Reviews

I can hear you saying with a groan "Not another puzzle game for the DS!" You'd be right; the DS is riddled with puzzlers and mini game compilations, so much so that it's hard to keep up with them all. It's hardly surprising when the casual gamers are crying out for them (the type of people that would avoid great adventures like Dragon Quest). Puzzle games are fine, we all love a good puzzle, but the market is becoming flooded with the same old games. Professor Layton and the Curious Village takes a new approach, with its merging of puzzles and brain teasers with a story driven adventure. Curiosity killed the cat, but is the curious village just what the puzzle genre needed to keep it alive and fresh?

Well, I can rest easy knowing that I'd get at least one question right.

For anyone who played Puzzle Quest, the formula of Professor Layton will be fairly familiar. Puzzle Quest merged RPG elements and a fantasy adventure story with a Bejewelled-style puzzle battle system. The two worked brilliantly together resulting in an extremely engaging game that probably didn't get the credit and recognition it deserved. Professor Layton's puzzles come together in the form of a point-and-click adventure where the puzzles are the obstacles for advancing the story.

Puzzle solving genius Professor Layton and his young assistant Luke are called to the quaint village of St Mystere to help search for the Golden Apple, a mysterious object hidden by the recently deceased Lord of the Manor. Whoever is fortunate enough to find the apple will inherit his rather large and unusual Estate. Naturally, nothing is straightforward and many obstacles, twists and puzzles stand in the way. The story isn't just a half-hearted attachment, as the constant set-backs, bizarre characters and beautiful cut-scenes are a uniquely engaging way of bringing the puzzles together.

Some puzzles are new takes on old classics.

The 3D animated cut-scenes are brilliantly presented, with voice acting to go with them. It's nice to see a lot of effort has been put into a hand-held game's FMV segments. The entirely stylus orientated game play switches to 2D for the exploration and puzzle solving. Between puzzles, there's plenty of talking, investigating, collecting items and objectives to complete. You'll spend a lot of time roaming St Mystere and talking to residents, but if you don't like the talking and investigating sections, fear not as there's a puzzle for every occasion. Talk to people and they'll give you a puzzle, investigate objects/ buildings and you'll discover puzzles, there are even puzzles hidden in lights, paintings and clocks! In fact, everyone has puzzles in their pockets waiting to challenge you. This guy talks too much, where's the next puzzle, oh here it is!

There are over 120 puzzles, riddles, optical illusions and teasers throughout the game, and each one is delivered with its own unique style, from writing in answers to riddles, rotating a picture to create a whole new one, or separating 6 pigs with 3 ropes. The wide variety on offer is astonishing and they range from fairly easy to extremely difficult. Thankfully, the lack of time limits means you can spend as long as you like solving the puzzle, which is useful as while some require simple logic, others can be a case of trial and error, and some will simply turn your brain into jelly.