Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is an extremely creative and unique game. This game blends the best aspects of two recent games for the DS. The mystery/case solving aspect of Phoenix Wright and the brain stimulating games of Brain Age.

I would have never guessed that I would be so drawn into this type of game. In the two days that I have had it I have solved 70 of the 130 puzzles. I have played this game so much, usually before bed, I see puzzles when I close my eyes to sleep.

I was also surprised by the difficulty of some of the puzzles in this game. With the art style and look of the game you would think that it was targeted for children, that isn't the case. While some of the puzzles are rather easy there have been multiple times I have sat with a pad of paper trying to solve a puzzle for upwards of 10-20 minutes.

The one draw back to this game that I see is that it has almost no re-playability. Once you know the answers to the puzzles playing through it a second time would be absolutely pointless. I do plan on letting my girlfriend play it when I am done. She isn't a gamer, but I am sure she will enjoy this game.

Despite its looks, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is far from being a game just for kids. Developed by Level-5, the studio behind Dragon Quest VIII and Dark Cloud, it combines two brain twisting genres into an unique title on the Nintendo DS.

The story begins when Professor Layton, a puzzle fanatic and part time detective, and his side kick, Luke, receive a message from Lady Dhalia, a rich widow in search of a lost valuable memento left by her late husband, called the Golden Apple. Before even setting foot in St. Mystérie, the tone of the game reveals itself, throwing a puzzle the player's way in order to discover the actual location of the village. Along the way to solve the Golden Apple and the many other mysteries found in St. Mystérie, the villagers present brainteasers that sometimes lead to clues when solved. Upon exploration of the environment, more puzzles can be discovered, amassing to around 150 puzzles total. However, only a fraction of these has to be solved in order to complete the game's story.

The puzzles themselves range from all kinds of problems, mixing mathematically heavy enigmas, simple jigsaw puzzles and even Tetris-like block pushers. For each of these, a certain amount of piccarats, the game's currency, is awarded. These are used to acquire the many bonuses locked up in the bonus menu found outside the story mode, and range from a variety of puzzles. There is no time limit to solving the problems presented, but for each wrong answer, a certain amount of piccarats is taken away. However, they are never completely zeroed out, stopping at a certain minimum number available to earn. Tips can also be used at the cost of hint coins, which can be found through good, old fashioned, pixel hunting of the village's backgrounds, in the form of stylus tapping. Even though there are lots of possibilities to get help, the puzzles are no push overs, and often provide interesting challenges that require an "outside the box" method of thinking. These were created with the help of Chiba University's Professor Akira Tago, which is a known Japanese puzzle creator, author of many books in the subject.

Artistically, Professor Layton and the Curious Village has high production values. The visual style is influenced by European art, with a color palette and character design that is clearly based on The Triplets of Belleville. No two characters look alike, all with their own spirit and personality brought by a simple, yet charismatic line of drawing. The story moves in the form of dialog bubbles with character stills similar to the Phoenix Wright games, but important elements are presented through fully animated cut scenes, with voice acting. The overall quality of the presentation is very, very high, which provides are great deal of the immersion, sharing space with the main objective of the game, that is, presenting increasingly challenging puzzles. Controls rely on the DS touch screen almost completely, and are precise up to a certain limit of the screen sensitivity space.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village will provide a drawn out experience to the casual DS player, with around ten hours in the main story mode, with even more challenges after its completion. Bonus sections open up after the story closes, and the puzzles that were missed during play through can be solved by going to a sort of puzzle house located in the village. Also, there are special puzzle rooms that can be unlocked by collecting pieces of furniture, a painting and a robotic creature, given by specific puzzles found in St. Mystérie. More puzzles also be obtained through the DS' wireless connection, as weekly additions make their way to your personal collection. The occasionally head scratching and random pixel hunt might turn some more impatient players away, but for those looking for an intelligent and unique adventure game for their DS, their is no need to look much further.

Just knock on the Professor's door.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is indeed a curious game. As if there weren't enough brain training games out there already, this one takes brain busting to a whole new level. Hidden behind the mask of the quaint town of St. Mystere, the story of Professor Layton and the Curious unfolds as you search for the Golden Apple by solving puzzle after puzzle. You play as Professor Layton and his young, eager assistant Luke, who are invited to the village by one Lady Dahlia after the death of her husband. Your main task is to search for the mysterious Golden Apple, but as fate would have it, the Professor and Luke discover that there is far more to this mystery than meets the eye.

Gameplay: In order to progress through the game, you must solve puzzles. These puzzles are either given to you by the different people you talk to in the village or by discovering them. But at times it gets so ridiculous that glancing at a mere dirty jar on the road will remind Layton or Luke about a puzzle they have heard about. As for the puzzles themselves, they range from being childishly simple to punishingly difficult; this can be seen by the amount of Picarats each one is worth. The more Picarats the harder the puzzle will be. Some of the harder puzzles will definitely have you scratching your head for a much longer period of time than what you're willing to spend on them. At times the difficulty of a given puzzle will get to be so hard that you'll probably just end up searching the internet for the answer. Exploring the town of St. Mystere is done by tapping on an icon on the touch screen and simply choosing which direction to move in. Each new area has more puzzles to be found, however, the puzzles do not remain in their locations forever. But don't fret; a simple trip to Granny Riddelton's shack will have you racking your brain again in no time.

Graphics: The originality of the art in Professor Layton & the Curious Village is definitely a sight to see. The game's hand drawn style adds to the games antiquated feel, and further enhances the atmosphere of the game. The game also features some animated cut scenes that are truly remarkable, the quality of the movies are absolutely crisp and clear for the DS. The cartoony style of each individual character adds a certain distinction that separates this game from others.

Sound: The score for Professor Layton is something that is very different from what we hear in other games out there. The accordion laced soundtrack in the game gives a very warm and inviting feel, which is something that is definitely needed if you would want to play this game for hours on end. But for all this game delivers it definitely has enough content and length to keep you playing for a while, and with the addition of weekly downloadable puzzles Professor Layton won't be leaving your DS' cartridge holder for a long time.

So there you are, in the mansion of a rich widow who wants you to help her solve the mystery of her husband’s inheritance. You just chased down her beloved cat, and have returned to find that a murder has taken place there in your absence.

 

“No one leaves this room until I question them,” says the detective in charge of the murder case. How shocking! You turn to the butler next to you, who says quite casually, “You know, this murder reminds me of a brain teaser I once heard…”

 

Such is the world of “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” for the Nintendo DS.

 

The game is an interesting mix of classic “point-and-click” adventure games and a large collection of puzzles, riddles, and brain teasers. The title character, Professor Layton, renowned for his intellect and ability to solve puzzles, has been summoned to the village of St. Mystere. There, he and his apprentice, Luke, must solve a variety of puzzles to help the residents of the town with various problems.

 

The game is controlled entirely with the touch screen. You wander around the village by tapping in various directions and locations, and talk to people and search objects in the same manner. When you talk to people, trying to find clues to the mysteries Professor Layton is attempting to solve, it is rare for a character to give you any items or useful information without having you first solve a puzzle of some kind. Everyone in St. Mystere apparently thinks of little else other than brain teasers, and is obsessed with having you solve them to prove that you’re worthy of hearing, “Oh, the cat went over by that fence.”

 

This crazy setting is complimented nicely by some beautiful artwork that may initially remind you of an old children’s cartoon. Don’t be put off by this, though, as it’s extremely fitting and really is easy on the eyes. It also allowed the developers of the game, Level 5 (known for many great titles such as “Dark Cloud” and “Jeanne D’Arc”) to provide a fair amount of full motion cutscenes in the game, complete with voice acting.

 

But the puzzles themselves are the main draw of this game. If you’re a big fan of riddles and brain teasers, you may recognize several of them. You’re presented with classic quandaries such as getting three wolves and three chickens across a lake using only a small raft (and without the wolves eating the chickens), or identifying who is telling the truth amongst a group of liars. All these provide for some entertaining gameplay, as well as some great mental exercise.

 

There are well over one hundred puzzles in the main game alone, which could easily keep you busy for fourteen hours or more, not including some of the side events such as finding pieces of a broken painting and putting them back together. After the main game, you unlock a separate set of more challenging puzzles, which provides even more play time. Finish those? Well, Nintendo and Level 5 are releasing weekly puzzles for download over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, free of charge. There’s a whole lot of incentive to come back to the game.

 

It’s not a game for everybody. If you absolutely hate using your head, doing simple math, or thinking about certain questions that may remind you just a little too much of the SATs, then you may not enjoy Professor Layton. However, if you have any love at all for puzzles and brainteasers, you’d be wrong to not at least give this game a look. Do yourself a favor and check out “Professor Layton and the Curious Village.” As the good Professor says, “Critical thinking is the key to success!”

So, this game has been out for well over a year now in Japan and around seven months in the US and Australia.  So why no release in Europe?  Well the good news is that this title will finally arrive in European stores on November 7th 2008 (along with around 10,000 other games!).  Despite the delays, and the fact this was an obscure Japanese title, Professor Layton went down a storm on 2/3’s of the globe.  Now that it is finally making it’s long overdue debut in the European market I have scribed a review that I hope will be worthy of the great Professor himself.

Professor Layton is basically a Brain Training title wrap up in an old school point and click adventure game.  No wait, don’t go!  Trust me on this one I have simplified it greatly.  You basically play the game’s titular character along with his side-kick Luke as they trail around the village of St. Mystere looking for the “Golden Apple”.  This is a treasure claimed to be left by the late Baron Reinhold for anyone who can solve the many riddles and puzzles that he left behind.  Whilst undertaking this task you stumble across several other unsolved mysteries with in the village itself and set about clearing these up at the same time - What a guy!

So graphically if your expecting light bloom and pixel shading you are looking in the wrong place my friend; go look at Bioshock on the PS3 instead. If you are looking for a good clear art style, heaps of Studio Ghibli inspired art work and fluid animations then your in the right place indeed.  Professor Layton has heaps of manga inspired charms and the short movie sequences are as good as any representation of that genre.  The screen is full of Victorian styling and clear design thought has been put into achieving this.  I will say that sometimes it can be a little confusing on some of the puzzles as the limited palette and resolution of the DS can hamper the dynamic of a puzzle.  With that said I found this easily one of the most ascetically pleasing titles on the DS.

Basic gameplay involves you moving around different areas of the St Mystere village undertaking quests handed out by the mysterious villagers that inhabit it.  You wade your way through a grand total of 130 puzzles with in the game but a fair number of those are optional puzzles and are not required to move the story along - think of them as GTA style side quests.  You move around the village using the DS stylus to basically change “scenes” as you have no on-screen protagonist to move (think the ‘Myst’ style of interface) and movement if fairly fast and pain free.  As you move around the locations within the game, you come across many of the village’s inhabitants.  As you talk to them to help unravel the mysteries they will challenge you to puzzles (the villages favourite activity) that, if you complete them, will reveal more about your quest.  This sounds a little hokey but works incredibly well; being very satisfying when you nail a puzzle and move on.

The puzzles contained in the game are a result of the Head Gymnastics series of puzzle books by Professor Akira Tago, which have sold more than 12 million copies to date in Japan.  As you would imagine the initial puzzles are basic to say the least and most will be breezed through them with ease.  The later stage puzzles pose somewhat more of a challenge and a lot less “breezing” will be had by all.  The puzzles range from simply lexical challenges (A says he is lying, B says A is lying and C says A and B are lying - who is correct) to the more obscure.  All the puzzles will challenge you in someway or another and even if you’re stuck, the game uses a hand hints system.  As you move around the village you need to investigate the areas fully by prodding sections with your DS stylus.  This can reveal hint coins (as well as hidden bonus puzzles) that can be exchange to hints when you are stuck.  Each puzzle has a three tier system for the hints, the first being vague, the second more direct and the third fairly obvious.

The sound effects are of a good quality and produce a pleasing result from the small plastic box.  The voice acting is good throughout, albeit very contrived and cringe-worthy.  Both Layton and Luke have a terribly bad, could only be in a Japanese cartoon, English accent.  It’s comical to be honest but can grate at times.  The musical score is jaunty enough and suitably spooky at the relevant times.  The video and audio quality of the movie sequences is also high for the little DS and look and sound clear and precise.  Don’t expect THX and surround sound here but what is available does the job well enough.

As mentioned earlier, the game comprises of 130 puzzles, many of which are optional and hidden so the longevity depends on how much you want to play the game.  I could easily have breezed through the game doing only the core puzzles in about 5 or 6 hours at most.  As it is, I undertook most of the additional puzzles and clocked up just over 12 - no mean feat for a hand held puzzle game.  There are plenty of extras to collect on your travels through St Mystere including the Picarates you earn for each challenge (the amount earned depends on the number of tries it takes you), parts for “Gizmos”, parts of a mysterious picture and items to decorate both Layton’s and Luke’s bedrooms at the hotel.  All in all there should be plenty to keep you occupied.  There is more though; you can download new puzzles via the DS internet connection thus extending the puzzling longer - but not the story.

All told, Professor Leyton and the Curious Village is a delight to play and I must say I had great fun.  This is one of the few games my other half has ever played to conclusion and she can’t wait for the next game: ‘Professor Leyton and Pandora’s Box’ (which was released in November 2007 in Japan) to be converted into English (rumor has it stated in for early next year).  I fail to see why it had taken so damn long for this excellent title to be released in Europe.  Yes I understand that it is text heavy and a large amount of translation would have to be done, coupled with that ‘Level-5′ (the developers) are not exactly a huge developer.

If you like adventures, enjoy a good story or just like puzzles, then this game it exactly right for you.  Sure, some of the puzzles are fairly basic or seemingly nonsensical at times but the game has a certain charm and that “one more try” ethos that is lacking from so many of the big budget games on the current gen systems.  So, give it a try, if you can’t wait another six weeks then import the thing from the US, you won’t regret it at all.

As I--and many--argue, gameplay is the most important aspect of a game. Arguably, without this aspect a game would crumble. Professor Layton, however, excels in this aspect. Nearly every one of the puzzles made me think logically; almost all of the answers are something seemingly incorrect. Albeit there were a few easy puzzles that I solved with a mere glance, most of the puzzles made me sit down and think "how does this work?"

As if the puzzles weren't enough (most any other game developer would probably release this game as a compilation as puzzles as opposed to a full-fledged game), you explore St. Mystere, interacting with the villagers and uncovering hints, items, and bonus puzzles. The game is very friendly to both hardcore and casual gamers, allowing people to clip along at a quick pace, or take their time to solve every puzzle that they come across.

The gameplay, overall, was superbly well done. I could barely keep myself from playing start to finish. To top it all off, there is a new downloadable puzzle every week. Unfortunately, hackers have uncovered that the puzzles are actually already on the cartridge and connecting to WiFi merely unlocks them, so that probably won't last very long. But while it does, the bonus "downloadable" puzzles are quite entertaining, and provide an extra chunk of entertainment for gamers already finished with the main game.

One of my favorite things to see in a game is a fantastic story that keeps me drooling for more. That is exactly what Layton serves up; an intriguing, mysterious story. Professor Layton and his apprentice, Luke, are called to St. Mystere to investigate a so-called "Golden Apple," which if found, will grant the finder a late baron's entire wealth and estate. As the story proceeds, you continue to unlock more and more mysteries that keep you guessing as to who--or what--is behind the strange happenings of St. Mystere.

However, as good as the story is, there was one thing that I disliked. I never really connected with the characters as if they were real people--specifically, Professor Layton and Luke. I've seen that done incredibly well in another one of my favorite DS games, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, in which I connected with the interestingly woven characters incredible well. But in this game, the characters felt dead, so to say. Albeit this minor complaint, the story is superbly enacted out throughout the entire game.

The graphic style is unique. It is unlike everything that we have seen before. The characters vary in sizes and shape--even completely round. The color in the game is a mix of vibrant with pale and dull colors, providing a quite good contrast. In game graphics are just as stunning with beautiful cut scenes and amazing backgrounds. However, there are a few jagged edges on a couple of the characters and you can see a bit of image noise during the cut scenes. Overall, however, the graphics are some of the best 2D graphics that the system has to offer.

As I mentioned last paragraph, there are beautiful cut scenes, but I didn't mention that they are fully voice-acted. The characters are chosen superbly (save for a couple) and the voice-acting is some of the best in a Nintendo game. Only one character's voice did I dislike, and that was Luke. He seemed too whiny to me. Despite that, the characters are wonderfully voice-acted and it really adds a whole new level of interactivity to the game.

Music is an important aspect of a game. It can set the mood for an important scene, or present a situation in a different way. Professor Layton's music is well-done. From the first menu, the gamer is presented with clever little tunes that present the correct mood for the game: mystery. While a few of the songs are a bit repetitive, most of the game's songs are incredible.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a wonderful little game that will keep you entertained. While the adventure is a bit short (I completed it in 12 hours or so), it is well worth the $35.00 price tag. I recommend picking up this rare gem.

 

There is something to be said for a healthy dose of charm in a game. When a game is genuinely charming, it leaves you with a distinctly warm, fuzzy feeling that's hard to beat. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is one game that is superbly charming by any measure. Its clever brain teasers don't hurt proceedings either, and the overall package is a strong one that will have you constantly coming back for more.

It's not just one thing that lends Professor Layton its charm either. The beautiful, French inspired artwork is a strong start, as the town of St. Mystere is pleasing to the eyes. The music is also chill, and while slightly repetitive, it never grates on your nerves. The story is paced perfectly, and the heartwarming ending is one that will have you caring for the characters and their plights- which is a rarity for me nowadays. Perhaps most charming is Layton himself- this Brit is a true gentleman. He's always willing to help, very patient, and he always has all the answers. He's polite almost to a fault, yet always seems to know when someone's trying to play him for a fool.

Which, of course, he isn't. In fact, the good professor is quite easily a genius, and knows pretty much everything. There is no obstacle that stumps Layton, and he generally knows the answers well before anyone else. This is especially handy, because the inhabitants of St. Mystere love having you solve all sorts of brain teasers. Ranging from 2D block shifting puzzles to river crossing word problems, all 120 of the main puzzles found in Professor Layton come in astonishing variety. It's this variety that really makes the game so fun to play, and makes you want to constantly push forward to see what's next. It has that "just one more" vibe that's all too addicting, and the fact that the puzzles come at a snappy pace only helps matters. The "point and click" style adventuring does a great job at breaking up the puzzles, and also advances the plot wonderfully. The whole game has such a perfect flow to it, making it a game that's fun to play either in short bursts, or for hours on end.

If Professor Layton has any fault at all, it's that some puzzles can be a little frustrating. These are mostly challenges that require you to think outside-the-box in strange ways- brain teasers that will cause you to slap your forehead and exclaim "Oh, duh!" upon completion. But this is a minor issue, and probably won't even phase a lot of players. Otherwise, the entire package is virtually seamless. The addictive logic driven puzzles are wrapped nicely in a narrative that's bursting with charm, making Professor Layton and the Curious Village a game that is simply brilliant.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a pretty well made puzzle game for the DS, it has many qualities but the main attractive are the puzzles, they go from logic to math, some of them are fairly simple, some not so much, but none cross the line of being frustrating, and if it does, you can always exchange some hint coins for some good tips of how to solve the one you're having trouble, each puzzle have three tips, the first being the least helping and the last one giving you the best tips, but only if you need it, because even though you get a lot of hint coins throughout the game, and probably will have a whole lot when you finish the game, you wouldn't throw away coins just for fun.

The game is absolutely slow paced fun, so if you seek for an action filled game, this probably is not the best choice, it's also not the best choice for those not familiar with the English language, as you basically will just be around searching for clues and talking to the villagers about the strange events occurring at the place.

The story is pretty important in a game like this, and on this game it was nicely made, it's set towards Professor Layton and his assistant Luke, both come to town to solve the mystery of the Golden Apple, which is an unknown object that should point how the fortune of the recently deceased husband of Lady Dahlia should be split up, Lady Dahlia is the woman who mailed Professor to visit the village and help solve the mystery. After reaching the town and initiating the investigations, some strange and unusual events starts to occur in the town, and Professor and his assistant get caught up in the middle of a mystery that soon enough Professor Layton realizes that there's a lot more going on than just the matter of the Golden Apple. You can expect many twists and surprises during the game.

The controls are all set by the touch screen, all investigation, movement and menu controls, you virtually don't even use the directional pad; there are lots of screens where you will navigate and by touching several places you can get hint coins, hidden puzzles and other stuff depending on what you touch.

The Wi-FI feature is also present, this time you can connect your DS through the Internet to get new puzzles, great way of making the game last longer, so if you finished every puzzle in the game and is still aching for a good challenge, you can expect a brand new puzzle every week by going online.

The graphics do their job, you can even witness some neat FMV scenes, and with voice over! Because the places are practically just sceneries with no motion at all and the graphics during puzzles are very simple too, you won't find any visual greatness, but the screens are very nice and create a good atmosphere.

The sound is very relaxing, some can find it a little repetitive, but when you're thinking about some hard puzzle you probably don't need any sound, plus the voice over during scenes are pretty well made.

So if you like games that makes you think and some good puzzle challenge, this game is for you!

What surprised me the most about Professor Layton was how it managed to successfully combine two seemingly unrelated subjects: an interesting mystery story, and a collection of brainteaser puzzles. But it manages to work and not feel forced at all.

Professor Layton's storyline kept me hooked from start to finish, due to its undeniable charm, easy to love characters, and a genuinely intriguing mystery. The main story took me about 10 hours to complete, but take into account that I made it a priority to find and solve every puzzle the game had to offer (135 total). There are some surprising twists in the story, and overall I found this game to have a more compelling plot than most games since it doesn't try to be so over the top.

The puzzles in the game are the basic brainteasers you may have seen in elementary school, and its very easy to get addicted to solving these puzzles. They range in complexity, and oftentimes the most obvious solutions aren't so obvious since it is easy to overthink a problem. The way you find a puzzle is pretty amusing. All you do is tap on a character or an interesting object in the game, and the character or the professor himself will say some things before telling you to solve this dumb puzzle. It's a bit strange, but it works, and it will make more sense when you finally finish the storyline.

I must praise the art direction in the game, its fantastic. The characters have a unique and charming style to them, its like a mix of Japanese and French character designs. I love it.

Overall, this was a great puzzle gaming experience, probably the only detriment is its lack of replayability. I mean once you solved a puzzle, you've solved it and there's no going back. Even so, this game is easily recommendable to anyone looking for a compelling and addictive puzzler.

Professor Layton is simply amazing. It takes the puzzle genre, perfects it, and then adds on extra features to create an all-around package worthy of everyone's attention. This is a game that excels in all aspects and exceeds all expectations. Professor Layton is an absolutely fantastic game, and one that should be experienced by almost every DS owner.

The game follows the story of the esteemed gentlemen Professor Layton and his young assistant Luke. It opens with the first of many beautiful cut-scenes, and shows Layton and Luke rumbling along a dusty country road in an old car. The premise and story are framed by Layton and Luke's conversation. It seems that a rich man, the Baron Reinhold has passed away, and has left all his fortune to the person who can find a mysterious treasure, known only as the Golden Apple. Layton plans to tackle this mystery. You'll find that the duo is travelling to St. Mystere, the village in which Baron Reinhold lived. The car eventually rumbles into the village, and you are summoned to the manor in which the Baron lived. This is where the adventure truly begins.

What is unique about this game is that it effectively combines the puzzle and adventure genres. As the car rumbles through the barren country, Layton consults a map, and this is where your first puzzle is introduced. It's relatively easy. Several villages are shown, but only one of them has a private road. All the others share a road with another village. Your job is to find that village that stands alone. It's not entirely relevant to the story, but it makes sure that you feel engaged in the action. You're not just watching a cut-scene, you are advancing it.

The game doesn't take place in a car, however. The action almost exclusively takes place in the village of St. Mystere. For most of the game, you are entirely unrestrained. Each main area of the village has multiple paths leading to and from it, and you can choose your own path. St. Mystere has many nooks and crannies, and finding them all takes a lot of exploration. Most of the time, these secret areas contain tantalizing rewards, and the promise of such bonuses keep the searches from becoming tedious.

The rewards are often puzzles. The game is classified as a puzzle game, and fortunately puzzling is what it does best. The puzzles are clever, challenging, and varied. They hardly ever feel redundant, which is a major plus, because with over 100 puzzles this was a major concern of mine. I mean, there are only so many times I can re-arrange matchsticks to form a new picture before it gets boring. Granted there is a slight amount of repetition, but in moderation its fine. For example, there are several matchstick puzzles, but with a hint of humour and a definite variation in difficulty, I hardly noticed.

Professor Layton is a very addictive game. Once you've picked it up, the interesting story and addictive gameplay will keep your hands glued to your DS. The main story is a bit on the short side, but thankfully there is a lot more than just the story. Around St Mystere, bits and pieces of a contraption, scraps of a painting, and furniture for Luke and Professor Layton's hotel rooms are hidden. Once you've collected a full set of these items (i.e. enough to build the contraption or finish the painting), you'll unlock a set of incredibly hard puzzles, known as challenge puzzles. In addition, there are many hidden puzzles. You need only complete 2/3 of the puzzles to finish the game, so you can spend some time after the fact locating and solving the remaining puzzles. As if this weren't enough, each week a new puzzle is announced, so theoretically you can come back to this game for many more months.

Professor Layton's presentation is absolutely top-notch. It's one of the most impressive games on the DS visually, and includes some absolutely beautiful CGI animations. During important plot-points, the game will often cut to a fully-rendered, 3-D cut-scene. They look absolutely amazing, especially considering the DS's limited power. As for the art, a very warm colour palette is present here, with many yellows, oranges, and reds. The characters have a hand-drawn feel, and all have unique features and distinct personalities. It's easy to become attached to the eccentric inhabitants of St. Mystere. The audio is pretty solid, apart from repetitive music. The music is actually pretty good, but there isn't enough variety to keep it from becoming monotonous and annoying. Otherwise, the voice-acting is perfect, and the actual sound quality is arguably the best on the DS.

Overall, Professor Layton delivers one of the best packages on the DS. It's a little on the short-side and the music can get repetitive, but those are truly my only gripes. Otherwise, the game is practically flawless. It's very addictive, so you will probably be able to truck through it in only a couple sittings, but with many collectables and extras to explore, you'll get more than a dozen hours here. There is a lot of crap when it comes to puzzle games on the DS, but Professor Layton and the Curious Village is certainly not a part of it. It's great story, gameplay and presentation vault it to the very top of the DS's library. If you have any interest in puzzle games at all, this game should be in your library. If you don't have an interest in puzzle games, well, Professor Layton might just spark one.

This game gives off an aura of charm I've not experienced in quite some time. The puzzles are fun and can be a little tricky. But fear not the game goes easy on you with well said hints, providing you have the necessary coins to purchase them. Yes it's true the hints are not free, but the coins, found throughout the game are easy enough to find. Overall the game is a a tad too easy and the story line is well, a little kiddy. That said, I advise you to pick it up, you could pick up a lot worse these days. 

There is no shortage of mini-game collections these days, and while Professor Layton's core game mechanic is solving puzzles, it is far from just another puzzle game.

The game takes place in a little village called St. Mystere, where the town's patriarch has passed away and the famous Professor Layton, along with his side-kick, Luke, must help the townspeople solve the mystery of the man's inheritance. Things aren't what they seem, though, and in no time Layton and Luke are up to their ears in drama and intrigue.

As you search the town for clues, you must solve a myriad of puzzles ranging from simple number games to logic tests that will have your grey matter crying uncle. In addition to the main "campaign" there are several side quests. Completing the side missions grants you rewards like a mechanical puppy that sniffs out hidden treasures.

Although you might expect the puzzles to take centre stage here, the story and its characters have so much charm that you will likely find yourself working out "one more puzzle" just to get to the next leg of the adventure. On the other hand, the game also works well when you just need to kill five or six minutes.

The game also does a great job of using a variety of touch controls to keep things fresh. You will point and click your way through St. Mystere, spell out answers, and draw solutions.

Unfortunately, I can't go into too much more detail without either spoiling the plot or the puzzles but suffice it to say that Professor Layton is a must-have for both puzzle and mystery lovers.

When I first got my DS back in 2006 there weren't that many games that I wanted to play for it. I loved New Super Mario Brothers, and Sonic Rush, but I couldn't find many games that I felt really couldn't be played anywhere else. Now Professor Layton is not necessarily one of those games, but being able to solve puzzles using the touch screen made the game so much fun, and very intuitive.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is the first game in the Professor Layton series to be published in the United States. Level 5 (The developers behind the fantastic Jeanne D'arc for PSP) self published the game in Japan, but were lucky enough to get Nintendo to get the job done for them in the states. The game is a puzzle game wrapped around a murder mystery. You must inquire around town about a certain "Golden Apple" and the death of one of the towns people. However no one will help you unless you help them first. Every villager has a puzzle that you must solve before they will give you any information. The puzzles range from your standard block moving, to some pretty hard math, word, and logic problems. A lot of the puzzles fall into the brain teaser category, and most of them can be solved if you think outside the box.

The game looks fantastic, with anime cut scenes filling in the story, and some very nice 2D character art when interacting with the townspeople. Just like Jeanne d'Arc the production values were very high and it really came through when playing the game. The story actually had me guessing until the very end, something I wasn't expecting, and I really liked where the developers went with it.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village: 3.5/5

I gave Professor Layton an 8 out of 10 only because the puzzles would sometimes get repetitive, and often times become downright impossible. Now I love a good challenge, but I simply could not do some of them forcing me to either turn to Google or my girlfriend. I loved the style and the game play and can't complain about the length, it took me a good 16 hours to get through the 100+ puzzles. I can't wait for the next game in the series which should be coming out sometime in 2009, it's already out in Japan. I have included below a very funny comic from Penny Arcade that pretty much sums up the game as a whole.

So if you’ve been around me and my DS sometime within the last month or so, I’ve probably subjected you to a series of unusual and frustrating puzzles. You may be surprised to know that the source of these puzzles is a video game known as…



Professor Layton and the Curious Village : …and to us existing fans of the game, lets all stop kidding ourselves and acknowledge this game for what it is; a mini-game compilation, not unlike the dozens and dozens of mini-game compilations that pollute the Nintendo DS and the Wii.

Story : So apparently, this Professor Layton chap is some kind of professional puzzle solver. I’d like to know where one gets such a degree, or what kind of money one can make from such a career path (not much, based on certain parts of the game.) They enter the…ehhh….mysterious town of St. Mystere, where they must solve an inheritance mystery, a murder mystery, and many, many, many unrelated mysteries.

On the surface, Professor Layton looks and plays like an old-fashioned point-and-click PC adventure game, but don’t be fooled. Those games, or at least the good ones, had puzzles that the developer at least tried to make sense within the game world. Here, progressing may require you to solve a puzzle about making sheep and wolves cross a river without eating each other. The general layout of the game is that you are not-so-subtly thrown a puzzle by way of talking to a villager or touching random objects in the game world with the stylus. Hence the earlier statement, this is by and large a mini-game compilation.

But that’s part of the unlikely charm of the game. Having some kind of conversation with a villager and then they throw a completely unrelated puzzle in your face, sometimes with questionable reasoning. One villager believes he can’t get laid without first solving a puzzle, meaning that the citizens of St. Mystere equate penis size with logical thinking skills; no doubt some programmer’s wishful thinking. At the same time, I can’t help but find this whole aspect amusing, how casually the town butcher or the perpetually angry man in the village will ask you to solve their puzzle that doesn’t match their personality of situation in any way. It’s like playing Pokemon and finding your character being challenged to an intense, superpower-laden battle by girl scouts, mountain climbers, senior citizens, swimmers in the water, toddlers and members of the game’s international terrorist organization.

The game has a combined total of 135 puzzles, some of which are hidden and have to be found by tapping the stylus all across the screen (or just looking for a FAQ is you feel so inclined.) You won’t need to beat them all, but the game will abruptly stop your progress through the story mode if you haven’t solved a set number of puzzles. I didn’t get frustrated at this like I probably would have at another game, as it simply meant I got to find more puzzles!

There’s a very good chance you’ve seen or heard most of these puzzles before in the past, too, whether it’s in a math textbook or a Flash game on the internet or just your friend trying to pester you. They cover a wide variety of puzzle types, from faux math equations to visual puzzles to rearranging items on the screen using the stylus. The game even admits every now and then that the puzzle you were just playing was famous amongst Egyptians or whatever other historical significance it may have. Within the entire game, there’s maybe four or five “cheap” puzzles that, even after solved, you’ll curse at because the solution doesn’t make sense, but more often than not you’ll find yourself thinking that their solution was rather clever or cute, and that you need to show this to your frustrated coworker who thinks math is the answer to everything.

A small side note, I wish the game concocted a better system for penalizing players than the limited number of hint coins; I often found myself using up hint coins to get a few hints for a certain puzzle, and then rebooting the system to my last save. A small complaint however, one that is not as painful as it would’ve been on a major, disc-based console that takes five minutes to start up.

So while the puzzles themselves may or may not be original, that all of these famous puzzles are found in one package in a way no game before it means that Professor Layton stands out. It’s like the game is a sort of “best of the quickie internet Flash puzzles” compilation, only with more charm and bizarreness. Granted, being a puzzle-based game, replay value is inherently limited once you’ve solved all the puzzles, but you can freely access any of the puzzles you’ve solved to show and embarrass your friends, giving the game unexpected value as either a crowd pleaser or an instrument of torture. So whether you like puzzles, frustrating the people around you, or want some kind of “brain training” game that gets you mental exercise in a more interesting way than Nintendo’s other DS scam, then this game comes highly recommended.

Pros : The art style is a hybrid of Babar and Astro Boy.

Cons : The end game sequence is a bit weak, with all of the game’s storyline “mysteries” being solved not through a shocking reveal but through the Professor genuflecting on them while climbing stairs, and the last puzzle before the ending (the final boss I guess?) is a bit lame.

4 ½ stars.

Mice are famous for their ability to multiply at breakneck speeds. The type of mouse we have here gives birth once a month, birthing 12 babies each time. Baby mice mature and can give birth two months they are born.

You picked up one of these darling baby mice at the pet shop and brought it home the day after it was born. In 10 months from now, how many mice will you have?

One could compare Professor Layton and the Curious Village to other "puzzle" games such as the brain training series, but that would be doing it an injustice.  Professor brings its own charm to the genre, packing tons of puzzles into this $30 value.

While not trying to give any of the fabulous story away, Professor Layton opens with the titular Professor and his sidekick Luke stranded in a, dare i say, Curious Village?  Yes, that's right - a puzzle game with a fantastic story.  The point of the game is to unravel the mystery that makes the town so curious.  You'll move around in a point-and-click fashion, talking with an eclectic cast of townspeople, and basically sticking your nose everywhere.  Everything is textbased, and there are excellent cg cutscenes with full audio that show up at pivotal plot points.  Everyone you meet has some puzzle or another for you to solve, after which they'll give you your next clue and point you in the right direction.  The puzzles are well integrated, with a hint system.  They can be quite challenging - even with the hints, I must confess i resorted to Google a few times.  Puzzles are varied, and increase in difficulty as the game progresses.  That's all there is to say about the puzzles.  Wait, did i mention that there are over 100 of them?  And you can download more for free over the wi-fi service?  Oh yeah, must have slipped my mind...


Professor Layton is a fantastic package.  You really feel like a detective as you sole the mystery, and the excellent cutscenes bring it to life.  The puzzles have just the right amount of challenge, and free downloads only enhance the value of the game.  Just remember, there's no shame in Google.