Thank you Lightwood Games for sending us a review code!

We have had the pleasure of reviewing several 3DS word search titles from Lightwood Games. Epic Word Search Collection is the first Switch version I’ve played. Despite the bigger screen, these puzzles are quite large and require a lot of scrolling to view them in their entirety.

This collection has four themed puzzle collections: Food, Journeys, Animals, and Sports. Each collection is further broken down into sixteen puzzles with close to 100 words to find in each one. Some quick math suggests that there are over 6000 words to be found in this $7.99 title. This game is sure to entertain puzzle lovers for many hours.

The 3DS version utilized both screens nicely with the words to look for on the top screen. The Switch edition displays the findable words on the right-hand side. I like how the list of words changes as you scroll across the puzzles. My only complaint is that sometimes a word may start or end in the properly themed word search, but the majority of the letters are sometimes in the adjacent unrelated word search.

The words are scattered throughout the grid horizontally, vertically, diagonally, backwards, and forwards. Highlighting the words can be done with the touchscreen, D-pad, or left joystick. Most of the letters are used in the puzzles so it gets harder to find the words as more and more of the grid becomes highlighted. Unfortunately, all of the located words are highlighted in green. Mixing up the highlight colors would have made it easier to sort through in my opinion.

Chances are that you’ll get stuck finding a word. The built-in hint system will make one of the letters at the front or back sparkle. The only other option worth noting is that the classical background music can be disabled if you desire it to be.

The visuals aren’t anything fancy, but they get the job done. I like how the completion percentage is shown for each puzzle and once one is completely solved, it will show a star on it in the overview page. The main menu also shows the percentage completed of the four main puzzle games.

There’s little to complain about morally. The puzzle themes are family-friendly and suitable for all ages. In fact, I learned about many new food items and other terms by playing this game.

If you know anyone who enjoys word searches, the Epic Word Search Collection is bound to keep them entertained for hours. I can’t imagine playing this game for hours on end, but it certainly may come in handy for long car rides, or doctor visits.