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Surprisingly great

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 73 / 77
Date: February 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

No matter how the game's cover may look to you, make no mistake that Professor Layton and the Curious Village is one of the best original puzzle games you'll play on the DS yet. A combination of adventure storytelling and traditional puzzle gaming, Professor Layton never fails to entertain while providing some challenging puzzles. The game revolves around said Professor Layton traveling to a small village with his young assistant Luke. Both of whom are on a search for something called The Golden Apple. To search the town, you move from one area to another by tapping the touch screen, and along the way, you can discover hidden puzzles, hint coins, and secrets, as well as interacting with the townspeople and solving more puzzles. The game's graphics are incredibly charming, and the FMV sequences are very well done to boot. The best part about Professor Layton and the Curious Village is that once you do beat the game and unlock the game's 120 plus puzzles, you can download weekly puzzles for absolutely free! The only real flaw of Professor Layton and the Curious Village is that the game's music is repetitive and even kind of annoying, but you can always turn the volume of the DS down, which you might want to do. That aside, don't let the box art fool you into thinking that this is a game just for kids. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is an absolute must own for every puzzle loving DS owner.

Great game, love the brainteasers/riddles

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 35 / 38
Date: February 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is challenging and a lot of fun. The storyline is interesting and easy to follow, but for me it's all about the puzzles. The brainteasers in the game are form Puzzle Master Akira Tago, a retired professor from Chiba University, who wrote "Head Gymnastics." Many of them are classics and they will bring back instant memories of your early education. Some puzzles are pretty tough and hint coins can be found to help with these. Remember, many of the puzzles need to be solved before you can advance to the next part of the story; use your hint coins wisely.

(Small Spoiler: The hint coins are scattered throughout the village. Click everywhere, you'll uncover them.)

Pros:

- The touch screen/stylus controls are simple and easy to learn.
- You can save your progress at any time.
- Animated scenes and voice acting are very good.
- Your "Puzzle Index" keeps track of all the puzzles you've solved. You can even tag your favorites in your "Picks" section.
- You can download more puzzles from WFC every week.

Cons:

- I've needed a pen and paper a few times when the puzzles were a bit more challenging and there wasn't enough room on the DS screen for notes.
- Only the animated scenes are "fully voiced". During game-play, all the conversations are text/subtitles. No biggie really as it doesn't detract from the experience.

More to come later; I gotta get back to playing. :)

A challenging collection of logic puzzles - not to be missed

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 47 / 50
Date: February 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village is basically a series of logic puzzles wrapped around a lighthearted mystery. The story portions and basic point-and-click adventure aspects keep things moving along, but the real meat here is the puzzle selection (there are 130 in total, although not all are necessary to finish the game).

Many of the puzzles are difficult, but none are "cheap" - like a great Zelda dungeon, you always know the solution to your problem is in reach. No time limits are imposed, so you can play around and try to tease out the answer for as long as you like. I'm keeping a pad and paper next to me at all times to sketch out ideas and diagrams (and occasionally some light math). If you love that sort of thing, grab this game as soon as you can.

The Professor has a nice pedigree - the game was developed by Level 5, who have been behind some great epic RPGs: Dragon Quest VII (and the upcoming IX), Rogue Galaxy, the Dark Cloud series, and the upcoming PS3 title White Knight Story. They're one of my favorite developers, and it's great to see them branching out into something like this.

Between the constant and varied "quest" puzzles, the larger meta-puzzles, and some nice surprises thrown in along the way, there's plenty here to keep you occupied. Even better, new downloadable puzzles will be made available regularly. Add a charming art style and a great soundtrack (think whimsical French street music), and you've got an early contender for the DS game of the year.

Great game for pre-teen (under 13) and younger children

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 31
Date: February 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

We purchased this as a gift for a friend's son who is 9 and in the 4th grade. He had a great time working through the puzzles and seemed to enjoy it immensely. This game was chosen as it was a new release and it is educational as it requires problem solving skills rather than just eye and hand coordination. On one puzzle, our friend's son could not easily solve the puzzle, so he went to pen and paper to diagram it out and solve it so he could move to the next level. It was a puzzle that even required an adult to think about how it should be solved (but not beyond a child's skill level).

It was not easy to find a young smart child a gift that was educational and fun (I reviewed a lot of toys and games on the Amazon site and nearly gave up with as most of them were silly and did not seem that they would hold any child's attention once they completed the game or engage an adult who would play with the child). When I learned he had a Nintendo and I read the reviews for this game, as well as the description, I thought it would make a great gift and not annoy his parents as it would be too silly.

I think Nintendo has a winner in the DS games like Brain Age, Clubhouse Games and Professor Layton as they engage the children, and make it interesting for parents and other adults to play with them.

Great for kids and adults!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: February 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is a blast to play. The story involves solving some "mysteries" by doing puzzles. The puzzles are very fun and challenging and this is one of the most engaging DS games available. I love the animation style and there is a surprising amount of voice work in the game. Very impressive. This game is great for both adults and kids. The addition of new puzzles you can download for free every week is just icing on the cake. I highly recommend this game.

Bad Professor Layton! Very Bad!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: February 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Professory Layton is a bad game. I skipped a shower on Saturday, failed to do my laundry, cook meals (hot pockets aren't that bad actually) and didn't want to leave the house. My back hurt from spending days on the couch, I slept poorly and I took a long lunch yesterday to keep playing!!!!

This game is addicting. I bought in on Friday night and by Sunday afternoon I completed it. I was up all night until 3 am on Sunday morning, slept a few hours and wittled away my afternoon on the couch.

Although, I am still trying to locate 3 of the puzzles within the game. I clocked close to 13 hours on this stupid thing within the first 48 hours of owning it. I do admit, several of the puzzles did require pen and paper. The 33,333 was the most difficult for me. But many of the puzzles just require you to read it carefully to understand it and the answers are sort of a "DUH!" once you "get it."

The story is aptly termed "a light hearted mystery." It's fun, interesting, creative, easy to follow, but most of all challenging and intriguing.

I highly recommend this game and if you want to wait about another week, I'll be selling mine. jennw84@gmail.com

Save your dough and don't buy Brain Age, this is a lot better!

Possibly not for everyone!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: February 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Don't get me wrong! I love this game but I don't know how younger kids will respond to it. A lot of the puzzles are very challenging even for me and I'm 28 :) I just wanted to let parents know that they might expect complaining from kids because the puzzles may be just too difficult for them. One thing that is great about this game is that it has all of the completed puzzles in a list for you to go back and replay. After I'm done with a few of them I have my husband try his hand at them. It's very cool to see how differently our brains work. Some puzzles that I find are difficult for me are really easy for him and vice versa. I have also absolutely needed some paper to write out some of the puzzles. Definitely a fun game but not really "E" for everyone.

It was great while it lasted!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I enjoyed the puzzles and found them to be just about the right level of difficulty (for an adult), maybe a little on the easy side. The story was cute and I felt like I was wandering around a small European village. I would agree that the music gets a little repetitive at times.

I'm bummed that I finished it already, but look forward to the downloads and the next version. When's it coming?

Fantastic Game for Adults (and Kids)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: March 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

My ten year old son couldn't stop looking over my shoulder while I played this game (non-stop for over a week, now). It's more challenging for him, but his math program at school has a brain-teaser assignment for every Friday and and least two of the puzzles in the game were ones that he had already done as homework.

One good thing to know is that you don't have to solve ALL the problems in order to progress through the game, so in most cases you can bypass one you are really stuck on, and come back to resolve them later.

I "finished" the game and will let my son start from the beginning, but one of the things that will keep me from trading this one in now that I'm done is that every week I can download a new puzzle via wi-fi from Nintendo, so we'll be doing puzzles for quite a while. Excellent game, highly recommended.

Too easy??

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I must be a moron. After reading some of these reviews of people saying this game was too easy....there were quite a few puzzles that I could not figure out (being adult it's not easy to admit). Although I have to agree with those who said it could have been longer. Between my husband and I, I reached the end of the game the day after I got it. But it does give you the option to return to the game and solve the puzzles you didn't finish or find any puzzles you may have missed.

It's got a great story, and the mystery you're trying to solve while doing the puzzles is great too. I had an idea of what the outcome would be not long before I got to the end, but not knowing what kind of puzzle will come next made it fun.

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