When I was first offered the opportunity of reviewing Epic Word Search, I did what I usually do, I googled it. All I could find were videos explaining how to quickly achieve the “very gettable” platinum trophy. But aside from trophy hunters, does Epic Word Search have anything else to offer? The answer to that is fairly simple. If you enjoy doing word search puzzles then you’ll probably enjoy it. Especially if you still own a PS Vita and can remember where you put that charger.
Lightwood Games hasn’t reinvented the word search game, but it is much more than that book of puzzles that your grandma always has her nose stuck in. These puzzles are broken into four different themes: epic food, epic journey, epic animal, and epic sports. And each of those is broken into 12 scrollable grids with over 1500 hidden words. Each grid has a subgenre. For example, I started with the foods and the first grid is based on foods that grow in the ground. On the right of the screen, you’ll see all of the words that are hidden in the section of the puzzle that is on the screen, even if it’s just a single letter. As you scroll to a new section, the words on the right will change to correspond with the new hidden words. If you scroll far enough, you’ll enter one of the other 11 grids, which will feature a new subgenre, such as “sweet tooth” or “the most important meal”. These new sections will also feature a new color of words, which makes it easy to see when you’ve wandered into a new section.
When you click on the minimap and see all twelve grids, each featuring nearly a hundred or so words, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. I remember thinking, “how did they make a word search game feel so daunting?” Thankfully, the classical music playing constantly kept me centered. There is a hint option that highlights a single letter on the screen. You could use it to find every word in the game with no penalty. Although one could argue the penalty would be spending money on a game that already had the puzzles solved. I tried to only use it when my eyes started to go cross from staring at the letters too long.
It’s this hint option that makes the platinum trophy so easy to achieve. The most time-consuming portion of the trophy is completing 100% of one grid in each of the four main themes. That’s over four hundred words, but with no penalty for using the hint, that could be done in a couple of hours. There is more to the trophy than that, but suffice it to say, it isn’t the easiest trophy out there, but it is indeed, “very getable”.
The game features a cross-buy with the PS Vita, so that’s a nice bonus. Up to this point, I played most of the game on the PS4, but I plan to keep it loaded on the Vita for those times when I want to kill a few peaceful minutes on the go. Both versions ran smoothly, without any noticeable bugs. This one is simple: if you like word search games, and you are interested in picking this one up, you’ll probably like it. This is especially so for those of us who still use a PS Vita. Epic Word Search doesn’t try to be anything that it’s not. If you don’t like these types of puzzle games, avoid this one. But for fans of the genre, $7.99 feels like a fair price.
Epic Word Search Collection PS4/PS Vita Review
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Overall - Very Good - 7/107/10
Summary
Epic Word Search is a game that caters to both fans of word search puzzles and trophy hunters, especially if you’re not afraid to spam the hint button. If you’re not interested in either of those things, then there is nothing for you to see here. Kindly move along. But if you’re looking for a reason to blow the dust off your PS Vita and relax with some old school puzzle solving, you could do worse than Epic Word Search.
Review Disclaimer: This review was carried out using a copy of the game provided by the publisher. For more information, please read our Review Policy.
Reviewed using PS4 Slim and PS Vita
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