Piczle Cross Rune Factory Nintendo Switch Review: The Best Puzzle RPG Experience!

by Jim Smale · February 26, 2025

Dive into the enchanting world of Rune Factory with Piczle Cross: Rune Factory on Nintendo Switch! Embark on a journey where you capture monsters, face formidable bosses, and personalize your farm. Meet new residents, find a marriage partner, and prepare for battles with a variety of weapons. Enjoy the game at your own pace or challenge yourself with difficult puzzles. Unlock a comprehensive database of Rune Factory characters and animals in the Bestiary of Rigverse as you progress. Puzzle enthusiasts can also track detailed play statistics, including total playtime. Read on for an in-depth Piczle Cross Rune Factory game review and uncover why this puzzle RPG is a must-play on Steam! Let’s explore the magic together.

Piczle Cross Rune Factory Nintendo SwitchPros:

Decent cartoon-like graphics.
1.4GB Download size.
Own in-game achievements and they pop up when earned.
Full touchscreen support.
3 save slots.
Accessibility options – Dyslexia font, color vision aid, toggle hold, and left or right-handed.
Cursor speed and axis lock allow the cursor to always move freely.
Puzzle gameplay.
Two characters to choose from – Ares, and Alice. (these are just cosmetic though and don’t have any game impact)
The How to Play section has in-depth manuals on how to play each type of puzzle in the game complete with images and videos to demonstrate.
Two ways to play – adventure and puzzle mode and you can change from adventure to puzzle within the game menu.
Puzzle options – club roulette (fills in a random row and column), timer, hints, clue marking, autocorrect, auto-fill correct, auto-fill 0s, hide check for mistakes, auto counter, axis lock, and cursor speed.
Central puzzle menu where you can choose what puzzle to play and see unlocked ones.
Officially licensed Rune Factory game with the cast of the beloved characters and settings.
Very fast loading times.
Great brain workout.
Button prompts show over power-ups and actions on the side of the screen like mark/unmarked, undo, etc.
You can skip and fast-forward character interactions.
Adventure mode unlocks puzzles as you play, some puzzles can only be played in challenge mode, and you can only choose a spouse if you reach particular requirements.
Puzzle mode has all puzzles unlocked immediately, you can choose puzzles in challenge mode freely, once unlocked spouse and monster taming are available and can be selected straight away.
The SEED outpost menu houses all unlocked – music and has a player, that fills in the bestiary, compendium, and journal.
Rebuild and customize your farm by unlocking and equipping new farm designs, crops, monsters, spouses, and equipment.
In the game, you can change the music, save and quit, restart the puzzle, and check for mistakes.
Your farm is 3D and you can rotate the farm around.
Puzzles vary in size from single-frame ones to multiple grids in a puzzle.
It’s very satisfying when you solve a puzzle.
Big clever boss encounters.
Fight and capture monsters to fill in the bestiary and the farm.
Tweak the game to how you want to play.
This is a must-own for puzzle fans.

Piczle Cross Rune Factory Nintendo Switch Cons:

You cannot change from puzzle to adventure mode within the game.
For some reason, I couldn’t always bring up the game menu.
The tutorial is in a way that it’s not ideal for new players coming to the puzzle genre for the first time.
A lot to take in with many moving parts.
I am dumb at puzzles this is not news to anyone but I still hit many roadblocks within the game as any more than a few grids and my head takes a hard out so for the game to have all these tweaks I still struggled.
You can accidentally press a button in and menu and have no idea what is going on.

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