No more Sudoku forever

(tags game, puzzle, Sudoku, DualScreen, spoiler)

It's done! It's finally over, Sudoku for the DS (Hudson's Puzzle Series Vol. 3: Sudoku) It only took me 120 hours, heh. Here's my performance at a glance.

Easy: 25:57:01 with an average of 22:15, best time: 7:17 on 70.

I swear I started with close to zero experience here. It wasn't shockingly hard.

Regular: 55:23:31 with an average of 23:44, best time: 7:15 on 138.

Some new ideas, but nothing too shocking.

Hard: 38:23:09 with an average of 25:35, best time: 8:03 @ 10.

It appears I tripped up hard with some boards that made me guess. I have this sinking feeling that it may be not necessary to guess at all, but for some reason I couldn't pick up on the clues so I did. Anyway, my total average didn't rise much above that point because I think I got the confidence to guess. I discovered how good the undo system in the game works. I'm not saying that its brilliant, but that it doesn't get in your way and it redos your moves just so long as you don't enter a new one.

I also finished the award part, which automatically scrolls to the achievement screen. Unfortunately though it tells me how I long I spent on these awards, I can't see them again. I did the "bronze" award over again but it doesn't show. I didn't want to do the "platinum" award again because I remembered I had wicked fast time on it but I did, and I got another wicked time on it.

Just in case you want to see the details, I post the Excel 2000 sheet on my records. My calculations show 120:44:19, so there must be a data entry problem somewhere.

Oh yeah, this game is over in America as Sudoku Gridmaster. This game was overwhelming panned, according to the Metacritic. Many reviews point to Brain Age as the better interface and options Sudoku, which makes me want to play it. Well after spending 120 hours on just this one game, I don't think this interface is bad at all. But I don't come from the pen-and-paper Sudoku background, nor have I played that Brain Age Sudoku, so maybe my experience is different. And what else do you expect me to say? It seems to me that people don't understand that Brain Age's Sudoku could leverage the excellent handwriting recognition features from Brain Age main unit which had to be good because accurate handwriting recognition is essential. The Sudoku Gridmaster was developed by Hudson, a different company. No matter, I am forever damaged by the input-by-keypad, snark snark, grumble grumble.

So I'm done with Sudoku, yes. Forever. I will not touch another puzzle again because the thrill is over. Law of Diminishing Returns and besides, I gotta level up my characters in Final Fantasy XII now, thanks.