A puzzling partnership

Pokémon Picross allows you to assemble a party of pocket monsters and take them across a map made up of picross puzzles. It's more than a little absurd.

The Pokémon aspect of the game means that you can use abilities to simplify a puzzle, like adding hints or slowing the game clock. ... Since my personal interest is in solving the puzzles, not shortcutting or cheating them, this has absolutely no value to me. There is a whole world of party management, like in a real Pokémon game, that I never got close to touching because all it would do is dilute the effect of the puzzles.

But I don't care at all about that shortcoming relative to Pokémon Picross's economic problem. It's a free-to-play game, and there is a clear paywall around where I stopped, such that there's no realistic way for me to make progress without buying more "picrites" (in-game currency) for real money. Earning picrites for free is not only slow, but would require me to grindily re-play puzzles I've already solved, which is pretty damned stupid.

I barely even got a chance to get frustrated by the game's energy mechanic, which actually limits the number of tiles I can mark over time. That is, as you consume energy by solving puzzles, you'll reach a point where you have to wait for energy to re-accumulate before solving the next one.

It's entirely possible that, if I were to pay to unlock more levels and un-limit my energy, there could be a thrillingly-competent picross game in here (the game map certainly looks large enough for it). But in terms of overall design, the game assumes that I'm not interested in solving puzzles, which is very distasteful and off-putting.

Better than: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not as good as: My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
Nevermind the stupid control scheme: Which forces you to use either the stylus or face buttons, and doesn't allow you to switch without going to the options menu.

Progress: Got to the end of Area 04