I finally just bought a 3DS. My old DS Lite shit out on me a couple of months ago. I either rode her to hard or in her last year or so I forgot all about her and she withered up and died. I tried to resuscitate her back to consciousness with a new battery from Amazon, but that spark just wasn't there anymore. She just kept on running out on me.

My new Nintendo 3DS is a Mint x White version and the first thing I did was purchase a 2000 Yen Nintendo 3DS eShop card so I could get that Pushmo that people recommended so fiercely. The tutorial levels really didn't do a good job of showing off what the game really has in lethal doses. It is perfectly understandable that the tutorial levels would be bland and easy to pass, but the designs should at least be fun and engaging. I guess Nintendo thought that most people would at least get past the tutorial and move on to the first set of interesting puzzles.

It was during this second level that I started to see so much of Picross in Pushmo's design. Also by linking these two really addictive, fun games, I started to list all of the great Japanese puzzle games that have come out. Pokémon Puzzle League, Puyo Puyo, Money Puzzle Exchanger, Lumines, FantaVision (Fuck you! FantaVision was good!) I could probably fill a few pages about all of the great puzzle games that have come out of Japan.

The mechanics make the game fun to play; they aren't nearly as easy as Picross, but mixed with the 3DS' screen they are enough for now. I am sure that Nintendo will iterate on the controls for the second game.

Now, like many people I also can see Nintendo swirling down a drain. Great puzzle games cannot save the company. Nintendo should be courting indie developers to get more games like Pushmo on the 3DS. I don't know if the US Nintendo 3DS eShop is as barren as the Japanese shot, but Nintendo needs to get it's Virtual Console game up to par. They also need to realize what Xbox realized a few years after Xbox Live got going: people don't only want to download subpar/overpriced versions of Pac-Mac, they want to buy kick ass original titles like Geometry Wars and Shadow Complex.

James Mielke just had a big conference in Kyoto to court western journalists; to show them that there are a lot of hard working Japanese indie guys that do amazing stuff. Microsoft and Sony can't take all of the indie market with them. Nintendo, you gotta step up to the plate.