I love puzzles, especially word and number puzzles, but was always nervous about Sudoku. My brain just isn’t made for trying to find what numbers are missing and I had no idea that people made little notations in the squares to help make it easier, so I gave up after a few tries. When I discovered that one of my favorite Nintendo Switch developers – Lightwood Games – was making a game called Word Sudoku by POWGI I was super excited to find out the difference between using words instead of numbers. “What the heck,” I figured, “it’s worth a shot!”
Word Sudoku by POWGI is basically just a digital version of Sudoku that replaces the numbers with letters that spell out 9-letter words such as WELCOMING, ABSORBANT, WONDERFUL, or SNOWFLAKE. The gameplay is the same as ordinary Sudoku: you’re presented with a 9×9 grid that has some letters scattered around it. Your goal is to fill the grid in a way that has every letter used exactly once in every row, column, and 3×3 grid within it. You’ll work toward that goal by narrowing down which squares can potentially have which letters and then, once you’ve deduced where a letter must go, placing it into the grid. Like most puzzle games, the more you’re able to whittle down the possibilities, the more quickly you’ll be able to solve additional squares until the entire grid is complete.
This isn’t a AAA, super fancy version of Sudoku with Michael Bay-esque explosions by any means, but I still had a fantastic time with it. My brain is great at remembering numbers, yet repeating the numbers missing in a Sudoku puzzle drives my brain insane. Somehow using a word instead actually makes it simpler, even though the word changes each time and sometimes the choice of word (like BOUNCIEST) isn’t the easiest to go through when playing. I also liked that the game allows you to make notes in each square, although having to repeatedly click the same square each time you want to add a single potential letter takes some getting used to. In fact, the controls as a whole take a bit of getting used to, but about halfway through a puzzle things get much smoother and easier so that by the second one you do you can try to race the clock to complete it as quickly as you can. The little flourish you get when you complete a section is great, and reminded me of a smaller yet still effective version of solitaire games finishing by putting on a show of the card piles.
One thing that’s worth mentioning is that, especially in the beginner and easy puzzles, it’s somewhat difficult to put the wrong letter in the wrong box. If putting a letter somewhere would break the rules – not having more than one of that specific letter in a row, column, or 3×3 grid – the game refuses to let you do it. In fact, not only can you not put the letter there, you can’t even make a note of it potentially being there. On the bright side this also allows the game to remove noted letters in a square as you remove it from the realm of possibility. For those who are Sudoku pros, like my fiancée, this removes a lot of the potential to make a mistake and have to fix it later. When she tried it out she wished that could be turned off, and adding something like “let me mess up” to the options menu would’ve been a nice touch. For beginners like me, though, it’s nice not having to worry. And hey, this certainly doesn’t mean you can’t put the wrong letter somewhere, especially on the harder puzzles!
At an MSRP of $8 Word Sudoku by POWGI comes with a total of 240 puzzles: 30 Beginner Puzzles, 30 Easy Puzzles, 60 Medium Puzzles, 60 Hard Puzzles, and 60 Fiendish Puzzles. These puzzles definitely get much harder; as a newbie to Sudoku myself it’s pretty epic looking back at the simple puzzles I completed – like the cool SNOWFLAKE one that actually looked like a snowflake at first (shown below) – after completing a puzzle that took me 45 minutes. It’s like the puzzle equivalent of completing an RPG and then going back to the starting area and killing everything around you without even breaking a sweat.
Overall Word Sudoku by POWGI is a solid way to play Sudoku on the go on the Nintendo Switch or PlayStation Vita. The notes were almost impossible to see on our TV because of how small they are, but they look just fine on the handheld. I do wish there were a few little optional additions like allowing players to see their times on each level after completing them, turning off the game’s automatic prevention of some mistakes as mentioned previously, and some kind of trophy system based on how quickly you solved each puzzle that’s stored on the level select screen, but there are plenty of puzzles for everyone and the price is fantastic.
Word Sudoku by POWGI is available for Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita.
I received a free copy of this game in exchange for an honest review.