Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5865 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Eidos
• Released on: 2007-04-05
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Nintendo DS

Manufacturer's Description
Use the art of zen with ZENDOKU, a new and accessible approach to the enormously popular Sudoku puzzle game for Nintendo DS and PSP platforms. ZENDOKU features fun and intuitive battle puzzle gameplay in a range of single and multiplayer game modes. Using the unique control systems of your handheld console you can challenge and defend yourself against a range of engaging martial arts-themed characters. With a carefully considered learning curve, entertaining storylines and addictive gameplay with unlimited puzzles, audiences everywhere can find the path to enlightenment.

Customer Reviews

challenging and addictive
I bought this game as i thought the idea of doing sudokus as part of a game sounded like fun, rather than just doing them for the sake of it as with other sudoku games.

At first you start off battling against easy characters. As you complete a line or square, you send an attack to your enemy, such as blowing out candles, or hitting blocks. When your enemy completes a line or a square, you get an attack to block.

The sudoku's get harder the higher up the level of apponents, but there is an opportunity to practise against the clock, out of battle mode, which is good for practise.

At first its difficult to keep track of the symbols used instead of numbers, but you soon get used to it.

Overall the sudoku's are challening for all levels and abilities, and the game is strangely addictive. You will be screaming when the attacks get sent your way, but for some reason that only makes you want to complete the sudoku and beat your opponent even more.

Sudoku Overkill!
After being able to count the amount of Sudoku games on two hands, I'm now running out of fingers - how many versions of the newspaper puzzle game do we really need, anyway? This latest take is, at the very least, unique, featuring a multiplayer competition focus on top of the established grid gameplay. This focus definitely separates Zendoku from the umpteen other Sudoku games, but you know what? It doesn't really make it all that much fun of an experience.

If you mixed the Sudoku gameplay with the presentation of a Super Puzzle Fighter or Puyo Pop, that'd be Zendoku. In the competition mode, players are working on their own version of the same puzzle, and as they complete a full row, column or 3x3 block it'll trigger an "attack" on the other screen...much like how a combo in a puzzle game would screw with the other player. The "garbage" attack in Zendoku forces the opponent to perform a specific challenge in order to re-enable his Sudoku puzzle. Wiping coins off the screen, or tapping away stone blocks, or blowing out candles by huffing breath into the microphone. That sort of thing.

Zoonami definitely poured a lot of its effort into the presentation of Zendoku, and clearly tried to make not-just-another-Sudoku game. The visuals are bright and the audio's catchy. And while a lot of the touch screen elements are cliche Wario Ware style challenges, there are a lot of them.

The problem lies within the design of the Sudoku engine. Like Toon-Doku, Zendoku's "hook" is to remove the numbers in favor of symbols -- panda heads, sumo wrestlers, pagodas, dragons. Sure, the symbols give the game a cooler flair, but it absolutely destroys the pick-up-and-play nature of the sudoku design -- numbers are immediately more recognizable than symbols made specific to the game. Sure, you get the images on the sides of the puzzle for easy reference, but it's a hundred times more difficult (and just as frustrating) to immediately recall the line-up from memory instead of mentally rattling off the numbers one through nine to find the missing ones.

Perhaps it's Sudoku burn-out. But mostly it's just that a Battle version of Sudoku isn't as fun as the packaging would lead you to believe. It's definitely different compared to the rest of the DS sudoku lot -- it's not aiming to be the straight-forward Sudoku winner, and it would never win that fight. You want the real puzzle deal, grab Brain Age. If you have a bunch of friends ready to waste a bunch of time competing in head-to-head grid challenge, well, then this one's your game.

A fun game for all levels of sudoku-ers
I bought this game because I love sudoku, and it looked a bit different.
There are two bits to the game, regular sudoku with numbers, and the better part of the game, where you choose a character from about 12, and they fight their way through the other characters by playing sudoku. The difference is that there are pictures, instead of numbers. This does make it a bit harder to start with, because you aren't used to it, but soon becomes second nature. The games start off very easy, so even children would find it easy, but the later charcters are quite challenging! Something which makes your "fight" harder, is that if you take too long, or make a mistake, your opponent sends a challenge to you, which you have to do using the unique abilities of the DS, and you cannot carry on with the game until you have done the challenge, which uses up more of your time limit!
As soon as you have completed one character's fights, more characters open up, and you can go through the whole game with all of them.
I would recommend this game to anyone who likes sudoku, and it is more fun than you would think!