Gaming Generations :: Professor Layton and the Curious Village

NickD

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Level 5
Release Date: 2/10/2008
Official Website: http://www.professorlaytonds.com
Genre: "Edutainment" or Puzzle...
Number of Players: 1
ESRB Rating: (E) Everyone
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REVIEW

This series is new to the U.S. market but this game was originally released in Japan on February 15, 2007. This is the first of a Professor Layton trilogy. The next game, Professor Layton and Pandora's Box has already been released in Japan and Level 5 is working on the third one now, which is great news to me. This game relies on narraration and is controlled completely by the stylus in a point-and-click format.

PLOT
Professor Layton, a renowned puzzle-solver, is summoned to the small town of St. Mystere by Lady Dahlia. The exceedingly wealthy Baron Reinhold has just passed away and in his will he makes mention of a mysterious Golden Apple. Whoever finds the Golden Apple will receive the Reinhold fortune. After hours of searching, none of the townspeople have been able to find the Golden Apple. Thus, Lady Dahlia, the Baron's widow, has summoned the Professor to give his assistance. For what seems like training, the Professor brings his apprentice Luke along to help.

SETTING
The game takes place in St. Mystere and in various buildings throughout the town. Places visited include the Reinhold Mansion, a park with a ferris wheel, the Town Hall, the houses of various residents, and other typical locations.

GAMEPLAY
Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles. This game is full of puzzles. There are a total of 135 in the regular game, including bonus puzzles. These range from solving mathematical equations,to logical puzzles, to finding out how to get the exact right division of liquid into a certain jug, to find the shape puzzles. The game might say E for Everyone, but some of these puzzles will challenge anyone.

Even though many puzzles are challenging, there are hint coins scattered throughout the game. These are usually found by tapping around the screen in seemingly random places. However, many hint coins are found in things that look like they could hold a coin (i.e. barrels, pipes, cracks in the wall, etc.). Each coin will buy you one hint. With up to 3 hints per puzzle, many of them can be solved. However, there are only 200 hint coins in the game, so it's impossible to unlock every hint, so you need to use the coins sparingly.

GRAPHICS
This game does not have the most amazing graphics on the DS. To be honest, if you're looking for amazing graphics, you're probably playing the wrong system. However, the animations in this game fit will with the overall look and feel of the game and help to highlight some of the more tense moments of the story.

SOUND
The sound is probably the worst part of the game. The main song that plays while you're out and about the town is repeated over and over. This might not seem like a big deal, but after 15 hours or so of gameplay (personal results may vary depending on how clever you are) that same old track starts to get on your nerves. Don't get me wrong, all of the music fits well, but changing the song for certain areas as the story progresses would be a welcome change.

SUMMARY
Overall, Professor Layton and the Curious Village offers an interesting story (despite the fact that I had figured a lot of it out earlier due to cut scenes), fun puzzles that challenge your logic and common sense, and amusing and likable characters in Luke and Professor Layton himself. The adventure rarely ever loses you, unlike in other point-and-click games.The challenge isn't in finding every single possible thing to click on as it is in being able to solve the puzzles.

As previously mentioned, the game took me about 15 hours including the use of gamefaqs.com to find some of the few puzzles I missed.

But, the adventure doesn't end there completely, As of now, there are new puzzles coming out via Nintendo WFC that can be downloaded and played. Even though the game lacks in replayability, there are still things that can be done after the main quest and unlockable material are completed.

There aren't a ton of things to say about this game. If you like riddles, brainteasers, or any other synonyms to the word puzzle, you will enjoy this game, as long as you don't mind the point-and-click style. Personally, I love this game and I'd spend another $30 to get it if I had to do it all over again. I definitely look forward to the sequel.

Overall Score: 9.0/10
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Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.org

P.S. I haven't started Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword yet, but I plan to review it when I'm done. The original Fire Emblem for the GBA is taking my time.