"Look into it before buying: it only caters (really well) to a certain audience."

Professor Layton and the Curious Village
2/10/08

Professor Layton is like the Ace Attorney series: it caters to a certain audience, and bores the rest to death. To whom it does cater, however, it is an excellent game. It is like a point and click game mixed with "puzzles", which are literally little puzzles for you to solve using the DS's nifty features. Of course, those who like more action-based gameplay will regret purchasing this game and should give it a wide berth. If, however, you liked both or either Ace Attorney And Brain Age or any of the other puzzle games on the DS, this game is perfect for you and you will enjoy it greatly.

Story: 8/10

The characters are charming. Professor Layton is a polite, well-mannered man who likes to solve mysteries aside of his career as an archaelogist, Luke is his young and excitable apperentice. They meet a vast crew of funny or simply weird characters in the adventure, who, while all good in their capacities, don't really connect to the player as much the the professor and Luke do.

The dialogue is very natural and draws a smiles many a times by Professor Layton's polite, unfazed replies to rude or sarcastic comments. The emotions of the characters really come out in the dialogue without making the script sound contrived- which is a great thing in a game that focuses quite heavily on conversations.

The main story itself is sufficiently gripping to retain your interest. Layton and Luke have arrived in the village to sort out a property inheritance dispute: but it seems that with a puzzle to determine the heir and the various mysteries around the village, the task is not as mundane as it seems.

Gameplay: 10/10

Excellent. You move around by tapping on a boot and then on the direction in which you want to go. You tap objects or people around the touch screen to investigate or talk to them. Quite similar to "Examining" in the Ace Attorney series. Sometimes, people will present you a puzzle or things will remind Layton of one and these will need to be solved to progress in the game. However, quite a few are not essential and may be left to be attended to later.

The puzzles themselves are lots of fun. Some of them might be familiar to you, but most are fresh and present a nice challenge: no puzzle is so easy that you can solve it at a glance. And some require you to take pen and paper and prod the old grey cells long and hard. It is very satisfying to finally crack these puzzles.

What initially worried me was if the game would feel choppy, as the transition from moving around and exploring and solving the puzzles was quite abrupt. It seemed as if the game might turn out to a glorified puzzle-solving game instead of a mystery game, but these fears proved unfounded pretty soon- the game manages to tie the puzzles into the story so that neither the story not the puzzles seem like mere appendix to the other.

Graphics: 8/10

Love them or hate them. The overworld comprises of mostly still images with characters in the front, very like the investigation parts of the Ace Attorney series (man, I seem to find parallels between these two all the time o_O). While these are rich in detail, just like the characters themselves, these are all done like they would in a cartoon. In fact, the cutscenes ARE cartoons. It is like Yoshi's Island: cartoonish but colourful and vibrant graphics. If this might break the game for you, check some screenshots.

Sound: 9.5/10

:D VOICE ACTING! And a lot more than is found in most DS games. The dialogues in some cutscenes are voice acted (pity not all of it is, but I suppose memory constraints caused that), and the voice actors do a marvellous job at matching the natural spontaneity of the script. Amazing stuff.
The music is very suiting the game's setting and mood, and while not as epic as that of, say, Ace Att*shot*, it still suits the game and gets the job done.

Overall: 9/10

I love this game. If you too have no aversions to this kind of games, you will find Professor Layton and the Curious Village one of the best games of its genre. Purchase ASAP =)

Fifth

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/11/08

Game Release: Professor Layton and the Curious Village (US, 02/10/08)