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There’s been some positive buzz all over the gaming blogs about this new DS game: Professor Layton and the Curious Village. At first glance, it looks like an adventure game, maybe something similar to Phoenix Wright.

I keep hearing non-stop praise for the game, so I got it a few days after it came out. Well, technically, Kelvin got it at Best Buy, using my Best Buy gift card. He didn’t even know what the game was called when he got to the store. He asked the sales associates for “Dr. Lamppost”, but they couldn’t find it on the racks. When they went to the back to look for the game, Kelvin gave me a call to find out what the name really was. And of course, there were 20 copies on the rack right in front of him. He then went to checkout, leaving the Best Buy dude in the back still searching for Dr. Lamppost. Even though Kelvin was doing me a favor getting me the game, he didn’t use a 10% off coupon like I asked him too! He was too lazy to print out a stinking coupon! As a result, I had to nag him about it for 10 minutes when he got home :P

Anyway, in Professor Layton and the Curious Village, you follow the footsteps of the main character, the puzzle-master-not-a-detective Professor Layton, and his annoying sidekick, Luke. I don’t get why Luke follows Prof. Layton everywhere, and I seriously wonder where his parents are. He’s probably an orphan, since all little English boys are orphans, right?

They arrive at a town called St. Mystere, where they have to figure out the mystery of the Golden Apple (some dead guy’s hidden treasure). They walk around town, talk to random people, touch random objects, and there’s even freaking pixel hunting. Sounds like an adventure game, right? It’s not; it’s a pure puzzle game. And I mean, REAL puzzles like matchstick puzzles, slider puzzles, riddles, yada yada. It’s puzzle after puzzle inside a strange story of a mystery in a mysterious town. Even though Professor Layton and Luke go around and do all this stuff, all it ever brings is more puzzles that have NOTHING to do with whatever you interacted with. Penny Arcade summarized it best with their comic:

The puzzles in the game are greatly varied both in difficulty and type. The DS interface works superbly for these puzzles with heavy usage of the stylus to move puzzle elements around, draw lines, or write words. Three hints are available for each puzzle, and these hints are unlocked by using hint coins that you find throughout St. Mystere. The difficulty of the puzzle is shown through their picarats (points basically), and when you beat a puzzle, you get that many picarats. You lose picarats from the puzzle with each incorrect answer. I still haven’t figured out what the picarats are for, but you get random collectible items when you beat certain puzzles. Some puzzles require logic, and some require thinking outside of the box. Most puzzles and their solutions are logical, though there were a few I found obscure, ambiguous and open to interpretation. (Three that stick out in my mind are #45, #53, and the last puzzle in the storyline #100.)

The meat of the game is the puzzles, and the story is almost kinda throwaway in how silly it is. Despite this, I found what kept me playing was actually the narrative. The game is just absolutely charming. The animations are very well done, with its tone reminiscent of quaint Studio Ghibli works (i.e. Totoro). The voice acting is also excellent; Professor Layton sounds just as I expected him to sound (English and intellectual), as does Luke (English and obnoxious). If you took out all the gaming portions, I’d feel like I was watching an animated short. This game was supposed to be my play-during-bedtime-until-I-pass-out game to replace NY Times Crosswords. Instead, I got hooked last weekend and stormed through the game. It’s the first time in months I actually spent a day just playing a game. (Hey, I’ve been busy!) By the end, you’ll think Professor Layton is a badass, and by the end you’ll still think Luke is annoying.

There are over 120 puzzles, plus more downloadable via Nintendo’s Wi-Fi service (which I have yet to try as Kelvin immediately stole the game from me when I beat it). Aside from a few irksome puzzles, I don’t have very many bad things to say about this game. It’s got the challenge and production values gamers expect from their games, but at its heart, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is just a collection of puzzles, so casual gamers and non-gamers can easily get into it. I really, really enjoyed this game, and I’m anxiously anticipating for the sequels to come to the US. 9/10

Anyways, get this game. It’s awesome. If you’re still unsure, there’s a demo at the official website for the game.

I’m tired of these assholes pointing at me!

(Images mostly stolen, but linked to their sources.)
btw, here’s a link to another cute and funny comic about the game from 2P Start.

New thing I learned today: Professor Akira Tago, who researched psychology and is the author of the best-selling Japanese puzzle book series “Head Gymnastics”, is the creator of all the puzzles in the game.