Phase Cross

[b]My Playtime:[/b] 0.7h (finished the game) [h1]Intro[/h1] [i]Phase Cross[/i] is a Nonogram fangame with Iori Hakushika, a Japanese V-Tuber, as a theme. It has 30 levels in total and a shooting minigame. [b]Pros:[/b] - Feature to count rows - Other tiles are automatically marked with an X mark after you finish the row or column [b]Cons:[/b] - The auto X mark only applies if you fill in the correct row [b]Specs[/b] Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 [h1]Should you play this game?[/h1] [i]If you like playing easy Nonogram games, play this one. It's not for those wanting to have a challenge, though.[/i] [hr][/hr] [h1]In-Depth Review[/h1] [h3]Visuals[/h3] The game uses pixelated art. The one showing in the background in the main menu looks great, although the rest can be pretty lackluster. Some UI buttons, like the back button, look like a reload button that was skewed, and the size of the buttons doesn't match the others. Well, for a free game, it is alright. [h3]The Game[/h3] [b]Gameplay[/b] [i]Phase Cross[/i] is a Nonogram game. You have 30 levels ranging from 5x5 to 15x15. The puzzles tend to be easy, as a lot of the levels allow you to mark the full row or column. I don't know about Iori, the YouTuber that this game is made for, but a lot of the resulting images seem to be related to her. Some images don't follow this rule, but they tend to be random and not that many. When you compare the Nonogram and the resulting images, you can see some resemblance between both, although I found them to be lacking details as a lot of the images just focus on putting blacks on the objects and whites on the rest. This seems to be the reason why you have to fill the full row or columns a lot—imagine that for an image of a human, instead of including the person's facial features in the drawing, the Nonogram only has a silhouette of the person. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3540926241 That being said, the game surprisingly has a lot of QoL features. You have the feature to count the rows, although you can only do so if you also mark the tiles—using an X mark or counting without action won't work. The game also automatically X-marks all the unused tiles if you have finished with the current row or column. However, the game seems to only do this if the row or column that you filled was correct. Luckily, the game doesn't punish you or do anything else if you fill the wrong tile, though. [b]Minigame[/b] There is one shooting minigame that unlocks after you finish one Nonogram level. It's a minigame where you need to shoot birds to prevent them from attacking Iori at the bottom. Honestly, I don't seem to understand the goal of this minigame. It seems to be an endless game where you level up after you survive long enough. Leveling up will allow you to choose some powerups, but I don't even know what these powerups are supposed to do. I also am not sure whether these will unlock more Nonogram levels or are just there for fun, but since I'm playing this game for the Nonogram, I didn't find it interesting enough to deep dive into it. [b]Length and Difficulty[/b] I finished all 30 levels in 0.7h. The levels are fairly easy because you can fill a lot of tiles right away. There are some harder ones, but they are still in the easy-medium range. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] For a free game, I found [i]Phase Cross[/i] to be decent. There are a good number of levels, and even though they are easy to solve, I still had fun in it. The music that was playing in the background was especially good to listen to, and I could find myself singing along with it. All in all, if you enjoy playing easy Nonogram games, I could recommend this game for you.