Thanks to Lukasz Krasniewski for the review code
Title: Voxelgram 2
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $9.99
Release Date: 08/28/2025
Prelude
Over five years ago, a cute little Picross 3D clone came to the eShop and caught my eye, and I liked it a good amount back then. Since Voxelgram launched, it got free DLC via a patch and some minor tweaks here and there. Now, we have a full blown sequel adding in the color mechanic a lot of Picross games and Picross-like games have added in recent years, plus the ability to play all of Voxelgram 1’s puzzles if you have save data for that on your system.
So, was revisiting this Picross 3D take worth the time, and does color make the puzzle solving any less fun? Why bother buying this when you could just go for the first one and have plenty to do? Let’s take a further look to find out.
Presentation
Very similar to the first Voxelgram; simple looking menus, nice dioramas based off various life locations, generic yet calming music, and a control setup that feels a bit clunky with buttons but much smoother with touch controls. I really don’t have much to add here that I didn’t note last time as not much was changed, but you can have the layers stop hiding automatically by changing a toggle in the options, plus there are also some other various toggles and settings you can tweak if you need to.
Gameplay
In the original Voxelgram, it played very similarly to Picross 3D. Rather than just vertical and horizontal lines to mark and create an image with, you had a 3D shape you’d break away, keeping only a certain number of blocks in that row and working through the various layers in order to finish the model.
Here in Voxelgram 2, one major thing has changed with the addition of color, which has each model focus on two colors to fill in alongside the chipping away at the gap pieces. It’s the usual Color Picross puzzle style you see from newer Picross titles, only now in the Picross 3D formula, and it worked out better than I thought it would.
Color puzzles in 2D Picross are mildly annoying to me, and yes, in Voxelgram 2 they’re a lot tougher and annoying compared to the more traditional puzzles from the first game, but once you get used to the nature of using the two colors together and understanding how gaps work with them, Voxelgram 2 becomes quite a delight. Everything felt a lot nicer to play here than I remember the first game being, and I chalk a lot of that up to updates made to that original game over time.
Otherwise, the other notable part of Voxelgram 2 that made it a little more than the typical level pack is the addition of all the Voxelgram 1 puzzles if you had save data from the original game. This would just seem like a recycle normally, but since every puzzle here is the Color variant, that means all the original puzzles get a color makeover and require different paths to a solution compared to in the original game, making this a really packed puzzler. There’s certainly not a lack of content, that’s for sure.
Conclusion
Ultimately, while it may have been several years since the original Voxelgram, Voxelgram 2 plays it relatively safe and offers more of the same, only now with color. I do wish there was an option to play all the new puzzles without color, since you are able to play all the Voxelgram 1 puzzles with color if you have the save data, but even still, Voxelgram 2 has a ton of content. Just the worlds 2 introduces are enough to keep picross 3D fans happy for quite a good while, and if you have the original Voxelgram lying around, all of those puzzles getting a color makeover help to make his a gargantuan pack of Picross 3D-like puzzles that’s a delight to play.
I was a little worried at first, running into the same sort of controller clunkiness that bogged down the original Voxelgram, but seeing all the toggles and what you can tweak to make the button controls a lot more comfortable to deal with, really did have me enjoying this one far more than the original. Whether you just want those new puzzles or revisiting the original ones in color, this is a delightful puzzler well worth your time.
I give Voxelgram 2 an 8 out of 10.