Mega Sudoku - Binary & Suguru

A rather nice game, for moments in which you wanna use your brain a little. There are a ton of puzzles in total and you dont only get yourself the standard Sudoku in three difficulty settings, but also Binary and Suguru, both puzzle types I had never seen or heard of before, both similar to Sudoku, but fun in their own way. I especially enjoyed Suguru.

If you like yourself some puzzles then you will surely enjoy this game. It also offers three hints for if you are stuck and for the sudoku part it also highlights when you have incorrectly numbered a tile. There is also some relaxing asian themed background music to help you relax :)

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Mega Sudoku - Binary & Suguru is a collection of puzzle games that consists of classic sudoku and its variants. There isn't a story behind this collection, so instead, I'll go right into the gameplay. There are three variants of sudoku: classic, binary, and suguru. The classic version is the one which a lot of people might be familiar with. In the classic version, you're given a 9x9 grid with random numbers filled in, and that board is divided into smaller 3x3 squares. Basically, the goal is to fill each square with the numbers 1 to 9 exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 square. There are three difficulty levels, with the easier difficulty having more of the numbers filled in and the hardest difficulty having the fewest numbers filled in. Then there is binary sudoku. You're given a grid, but for each square, you only have to fill in zero or one. However, you can't have more than two of the same number (zero or one) next to each other in a row or column. It's probably the easiest of the sudoku variants, and there is only one difficulty level. Finally, there is suguru sudoku. You're given a grid, which is divided into regions of varying boxes. Each region must contain the number 1 to the maximum number of boxes in that region. Also, neighboring regions can't have the same number. Like for binary sudoku, there is only one difficulty level. At the time of this review, there aren't any Steam achievements or trading cards, as the game is in "Steam is learning about this game".

Now that I've gone over the gameplay, I'll move onto my critique. Although I only play puzzle games on occasion and I rarely play sudoku, I thought I'd go ahead and give this a try. (I find it fun to have a challenge and change of pace every once in a while.) With that said, I'll talk about the gameplay. I finished all of the easy and medium difficulty levels of classic sudoku, each of which has 100 levels. I found these levels to be doable, especially the easy levels, and it helps that there is a hint button that fills in a random box on the grid and that can be used up to three times. There's also a reset button in case you want to start the puzzle over. The medium difficulty levels were a bit more challenging but still doable.

Next, I played all of the levels for binary sudoku. As I mentioned earlier, I found binary sudoku to be the easiest variant, and once I got the idea of how to play it, I had almost no trouble with the levels. There was only one level that proved otherwise:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2946400243

However, I believe there is a bug in this level since I was able to complete it correctly. Regardless, the game refused to mark it as complete, so this annoyed me a bit.

Finally, there's suguru sudoku. Now, unfortunately, this is where I got frustrated to the point that I decided to quit the game (and I rarely quit games unless there's a technical bug that doesn't allow me to progress or whatnot, but I may go back to it at some point). For the first several levels or so, I didn't have any issues, and the hint buttons were very useful. However, later levels were where I had issues. Of course, I made sure to understand the rules of suguru sudoku so that I didn't misunderstand them. Now the issue I had was with how the regions were divided. Here, they're divided by color, but some of the colors are so similar to the point that it's almost indistinguishable to tell some sections apart. For a color-blind person, this would be extremely frustrating. It would have been great for there to have been an alternative for making sections other than colors. Also, for the later, harder levels, it would have been good if there had been more help functions, like an undo function that undoes the last move a player made and such. Features like that would have made it less frustrating for me to play this sudoku variant.

Moving onto other aspects, I liked the art style. It has that Japanese theme with the cherry blossoms in the background. Colors feel light and not overly bright. As for the music, there's only one track present. However, it depicts that feeling of being in Japan well. It feels relaxed and laidback.

Overall, would I recommend Mega Sudoku - Binary & Suguru? This is difficult to say. I wish I could place it as a neutral review. However, since that isn't an option, I'll recommend it (but just barely). If you like puzzle games and especially enjoy sudoku and its variants, then this is worth checking out, especially since you'll most likely get a lot of playtime hours from it. However, do be aware that there are a few bugs and it could use some improvements. It is worth checking out, though, especially if you enjoy challenging puzzle games.

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Before you buy this game, buy a sudoku book. The idea is great but it is really exhausting to actually play it. I can not use my keyboard to put in numbers, i have to manually click on the field and then the number. There is an autocheck for obvious mistakes (like two numbers in a row). Just as a test I put a number into a field that wouldn't be obiously wrong and I was not able to erase the number after so I had to restart. There is no possibility to change anything besides the volume of the game and if you want to play in fullscreen. No highlighting numbers, no possibility to make numbers on the side disappear as soon as you have it in every field. Nothing. Thus the graphics actually make it harder and more unfun to play. If it would have been f2p, i would have immediately deinstalled the game. Imo the levels are way too easy to. Makes sense, considering you cant take notes.