Professor Layton and the Curious Village Review (DS)
Here is the real review of Professor Layton and the Curious Village Review (DS)!
The real irony here is that I am sick again. So not only did I play the game sick but I also wrote the review while sick. Two different sicknesses mind you.
I hope its not too bad!
My Impressions
So the April fools version had one thing right, I was sick while playing this game. I’m pretty sure that it was completely coincidental; though a little birdie keeps insisting it’s a conspiracy!
Why I thought it would be a fun to test my logic skills while I had serious cotton brain, I don’t quite know. Never the less, I did enjoy the game and was able to play all the way through.
Most of the puzzles were readily solvable. Not that all of them were easy, some took quite a bit of thinking and trying. One thing I do have while sick is more patience – also known as zoning out or staring off into space. Some of the more difficult ones I asked my husband for help. He’s handy that way.
One thing I always have to do with these sorts of games is first get a feeling for the puzzles. I find it similar to taking the SATs or some other standardized test, where the key is finding out how the questions are asked and what sort of answers they are looking for. Puzzles that use word play to trick you into answering wrong are very different then math logic or Tetris type puzzles.
This step allows me to gear my thinking toward a specific type of answer. I find the vast possibility of answers sometimes a bit overwhelming. This is why I’m terrible at analyzing literature, too many possibilities, and I don’t have any tools to narrow down the field.
Review
Release date: February 10th 2008
Website: http://www.professorlaytonds.com/
Developer: Level 5
Platform I played on: DS
Game Summery
Accompany the famous puzzle solver Professor Layton and his side kick into a small town bursting at the seams with puzzles. But the Professor is really there to solve the biggest puzzle of all, the mystery of the town itself.
Game play
This game reminds me of old school adventure games. As you explore the town you are taken from one static screen to the next, spam tapping on everything in search of those illusive special interactive pixels.
That doesn’t make it sound very engaging. I promise its quite entertaining.
A nice little turn based adventure game with simple graphics and linear story line.
Each person you talk to, requires you to solve a puzzle before they are willing to help you out. Locks require puzzle solving. It’s really just a bunch of puzzles stung together with a story.
World and Story
The baron of the town recently passed away leaving a huge puzzle to solve, the mystery of the town St. Mystere. He left behind his most valued treasure as a reward.
The baron assumed that anyone smart and tenacious enough to locate the treasure would appreciate it as much as he had.
But there is more afoot in St. Mystere then mere treasure…
This linear story is broken up into chapters. Each chapter has a specific goal that the Professor must achieve. And while its encouraged to explore as much as possible the Professor is stuck in the village due to a malfunctioning toll bridge. This helps keep the professor on track as only a small part of the village is accessible at the beginning. Different parts are unlocked as the story progresses.
Some locales become unavailable from chapter to chapter, so its best to explore everything thoroughly before moving on.
Graphics
2d character designs over painted 2d backdrops. The overall feel of the graphics reminds me of Studio Ghibli movies.
The different chapters are linked together with animated cinematic.
All in all the graphics are very sweet and well suited to the game play.
Replay ability
Most of the puzzles in the game have only one answer, rendering them not very repeatable. The developers are releasing new puzzles over the wi-fi connection every so often.
Other then that it seems that the replay value is highly limited.
Multiplayer
As far as I know there is no multiplayer in the game. Our version of multiplayer consisted of me shoving the DS in my husband’s direction and asking him to solve a puzzle, or sharing one that I considered particularly clever.
Game finished
I played through the entire story, solved almost all of the puzzles, and found quite a bunch of hint tokens.
My Finished game stats:
Puzzles found – 118
Puzzles solved – 115
Total Score – 4055
Hint Coins – 120
I didn’t end up using as many hint coins as I could have. I tend to save things like this incase of dire need. Usually, I end up hardly using any by the end of the game.
Also the highest final score is around 5000. I am sure that I could have gotten a higher score but I chose to not do the save and load trick.
Things that bothered me
-Hunt the pixel
Most of the hint coins and the hidden puzzles are hunt the pixel events. Meaning that when I got to a new screen I would tap endlessly until I was absolutely certain that I had found everything. After a while, the endless tap tapping seemed pointless so I limited my hunt the pixel mini game to one minute per screen. This allowed me to actually progress instead of hunting for hint coins I never ended up needing.
One thing to note here though is that everything you require to continue with the story is relatively easy to find. So this mini game can be skipped if you like.
-The first hint is always pretty much useless.
As I neared the end of the game I realized that I had over 100 hint coins. Feeling rather silly I started to use some of them. Even then I was very selective, reluctant to waste them.
The thing that I found was that to get a decent hint I had to spend two sometimes all three coins.
The way it works is that there are three total hints per puzzle. Each one costs a coin. The first hint always seems to be extremely vague, so much so that if I am having trouble with a puzzle I usually need more then just a vague hint. So it always took me at leave two coins.
Now I know, I had over one hundred coins, why not use more. I don’t know, I can’t explain, but the little collector in me just wouldn’t let me use more.
-Saved before the end boss. Why can’t I go back and tidy up?
This game, like in Zelda Windwaker for the DS, asked to save right before the end of the game and then wouldn’t let me go back to clean up.
For me once I have finished a game, inertia sets in and I find it really hard to motivate myself to go back.
Time played
17 hours. I’m so glad this game actually tracked how long I played. My puzzle solving was a little on the slow side. Some of that time was also due to me leaving the DS out while I napped.
My non-sick playtime probably would have been less.
Rating
Mood Progression
Excited – (8) Sick blech!! – Happy, looking forward to downloading some more puzzles.
Last thoughts
Best not to play this while sick. I’m sure the enjoyment factor goes up by a lot!
Tags: cute, ds, puzzle, roleplaying
