Level-5 has become a very successful RPG-developer over the past few years, but with the Professor Layton series, they are taking a step in a different direction. With the first entry in the series, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Level-5 has created a unique, enjoyable adventure game filled with interesting brainteasers and puzzles for the Nintendo DS.
The game follows Professor Layton, a renowned archaeologist and puzzle expert, and his young assistant Luke. Layton and Luke are invited to the town of St. Mystere by the family of a wealthy Baron who has recently passed away. They are asked to investigate the Baron's will, which sets them on a search for the family's treasure known as the Golden Apple. As the two go out to investigate they run into more mysteries along the way. The game mixes a bunch of interesting characters and even some laughs in to create a neat little mystery story.
Wolves and chicks... will they ever get along?
The game plays like a point and click style adventure game. You'll use the stylus and touch screen to move around the town and look into solving the various mysteries you're investigating. Basically, you just move around town tapping on people or things in the environment. This will help you get information. But to get this info, you'll usually need to solve some kind of puzzle, brainteaser, or riddle. These make up the bulk of the gameplay and usually will have you reading what the puzzle wants you to do in the top-screen and using the touch-screen to solve it. Some examples of the types of puzzles you'll run into are figuring out which of a few slots a crank fits into or you'll be tasked with moving blocks around to get a ball or another item from one spot to another. For other puzzles you'll have to divide a liquid into two equal portions using three different sized pitchers. Some of these puzzles will be story-related while others will be just an excuse to give you another puzzle. Also, some are necessary to move on in the game others are not. Either way they are for the most part pretty fun. There are things to collect around town too. Coins can be found and used to get hints on puzzles. Other things can be put together to get more puzzles or actually help you in-game in some cases. All the puzzles in the game are also worth a certain amount of points that both tell you the difficulty and add to your score (though with each incorrect answer the score added will decrease). Overall, the gameplay is a fun combination of adventure and puzzle elements.
The titular Prof. Layton (right) and his assistant Luke (left) on the run in the game's distinctive artstyle.
The previously mentioned cutscenes are all fully voiced and the voice acting is quite good. The story bits are told mostly through text, but their are a few voice samples that come up when you solve (or fail to solve) a puzzle. The original soundtrack is pretty neat and a good fit for the mystery story, but it won't blow you away.
You'll have to solve a number of puzzles similar to the one pictured above.
Professor Layton and the Curious Village has a pretty decent playtime your first time through especially for a handheld game. The story mode has over 100 puzzles along with the different parts to collect. Once you're done, you'll unlock some more puzzles to solve in the bonus section and there are also downloadable puzzles to solve (though admittedly I haven't tried any of these). So, the game has a decent amount of stuff to do, but the problem is once you've done it there isn't much to come back for. I mean the puzzles are kind of finished once you've solved them and since this makes up the bulk of the gameplay, I don't see much motivation to play through the story mode a second time.
Summary
Story
A neat little mystery story filled with interesting characters and some funny moments.
Gameplay
A point and click style-adventure filled with puzzles and brainteasers. It's pretty fun if you can get into the puzzle-solving.
Graphics
A unique cartoon artstyle combined with some cool fully-voiced video cutscenes makes for a pretty good package.
Sound
There's not a whole lot of it, but the voice-acting is good when it's there. The soundtrack is also a good fit for the game's mystery storyline.
Replay Value and Extras
The story-mode has a pretty good length for a handheld game. You'll also have items to find as well as downloadable puzzles and the puzzles you unlock by finishing the game to keep you busy for a bit. But there is not much reason to come back to the story once you've finished.
Overall
I had fun playing through Professor Layton and the Curious Village and I was quite addicted to the game while I was playing through it. If you're into puzzles and brainteasers, you should definitely take a look at this game. The story and cutscenes should keep you interested throughout as well. I'm looking forward to seeing what the Professor and Luke get into in future and applaud Level-5 for taking a chance on a different type of game.
Score-8/10
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