Professor Layton and the Curious Village

After spending countless hours with Dr. Ryuta Kawashima and reaching my brain age target of retard, I felt refreshed and ready for a new puzzling challenge on my DS. Fortunately for me Professor Layton and the Curious Village came along so I picked it up to solve brainteasers and crack the case.*

A Baron has died in the mysterious town of St. Mystere. In his last will and testament he has stated that whoever finds the golden egg would inherit his fortunes. Professor Layton and his assistant then get called in to help discover the whereabouts of the golden egg. As if by some bizarre twist of fate the whole thing turns into a murder mystery.

St. Mystere is a town full of people who, annoyingly, can’t strike up conversation with you without asking to solve a puzzle for them because they were probably born in St. Dumb and moved to St. Mystere.

In order to progress through the story you have to solve some puzzles that are given to you to collect clues. As you move through the story you open up new areas in the game and meet new people. One of the most interesting characters in the game is a young girl who likes to laugh at other people’s misfortune. When you speak to her she asks you if you feel like an idiot running around solving all these puzzles.

A slightly annoying part of the game is when you get a puzzle wrong (and you will get them wrong) there are no words of encouragement from Professor Layton or his assistant. It’s not that they are downright offensive; they just kick you when you’re down with statements such as ‘I’m so embarrassed’.

When you answer puzzles correctly you are awarded picarats. The more picarats you earn the more secrets you unlock in the game. When you receive a puzzle you know how difficult its going to be by the amount of picarats you can earn from it. The amount goes down each time you get a puzzle wrong. There are other collectibles in game but I won’t go into them, you can find them out for yourself.

The game itself is really well presented and laid out. The graphics are done in a light hearted cartoon setup with a cool perspective on the buildings. Professor Layton and his assistant only have a couple of poses they can strike which is a bit lame, but all in all it’s good to look at.

There is nothing to controlling your character. Moving around, interacting with objects and the people of the town is done with a simple point and click system which you will pick up from the outset.

The use of sound in the game is excellent. You will frequently hear the use of stereo for sound effect. The characters can’t speak but to be honest if they can’t figure out some of the puzzles they hand over they wouldn’t have the ability to talk either.

Apparently there is going to a second and third Professor Layton game which is excellent. While we wait for these there are weekly puzzle downloads available over WiFi which are similar to the in game puzzles.

* No harm was brought to any cases in this game.