One Word by POWGI review for PS Vita, PS4

As much as I loved Word Puzzles by POWGI, I?ll readily admit that not all its puzzles were created equal. For example, I absolutely loved Word Maze (build a maze by following letters through a grid) and Flowers (the game gives you two middle letters, and you build six-letter words around it with other sets of letters), while I was a little less enthusiastic towards Mixups (lots of letters jumbled together, and you have to find the three hidden words).

The only game in the collection I was completely indifferent (at best) towards was One Word — a word search where you have to find, as its name implies, one word, on a letter grid with only letters from that word. The words are all taken from quotes from prominent people throughout history, and when you find all the letters you see the full quote. While it?s an interesting idea, it loses its charm very, very quickly, as you?ll discover when you find yourself searching through a massive puzzle with the letters U-N-I-V-E-R-S-E for the one grouping that spells ?universe.”

For some reason, One Word is the one puzzle from Word Puzzles that Lightwood Games opted to take out of the collection and port over to the Vita. While I?d like to say that having even more of the game as a standalone made me appreciate its charms…well, that would be a lie. If anything, having even more puzzles made me even less interested in the game. Like Fill-A-Pix before it, this is one game where I found myself racing through puzzles just to say I finished it, rather than being able to say I genuinely enjoyed my time with it.

Also, apropos of nothing: there are some incredibly questionable figures whose quotes are included amongst the 120 on offer here. Like, there?s a quote from Hitler here — which comes off as pretty jarring, not least because the game also includes an Anne Frank puzzle. (There?s also a Vladimir Putin quote — which is obviously nowhere near as bad as literal Hitler, but still seems pretty weird, all things considered.)

That weirdness aside, it?s important to note that there?s nothing terrible about One Word. If you like challenging word searches, this game certainly has them in spades. But as someone who deliberately left these puzzles until last when playing Word Puzzles on the Switch, I can?t say that I loved them any more this time around.

Lightwood Games provided us with a One Word by POWGI PS4/Vita code for review purposes.