Professor Layton and the Curious Village is one of those gems that seems to surface only on the DS--a unique breed of adventure game and brainteasing puzzler. You guide the titular character and his sidekick Luke as they enter the town of St. Mystere in search of the Golden Apple. What unfolds then is a unique mini-mystery tied together by a train of logic, math and perception puzzles, all manipulated by the stylus.

The art style is clean and endearing, with excellently animated FMV cutscenes propelling things along and crisp writing keeping you interested and upbeat. The music is slightly repetitive, but suitable, as it combines an overall unique French-style ambience while you futz over the latest puzzle.

The meat of the gamplay--the puzzles--is where things truly shine. Never really entering the realm of impossible, these are some of the most unique and clever challenges I've come across in a long while. You'll furrow your brow, working your mind like a Sherlock of sorts, and feel the delightful "Ah HAH!" moment when the answer suddenly strikes--and considering the depth, variety, challenge and multitude of these puzzles, you'll have that moment quite often. Plus, with weekly downloadable puzzles, it'll keep you thinking long after the main story is over.

Overall, any puzzle-loving gamer with a DS owes it to themselves to pick up this marvel of a title. It's money well spent, and a cart that I'm finding a hard time removing from my system.

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Well worth your time. Puzzles vary from easy to challenging. Story is interesting and graphics are good. Looking forward to their next Professor Layton game.

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This is a great game. I bought it for my wife. She has had many hours of enjoyment. She is sometimes frustrated trying to solve the puzles and problems but she is never bored.

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I bought this for my 14 year old niece who has played with it solidly since Christmas Day barely lifting her head since!

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I was a little hesitant picking up this game, but I figured, what the heck, it'll kill some time in the airport.

Then I almost missed my plane because I was so into this game.

The storyline is a little out there, but serves its purpose: give us an excuse to do puzzles, and what puzzles they are. Ranging from chess to logic to math, the puzzles in this game are top-notch. The hint-coin system allows you to adjust the difficulty, and the presentation is top-notch. There's not much immediate replay value; once you've solved the puzzles, there's really no reason to go back right away. But this is definitely a game I'll pull out every few years and see if I can still find and solve the puzzles, not to mention enjoy the gorgeous animated sequences.

Highly recommended.

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Pros:

Wide variety of puzzles including trick questions, word play, sliding blocks exit puzzles, logical true/false statement detection, and many basic probability/algebra/geometry problems.

The character design, backgrounds, animation and music all converge to create a nice romanticized 'Old World' feel.

Contains a total 135 puzzles plus 26 downloadable ones, so lots of content.

The whole story is moved along solely by solving puzzles.(For me this is pro, but for those who like more traditional mystery/detective games then this may be a con.)

Cons:

I can't think of any significant problem with this game!

Comments:

I really enjoyed solving the puzzles. This is a great game for anyone wanting to improve their puzzling ability. I plan to play all the sequels and prequels as soon they are released. I found the fantastical story entertaining and endearing, though I would have preferred it being done without the villain being of the 'mad scientist' archetype, however I am just glad to have a game where the hero uses his brain instead of brawn to save the day.

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The shipment time was only about 1 week and I was very pleased with the packaging and I would used this vendor again in the future. Great job.

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I had a lot of fun playing this game. If you like working puzzles, you'll love it. Sometimes I felt like it was a little tedious when I had to walk all the way to the other side of town, but only because I was so into solving the puzzles.

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If you are into puzzles then this is your game, yes sometimes it feels like all the puzzles along the way are slowing you down from getting to the bottom of the story but in the end they help you get ahead... I love this game the graphics are very, very, nice definately worth the price :)

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I am 48 years old and purchased my DS less than a year ago. I enjoyed this game so much that I would stand in line at midnight just to get a the sequal if it ever becomes available in the US. There are 26 additional puzzles that can be downloaded.

Enjoy, Beth

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Rather than a game, this is a collection of 135 basic puzzles and trivial puzzles that only sound hard. The puzzles are unlocked sequentially by clicking through the linear story. It is marketed as some kind of detective/mystery/adventure game, but it's not. The story actually just plays by itself, and you answer the puzzles.

The trivial variety puzzle uses arbitrary wordplay or ambiguous definitions. This becomes annoying when you can't ask the game to clarify the ambiguous question; hence, you sometimes get penalized for doing things the "right" way. These make up about 10% of the questions.

If you find yourself taking more than a minute, remember that nothing here can't be solved by a 3rd grader, so you are probably doing a trivial question.

Overall, the game was worth the time for the story and art design. Puzzles were amusingly written at times, though few actually make you use dedicated thought. Since 3 players can independently save progress, this is an ideal family game, particularly for kids.

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Very enjoyable game that never gets old- this game has lots of puzzles to keep you on your feet and the graphics are amazing! (not to mention the soundtrack!) 5 out of 5 any day!

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I bought this game for myself because I like adventure/puzzle type games, but I can't get the game away from my husband!! LOL He likes it so much he plays it every night. I would definitely buy this game again and may just have to, to be able to have a game to play myself..........

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The puzzles in this game are challenging and fun! the only problem is the characters blamer on a bit too much for me. But the fun totally overshadows the blah blah blahs!

-J

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This is a great game for fans of logic puzzles of any kind (if you're not into that sort of thing, don't bother with this game). There is a good balance of puzzle-solving and the underlying mystery story and it's paced so that you don't have too much of either one without the other. It is rather ludicrous when people keep asking you to help them solve puzzles but you'll get used to it. Overall, this has been a fun and challenging activity that I play on my daily commute and even at home. I'm even starting to think outside the box more in other situations. If you like critical thinking, it's a must have.

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