Professor Layton and the Curious Village review

Last week I was in the pub chatting to a mate about adventure games and he says I should try Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the DS. This game passed me by big style as it came out at the start of the year and I’ve never heard of it. However, I can’t put it down so let me tell you all about it in case your DS is currently gathering dust.

The game tells the story of the professor and his apprentice Luke as they visit the French town of St Mystere to solve some puzzles and find the biggest puzzle called the Golden Apple. Once you step foot in the village you meet all manner of colourful characters and there’s a few strange goings-on that you must also solve along the way. The adventure itself plays itself almost automatically and instead of the usual point-and-click adventuring, you simply have to solve puzzles people pose to you along the way.

They’re a mixture of logic and maths puzzles, IQ tests, riddles and trick questions and there’s no time limit on how long you can think about them. If you need to you can buy hints with coins you find around the village to help you or just guess and sacrifice points by doing so.

They really are great fun to figure out and it’s also great fun playing this with someone else as you take it in turns or work together to work things out. You can spend ages thinking things through and then it’ll suddenly click giving a big old surge of satisfaction and smugness!

I also like the whole look of the game. It reminds me of Mr Ben mixed with the first Broken Sword games.
This is one of those great games that will only work on the DS. There’s hundreds of puzzles to do and collectables too, including jigsaw pieces of an old painting, furniture for the two puzzler’s rooms that you must arrange in a sort of Feng Shui -em-up and gizmos to collect so you can build a special surprise.

A couple of the puzzles are just plain wrong but most of them hit the right spot and are re-playable once you’ve done them. If you fancy all the thinking of Brain Age with some humour and and intriguing story, make sure you get this game. You can pick it up pretty cheap. Professor Layton gets an almost-perfect 9 out of 10!

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