No game is going to be for everyone, and as it turns out Professor Layton and the Curious Village is one that is not for me. This was a game I had been meaning to get around to for years, and now that I finally have I can say that... it's good? But only if you really like solving math problems... which I don't.

I'll start with the things I liked. First off, I really like Professor Layton, the character. One brief glance at him, and you already know everything you need to about him: that he is the epitome of a kindly English gentleman, and a scholar. He's super cute, what can I say.

The presentation of the game as a whole is just as charming. The art style makes me think of a children's book, like something that'd sit on a shelf with the likes of Paddington Bear, Madeline, Peter Rabbit, Richard Scarry, The Little Prince, etc. The story for this one is nothing to write home about -- (don't get yourself excited for the big mystery) -- but it suffices as an explanation for everyone randomly giving you puzzles to solve.

This game operates like a point-and-click adventure game (but more of a... tap-the-screen adventure game), where you explore a curious village, talk to people, find clues to help solve the mysteries of the story... and solve puzzles. Everyone has a puzzle to give poor Layton (he doesn't mind, of course) and his Dickensian newsie assistant (who is also game). These puzzles range from good to bad, and for me I honestly didn't care for a lot more of them than I would've liked.

The good puzzles IMO are the riddles, and the ones where you have to figure out the "trick" to the story's question. These brain-teasers were fun, even if I struggled with them. (There is a hint system that sometimes helps.) I felt like a genius when I did work these ones out.

The bad puzzles IMO come in a few varieties. Many of them are literally just problems from math homework, which I was never in the mood for. Others are basically just a confusing-looking picture, and it'll ask you to find a certain hidden shape, or count all the possible triangles you can make out of it all... And I was never in the mood for any of that busy work either. (After a while, I just nope'd out of them... Thankfully not all puzzles are required to be solved to progress the story.) Then there are sliding block puzzles, where it's just a matter of time to solve them. Busy work, busy work. Stuff like pouring pitchers of water into one another to eventually get the exact amount needed in each of them -- that can just go to hell too lol.

So all in all I guess I'm glad I finally played this one, but for the most part I didn't really enjoy my time with it. I might give a more modern entry a try one day to see how things might have improved for the puzzles, but I'll have to be in just the right mood for it.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a game I didn't expect to grab my attention the way it did. I had heard about the Professor Layton games and I obviously was aware of Luke and Layton before even thinking about picking them up. My girlfriend insisted I play them. I knew they were puzzle games but I didn't expect to enjoy the game the way I did

Curious Village takes place in a fictional town in England called St. Mystere. You follow Hershel Layton and his assistant, Luke as they go to this town in search of the Golden Apple. The story is basic as basic gets going in but this game throws many twists that just blows your mind. All the characters are interesting to interact with because of how many characters there really are. It's also due to this game's amazing presentation. The art style is great. The music is pretty good too. Not to mention how fun exploring St. Mystere is

What dictates the game's pace is the puzzles. There are over 120 Puzzles to do in St. Mystere and 15 bonus puzzles. Making it a total of 135 Puzzles. Some of these puzzles are optional while others aren't. The difficulty of each puzzle is dictated by how many Picarats (The game's score) it's worth. 10 Picarats being the easiest, 99 being the hardest. Exploring St. Mystere can gain access to hidden puzzles and hint coins which allow you to purchase up to 3 hints per puzzle. With every failed answer, the Picarat score lowers which doesn't change the difficulty, but changes how many Picarats you will be earning.

Some of these puzzles are straightforward while others really require you to take a second and think. Some puzzles are so intense that I had to take a picture of the puzzle or get paper and write stuff down. These puzzles exceeded my expectations and some were REALLY hard to figure out which makes solving them extremely satisfying especially if you never bought a hint.

This game wouldn't be that interesting to me if it was just puzzles, but the story and characters are what drove me to keep going and the game got so fun that I accidentally solved all 135 puzzles without the goal in mind. The game even encourages you to play the sequel, Diabolical Box to find a password to use in this game. It's mindblowing. Trust me, these characters and the story will make you wanna keep going. It's also great to play with others. I played it with my girlfriend which was a blast. It still blew my mind to see animated cutscenes for a DS game.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village exceeded all my expectations and tho some of the story bits could have been better executed and some puzzles maybe should've been less repetitive, the game is a blast to go through and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to play a puzzle game with an equally engaging narrative.

4/5

Would Recommend

I went into Professor Layton and the Curious Village expecting to plow through the "plot" to get to the puzzles, but this was not the case. A lot of care and thought went into this title. The plot starts off simple enough, and becomes a tangled web that I actually became quite invested in. The cutscenes are very charming, and feel like a reward rather than a nuisance.

The puzzles were MOSTLY a delight. If a puzzle is particularly tough, you can use hint coins found throughout the world to point you in the right direction. The game is fairly generous with these coins, and I never ran out. Unfortunately, too many of the puzzles relied on optical illusions or confusing wording to provide the challenge rather than actual puzzles. While there were probably only around 8-10 of these, it's enough to sour the experience a bit.

Any game with stylus inputs makes me worried, but I only had one issue the entire game with the game processing my "correct" input as "incorrect." Amazingly, it wasn't with anything requiring drawing! The game did not like that I put 01/02 for a date instead of 1/2.

The music is simple, but fitting. The character designs are all distinct, and charmingly drawn. It really feels like an animated mystery in game form.

Overall, I loved my time with The Curious Village. The puzzles were fun, the villagers and world was interesting, and I really felt like I was solving the mysteries along side the characters.

Personal score : 9/10

Critical score: 8.5/10

The story writing is splendid. When I was younger, the plot of the story I found was very clever. When I played it as an adult, I somehow still find my opinion has not changed from that.

Things I liked about this game:

• The music, apart from the puzzle music, was fantastic.
• Luke and Professor Layton are charming characters however in later games, I became a bit annoyed the way Layton would think of women..
• The puzzles that weren't mentioned in the didn't like section, were very good and I enjoyed completing them.
• The writing style and the plot. Wow, I didn't expect the citizens to be robots, so the first time I played it, this was totally unexpected.
• The minigames were fun. I also liked solving all the puzzles out there and finding out some more puzzles to play, as well as the Hidden Door. I never got to play the Daily Puzzles because by the time I was old enough to have the allowance of internet connected to my Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo of course, shut down the internet service. However, I do believe the game is enjoyable without the Daily Puzzles. There was already enough puzzles to play in the main game, anyway.

Things I didn't like about this game:

• The music when a puzzle is in progress. It's not very long, so it gets repetitive and I personally think it could be better. I'm so glad that the puzzle music is different for each game in the franchise.
• The game's font was too small for me. If they could've used a little bigger, that would be a great help...
• Puzzle 009: That puzzle was so morbid I was shocked it was even allowed in the game!
• Those block puzzles were so difficult.
• Those mathematical and arithmetic puzzles we could do without but at least it wasn't Minamimoto style (from The World Ends with You and its sequel for anyone who didn't get that reference).

In conclusion, I didn't want to rate this four stars because of how the game impacted my childhood in a very positive way. I think it could be worth your time.