points, nicely priced. If you’ve still got those points from the initial promotion lying around, or you just got a DSi and are looking through the games you can get, Art Style: PiCTOBiTS is a very good option for a puzzle game you’ll play for a while, stop playing, pick up and play again, and wake up thinking about.