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!
