ANSWERS: Wordoku

No DeviantArt pic this week, so instead, here's a seal going BONK! (the word SEAL can be found in the Wordoku grid, but it's not part of the FINAL ANSWER)

Thirteen days have passed since my first Wordoku puzzle was posted on this blog, and despite it apparently being harder than my previous sudoku puzzles, nine people still managed to solve it, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Eric Maddy ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Mom *
• Debbie Benford **
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Lynn Sweeney ***
• Stephen Staver ****
• Martin Ward ****

Now click on "Read more" below for the answers and some solver comments!

The two hidden words, highlighted above, combine to spell out ALIEN SOLDIER

I posted the European box art because there wasn't a physical release here in America, much to my surprise!

I think I underestimated how difficult this puzzle wound up being, even after my test-solver noted it was "fairly-challenging"! For instance, Patron Stephen Staver said "I’m comfortable with sudoku most of this time, but this ended up being quite the challenge. And then trying to find the final answer, took me a while to start understanding what words are. I don’t know…"

Solver Martin Ward said "I’d never heard of this game, or Sega Genesis come to that [he's from Britain, where the Genesis is called the "Mega Drive"], but your note that the words had to be at least five-letters long reduced the possibilities considerably and a quick Google confirmed the answer. It’s a while since I did a plain-vanilla sudoku. I enjoyed it, thank you."

Solver Patrick Jordan said "That one was tought [sic], but satisfying!"