"Poke it with your stick, and it will give you a puzzle! Try that in real life."

I broke the bank buying this one. Seriously. I used the last $35 of my paycheck to buy this little game entitled "Professor Layton and the Curious Village". What drew me to it, I can not say. Maybe it was the art style on the cover. Maybe it was the idea that I wanted to get another addicting puzzle game. Maybe it was because I felt like spending money. Whatever it was, I picked it up and brought it home. Once there, I popped it into my trusty DS Lite (white, of course!) and began to play it...

Gameplay - 8/10
Simple summary: Adventure Game.

Yes, Professor Layton is a point-and-click adventure game of Ye Olde times. You watch the story unfold, then are taken to a screen that you can poke with your DS stylus (or whatever long, pointy implement you choose to use). Your goal? Find money and puzzles, of course!

Poke a person with your stick, and they talk to you. Try that in real life, and they will most likely hit you. But this is a game, and everything is always different in a game! Poking them with this stick will typically cause them to give you a puzzle. Why are all of the villagers giving you puzzles? Why doesn't this freak out Professor Layton? Well, I'll leave that to you to find out.

Sometimes, poking random objects in the village will give you a puzzle. You know, I would love to walk up to a stop sign, poke it with a stick, and be presented with a matchstick puzzle. I think it would make life more interesting, don't you? Also, poking these objects sometimes give you hint coins. These coins can be used in the game's 120 puzzles to give you hints. Each puzzle has three hints to give you, but there aren't a ton of coins, so don't just spend them freely (like I did).

Now here's the problem. Eventually, the game comes down to going from screen to screen and tapping the screen wildly, looking for another puzzle. It would be nice if the game at least gave hints as to where the puzzles are located, but NOOO, of course it doesn't! This only happens at the end-game, though, so it doesn't kill the score too much...

Story - 9/10
Simply put, Professor Layton and his trusty suck-up...erm, assistant...Luke are called to a village to help find what is called the Golden Apple. Whoever finds this Golden Apple inherits a recently-deceased man's fortune. Throughout the game, more mysteries are revealed. So much so that the main menu has a special menu dedicated to keeping these mysteries straight. While the story can be a little childish, it is still pretty enticing. So much so that I stayed up until three in the morning, just to see the end of the story.

Graphics - 10/10
Oh my holy crap! Seeing as this is an adventure game with still scenes, the artists were able to put a TON of detail into every screen. The city may be barren, but it is pretty to look at. The character designs, well, not so much. But we'll let that slide.

This game also has a bunch of FMVs, done in the same style as the rest of the game's art. These movies run smoothly on the screen and are easy to watch. They aren't pointless, either! Every FMV has something to contribute to the ever-more-mysterious story. In fact, I went back and played through the game again, just to watch the FMVs over!

Sound - 6/10
What can I say about the music? It fits the game. It's made up of a lot of classical sounding...accordions. It's good music but, sadly, it gets extremely repetitive.

Back to the FMVs again, the are fully voiced over. The voices are loud and clear, but the accent the characters have are terrible. Also, you get to hear Layton or Luke shout out a few lines after every puzzle, which also get repetitive. Well, hey, at least it's impressive!

Control - 9/10
This game is fully controlled with your pointy-stick-implement-of-choice. It's easy to poke, prod, and select any item on the screen to investigate for puzzles or money. The only thing that dragged this down a point is that, once in a great while, two puzzles might located on two tiny objects very close to each other. It can be hard to pick between the two objects.

Difficulty - High (10/10 equivalent)
Some of the puzzles are take-a-nap easy. But the difficulty heats up rather quickly. Fairly quickly, you'll get to the throw-your-DS-at-nearest-hardest-object puzzles. Lucky for you, this game gives hints. Unlucky for you, these hints can be awkwardly phrased, or hard to understand. It never gets unbearable, but it can get pretty evil.

Replayability - Medium (5/10 equivalent)
Once the puzzles are solved once, you will always remember the answer. What's the point of going back through the game again (except for the pretty FMVs)? But Nintendo has found a way around this with the release of downloadable puzzles! Once a week (it seems to be Sundays), a new puzzle is released for you to smack your brain over. At least it gives you something to do with an otherwise useless completed game card.

Final Score: 57/70, 81%, 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/08

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