Pictonico!

It may not be the sort of game you’d play for hours at a time, but it’s ideal for a swift, invigorating break in your day.

Of all Nintendo's mobile offerings, Pictonico is packing more in the 'surprise and delight' department than any previous effort. It's a brilliantly effective translation of the WarioWare series on a platform it was born to be on. The microgame Volume Packs aren't quite cheap enough to be impulse buys, but I'd wager WarioWare fans will get their money's worth from these first two, especially if you've got kids to share in the irreverence and manic energy. Whether playing alone on the sofa or with a group of us huddled around my phone, we've been wearing massive grins the entire time. Delightful.

Plain, direct and absurd fun in your cell phone. If you're looking for a couple of minutes of laughs, this works like a charm, but it will need more content in the future to stay fresh.

Pictonico isn't just a Wario-free WarioWare on mobile; it's its own thing, with a fun selection of mini-games, a bright and snappy interface, and a relatively low price in the grand scheme of things. What's on offer here is a bit of silliness, something you can play with family and friends and get a laugh out of, even if it won't keep you coming back for the longest time. When people say Nintendo don’t do silly things anymore, you can point them directly to Pictonico.

If you’re in need of a laugh, or you know your friends could do with one, this really is a gut-busting time. Nintendo so rarely gets experimental these days, and it’s fantastic to see the company hasn’t lost its touch.

Pictonico! successfully turns your personal photos into a collection of fast-paced and genuinely funny microgames. While the concept is creative and often hilarious, the limited gameplay variety, reliance on touch controls, and lack of WarioWare's signature personality prevent it from reaching its full potential. Still, it's an entertaining experience for fans of quick party-style games looking for a few laughs.

So Pictonico! is a perfectly decent little mobile game, but it's also very clear what it is: a fun idea, a quick laugh, a moment of image-based light-hearted entertainment, and then not much else. It's Nintendo at its weirdest, which I basically love, but it's not Nintendo at its most brilliant.