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February 29, 2008
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
As I stated before, I recently picked up Professor Layton and the Curious Village (WARNING: Link contains spoilers!) for my DS. Anyone who knows me, knows I am a puzzle fanatic. I play puzzle games all of the time and enjoy them. So of course, when I first heard of this game, I knew I was going to have to get it. I'd have to say that overall I liked it. Here is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of it.
The Good
First let's start with the story. In Professor Layton you are trying to discover the location of the Golden Apple - a treasure of the late Baron Reinhold. To do so you must talk with the puzzle obsessed people of the town of Mystere. The story is actually pretty good, if somewhat predictable. I knew very early on what the people of Mystere really were because of some subtle clues along the way. This lead me to an incorrect assumption about Inspector Chelmy, though (Note: I'm being circumspect here because I don't want to ruin it for anyone who wants to play the game).
The interesting thing about this story is it's approach to using puzzles as part of a game. Usually, games try to pretend the puzzles are some intricate part of the game. You are supposed to believe that the puzzle is tied into some device seamlessly or some other such nonsense. In Mystere, the people are obsessed with puzzles and pose them to you as you progress in the game. Sometimes, characters will pose them as a trade such as "If you help me solve this puzzle, I'll give you information." There are a few places where the puzzles are presented as the means for opening a lock or triggering a device, and there are places where puzzles "just appear" or are "hidden". But most of the time, it is a direct QA session between characters.
The second thing about the game that is real appealing is the artwork and animation. The artwork is very clean and well done. The animation is really nice and would fit well as a cartoon on TV. There was only one spotty bit of performance in the playing of the animation (the main characters are running and the movement is just barely choppy) but otherwise it is superb.
The Bad
The only bad thing I can say about the game is actually about the puzzles themselves. Most of the puzzles are classic puzzles or variations on them. For instance, one puzzle is the classic about a farmer with a raft that must ferry across a river a wolf, a sheep and a piece of cabbage. This is an extremely old logic problem and easily solved. Only a few of the puzzles gave me any trouble at all. A couple of them were because of my own weaknesses in puzzles. In fact, as I write this I only have one final bonus puzzle to complete: 135 - Royal Escape. It is a perfect example of the type of puzzle I have the most trouble with.
The Ugly
There really is no truly negative thing to say about this game. I really enjoyed it even if most of the puzzles were easily solved. I look forward to the promised sequel.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give this game an 8.0.
Posted by Kaishaku at February 29, 2008 08:27 AM