Sushi Sudoku

Certain things seem like a natural match: fish and chips; sandals and skin; cigarettes and cancer. But sushi and sudoku aren't two things people are easily going to associate with one another. Which throws up a question. When there are plenty of sudoku games out there you could be playing, what would make you choose Sushi Sudoku?

Well, it's probably not going to be because of the game's story. Sushi Sudoku is so called because it stars some cute anime girls going by the name of the Sushi Girls. Unfortunately six members of their gang have been kidnapped by the evil Professor Takeshi and locked up in his mansion. You're soon told the only way to release each girl is by breaking the 'sudoku lock' on her cell. There's no prize for guessing this is done by solving standard sudoku puzzles, which get progressively bigger and harder as you advance.

As we said, it's unlikely to sell the game to you. Perhaps predictably, the Sushi Girls are a largely pointless inclusion, although at least they add some colour to the standard dull-looking grids of numbers.

It's not just the plot that doesn't really do it for this game, though – it's also a fairly shallow experience. The puzzles leap wildly from very simple 2x2 grids to insanely complex 4x4 ones. There's little in the way of tuition or guidance for new players, while the experienced will find there aren't really enough options to offer a very varied challenge.

This is because there are just two play modes in the game. Rescue Mode has you trying to solve the increasingly tough puzzles, each against a 30-minute time limit, while Quick Mode cuts out the plot and just gives you the puzzles. Here you can choose the size of the grid and the style of the board, which unfortunately doesn't offer that much diversity. Still, Rescue does at least earn you unlockable boards, which is some incentive to keep going.

Aside from all of this, Sushi Sudoku is as straightforward as you'd expect. As in normal sudoku, your goal is to make sure a grid contains one of each number available, without repeating digits in rows or columns. So in a 3x3 grid you input the numbers 1-9 into each box, a task that's made fairly simple using a thumbstick as you can navigate the grid with it and then simply type in the number. If you want to change a number, '0' will do that.

As is the norm with sudoku titles, a 'pencil mode' is also available for when you're trying out numbers and can't quite commit to a decision. Simply press '#' to swap between 'pen' and 'pencil', the latter inputting a small digit in a corner of the square.

It's good in practice, although on a tiny screen it can be a pain to actually see the little numbers. Keep it in mind if you're thinking about offering this to your short-sighted granny as a birthday present. Not that we're entirely sure she'd appreciate the Sushi Girls element anyway (or a mobile game, for that matter).

For us, though, that's not Sushi Sudoku's main issue. Ultimately, its steep learning curve and limited play scope mean it's unfortunately not a game many may stick with for long. Unless you've already played to death better games such as Cafe Sudoku or Platinum Sudoku and are still craving a new sudoku experience, we'd suggest you're better off leaving those Sushi Girls locked up.