Story

Professor Layton arrives to save the day!

Professor Layton’s is an adventure game set in the fictional . The main protagonist is Professor Layton who has a predilection for solving puzzles. The Professor’s reputation precedes him as it is clear from the beginning that he has the dubious honor of being famous for solving puzzles. The game begins with the Professor driving to St. Mystere with his pre-pubescent assistant Luke who looks up to the Professor with the enthusiasm of an apprentice trying to please his famous master. The Widow of the late Baron Reinhold - The Lady Dahlia of St. Mystere, has requested the help of the well known Professor to search for the ‘Golden Apple’ which her late husband hid in the village before his death. The finder of the prize will inherit his entire fortune.

By some cosmic co-incidence the entire of town of is obsessed with solving puzzles and so the Professor and Luke fit right in and proceed to solve the numerous puzzles that the inhabitants of the town pose to them. The visitors notice that St. Mystere is under the shadow of a huge tower that no one has visited and can’t even get to. The tower proves to be important to the plot later on and the inhabitants seem to be concerned about noises coming from it. During his search for the Golden Apple, Professor Layton gets involved in a murder investigation, a search for a missing cat and somewhat predictably  uncovers the mystery behind the tower.

The Professor chats to the yokels.

Style

St. Mystere has an old European village vibe about it full of charming architecture, small unevenly paved streets and cleverly hand drawn archetypal characters. The accordion music adds a Parisian feel to the village and the characters costumes have a French peasant fashion that gives an impression of simple easy going yokels.

Description

The can be played by using the stylus exclusively. The player directs the Professor and Luke around the village by tapping a shoe icon in the bottom right of the screen and then tapping one of the arrows that appears that points in the direction you want to go in. As the player moves through the story more parts of the village will become accessible. 

Professor Layton takes his reputation very seriously.

If you get stuck you can spend hint coins that are hidden throughout the village to get up to three hints to help you solve a puzzle. If you get it wrong you can just try again but you won’t get as many points or ‘picarats’ when you do finally solve it. Solving these puzzles will get you new information about the story or may reward you with 3 different types of items. Gizmos will eventually help you build a dog that will sniff out hint coins for you. Pieces of a painting will help you assemble a picture like a jigsaw puzzle, and furniture will help you kit out Luke and the Professors hotel room. All the solved puzzles are held in a puzzle index so the player can return to them if they wish. You don’t necessarily need to solve all the puzzles and any unsolved ones are kept together at Grannies house.