HomeSudoku Books100 Samurai Sudoku Puzzles |
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17 of 17 found the following review helpful:
Super-Sized Grids Jun 07, 2006
By Joshua Koppel
Samurai sudoku provides larger grids for sudoku without changing any of the original rules. It still uses a standard 9X9 grid so it should be easy. So ho is the grid bigger if it is 9X9? Simple. Five 9X9 grids are arranged in an X-formation. The center grid shares each corner sub-grid with one of the other four 9X9 grids. So, sometimes, in order to solve one of these overlapping sub-grids you will have to look for clues in two different 9X9 grids.
Other than occasionally having to look at two different 9X9 grids all of your favorite techniques for solving sudoku puzzles should still work. But if you are used to solving grids in only a few minutes, then be prepared to take a little longer to solve all five grids. Samurai sudoku offers a more complex challenge without the puzzler having to learn any new rules or character sets.
One-hundred puzzles make up the book with one puzzle per page. The puzzle takes up almost the entire page and has been printed entirely in shiny bold. This can be a little annoying to look at due to the complexity of the grid but puzzlers should get used to it quickly. The puzzles increase in difficulty as the book progresses and all puzzles are symmetric. Solutions are given at the end of the book and are also in shiny bold. A good addition to the sudoku family.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
good book. Jan 03, 2007
By book girl
I found this book to be really fun. I bought it for my boyfriend's birthday, and we ended up altenating on the puzzles. The puzzles seemed a little too easy for both of us, so I purchased another similar book, with better results. On the whole, if you enjoy regular sudoku, but feel ready for a new challenge, this book may be just the right fit. If you have already gotten into samurai sudoku, the book may be too easy.
10 of 11 found the following review helpful:
 First Samurai Sudoku book! Dec 14, 2005
By Cecilia28
Finally there is a book out with only Samurai Sudoku puzzles - 100 of them! The puzzles are all symmetric and the difficulty ranges from medium to really really tough. Even one of these puzzles takes quite some time to solve. Since each Samurai Sudoku puzzle is like 4.5 Sudoku puzzles, these puzzles are equivalent to 450 ordinary Sudoku puzzles, while still being a handy format. That's very good value for money! I would recommend this to anyone who likes Sudoku and want a bit of a challenge.
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 Fun if you're not blind Mar 12, 2008
By R. Sackman
"Compulsive Book Buyer"
The way they have it set up, it's really hard to differentiate between the middle and the end sections. Also, the print is very small so if you have trouble seeing this is no the sudoku book for you. Also, I was expecting a challenge but finished the hardest puzzles in the book very quickly. Good for beginners, but not someone who's already gone through another Samurai Sudoku book.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Great fun, almost perfect entertainment. Oct 23, 2007
By Mary Whipple
A "samurai" sudoku puzzle consists of a central sudoku with its corners joining it to four additional sudokus, as shown in the cover illustration, a construction which can provide additional fun for the mid-level sudoku addict. The objective is to solve all five overlapping puzzles. In the more difficult puzzles, none of the corner puzzles can be solved in their entirety until additional information is provided as a result of solving part of the central sudoku, and that, in turn, depends on information from all four corner puzzles.
In the early puzzles, the corner sudokus can be done in their entirety, before solving the central puzzle, and occasionally a central puzzle can be completed before the corners are completely filled, making these puzzles fairly easy. The options for a given box within a square are usually limited to pairs of numbers, reducing the challenges. By puzzle #7, however, the author introduces three options per box and the puzzles begin to be more time-consuming and difficult.
As is sometimes the case with regular sudoku puzzles, however, it is occasionally possible to have more than one correct solution to a single sudoku puzzle. When this happens in a corner sudoku, it can prevent the whole samurai puzzle from being solved. Sometimes it is simply the reversal of a couple of numbers which causes the problem. Though the individual sudoku puzzle can be solved without any "errors," this alternative, "correct" solution is wrong in the overall scheme of the whole samurai puzzle. Puzzle addicts may be hard pressed to figure out how to avoid this problem, even when warned that all puzzles should be done in tandem and not separately.
I found nine occasions in which individual sudoku puzzles within the samurai puzzle had more than one solution--puzzles 12, 38, 46, 55, 65, 78, 79, 88, and 89. This was particularly frustrating in the more difficult and more time-consuming puzzles. The remaining 91 puzzles were clever and fun to do, however, and I've already bought, and look forward to doing, the next book in this series. Mary Whipple
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