Not a week seems to pass without another compulsive puzzle craze emerging from the Land of the Rising Sun. We've been hopelessly befuddled by sudoku, picross and slitherlink – now it's the turn of the fiendishly addictive kakuro.
Based around the logical placement of numbers, kakuro looks very similar to its puzzle brethren – you're presented with a tantalisingly blank grid that practically begs to be completed using a mixture of logic and cunning. The idea here is that each vertical row and horizontal column has to add up exactly to the number shown at the start of the line.
Confused? Well, if a column has the number '3' at the top and it's two boxes long, then the solution has to be '2' and '1' – but you have to cross-reference this information with the horizontal rows to ensure you place those numbers in the correct boxes.
It all sounds very complicated, which it is. In spite of a pretty comprehensive tutorial mode, the game is initially difficult to understand. Perhaps the best way to describe it is a crossword with numbers instead of letters.
Completing each puzzle requires a fair amount of thought, and thankfully there are hints to make it slightly easier. Possible number combinations scroll along the bottom of the screen, giving you an idea of what options you have to choose from and this certainly makes things a little more bearable.
As well as these handy hints, Kakuro Mission gives you the ability to note down potential answers using the pencil tool. As you begin to fill in the rest of the grid, you can logically 'rub out' the wrong answers from each box. Once you're certain you have the correct solution, you switch to the pen tool to insert your final answer.
All this head-scratching tomfoolery is set against an historical Japanese background – apparently a rival family has affronted your proud clan and only by solving kakuro puzzles can you return honour to your humiliated bloodline. They certainly do things differently over there, don't they? To be honest the plot is completely pointless but at least the developer has been dedicated enough to make some kind of effort.
As you might expect from a brain teaser that was created to sit in the puzzle pages of your daily newspaper, Kakuro Mission isn't exactly a graphical tour de force. Regardless of this, the design is neat and clean; the puzzles may give you a considerable headache, but the visuals certainly won't. The sound is similarly sparse and unassuming, which makes sense, as you need as few distractions as possible when playing a game that is as mentally taxing as this.
The most obvious way of rating this game is how it compares to its more illustrious stalemate sudoku. Unfortunately, in our opinion kakruo comes a distant second to Carol Vorderman's favourite Japanese puzzle craze, but the relative appeal is obviously down to personal preference.
Should you like your mobile entertainment to have a little more action and a little less logic, Kakuro Mission is unlikely to satisfy your cravings. But those of you who thrive on number puzzles will find plenty of challenge here.
Kakuro Mission
Although it's unlikely to step out of the imposing shadow cast by sudoku, Kakuro Mission will provide more than enough exercise for your grey matter
Damien McFerran
Damien's mum hoped he would grow out of playing silly video games and gain respectable employment. Perhaps become a teacher or a scientist, that kind of thing. Needless to say she now weeps openly whenever anyone asks how her son's getting on these days.