I Love Layton

I have just finished playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village, a game I cannot recommend highly enough to anyone who has ever enjoyed thinking. The combination of straight-up puzzle solving and adventure game, charmingly presented in 2D, will leave you wanting more and wondering why nobody did this before. Brain game shovelware may well be doomed. The Professor puts that genre to shame and begs the question: "Why didn't anyone do this before?"

The premise of the game is simple enough—well-known puzzle-solver Professor Layton is summoned to a village to solve the riddle of a hidden inheritance. With his assistant Luke in tow, he heads off to the town of St. Mystere (sigh), where it rapidly becomes obvious that the missing "Golden Apple" is the least of the mysteries confronting him. The townspeople have a strange penchant for posing puzzles and riddles (which can get annoying), and soon enough crimes ranging from a murder to a "doze-and-dash" are plaguing St. Mystere, demanding Layton's attention. The story is pretty entertaining, even though you'll probably figure out most of the mystery about the time you finish the easiest of the bonus puzzles.

Resolving most of these mysteries, and sometimes even moving around the town, requires you to solve several riddles. I have seen some complaints about the difficulty, and I cannot entirely give them credit. The puzzles of the game generally don't require any more knowledge than typically possessed by a fifth grader. The difficulty comes from a requirement for creativity and mental discipline. A child playing this game may need assistance from adults in spots, but then again, an adult playing this game may need a childlike outlook to achieve some of the necessary lateral thinking. In short, if you have kids, play this game with them. You will all have a great time. And don't worry; if you don't have a 10 year old to help you, a limited number of hints are available.

The tale of Professor Layton is conveyed through 2D animations and drawn backgrounds. The character design is excellent, with endearingly wacky villagers that are full of personality. The game features a substantial amount of voice acting, which actually works out quite well, though I suspect it cut down on the amount of music available. The soundtrack is passable, and works to help set the tone, though having some more variety would have been nice.

The game isn't perfect. Although the touch control is essentially seamless, the movement system seems unnecessarily elaborate. The village mostly runs out of puzzles before the game runs out of story. As I mentioned the mystery itself is a little easy to get (though it requires a little leap), and also more or less solves itself. A little more involvement from the player in solving the larger riddles would have been great. The game is also a little short—the 15 bonus puzzles and additional downloadable content should provide your fix until Level 5 delivers the sequel that the bonuses page promises is coming. There are already 3 Professor Layton games out in Japan so this will mostly be a matter of localization. A longer story might also have helped get the player a little more emotionally involved; as it is, the story ends just as you're really starting to fall in love with the characters.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a pleasant little game with a story and characters just wacky enough to make the numerous brain-teasers seem a natural part of the world. The puzzles themselves aren't crushingly difficult, though a few can get a little frustrating. The story and presentation makes it much more engaging than the standard brain-game shovelware. Cute enough to engage a child, smart enough to stump an adult, Professor Layton is charming fun anyone who loves thinking can enjoy.