Professor Layton and the Curious Village review (DS)

Normally, dear reader, I sit writing my reviews with the game in question sitting in front of me. Can’t do that this time as a work colleague has run off with my copy of the astoundingly good Professor Layton and the Curious Village and refuses to give it back. I can’t really blame him. After all, it’s due payment for making said colleague play the bloody awful Samurai Warriors: Katana. I still feel guilty about that… Furthermore, Professor Layton’s debut is so very, very good, that I can’t fault him for holding on to it until he’s finished every last puzzle of the 130 plus available.

Oh My Goodness, This Is Good!

It’s hard to know where to begin. I suppose the first thing to say is that this is basically a point-and-click adventure game. Only it really isn’t. It’s basically a series of puzzles – everything from disguised suduku squares, through actual maths quandaries, via sliding block challenges, some devilish logic brain twisters, and some puzzles that have to be attempted because they defy simple explanation. Only that doesn’t do the game justice either, and may even put you off. That would be a damn shame as this is probably one of the best titles available on the DS. Really.

In fact, the best way to tell you what the game is about is to talk about the intricate, beautiful, perfectly constructed story – the joyous premise on which the whole thing hangs like a perfect Gautier suit.

Ideal Holmes

Living in a sort of Victorian age but with cars, Professor Layton travels with his young assistant, Luke, in a Citroen 2CV-style automobile. They seem to be in the quirky, beautiful France of the animated films Les Triplettes de Belleville and, my personal favourite, La Vieille Dame et les Pigeons. Layton is a gentleman Holmes, with none of the cynicism and bitterness of Doyle’s great detective. Luke is just a little nippy, thanks in the main to some occasionally not so hot voice acting.

Voice acting? Oh yes! You see, this game is stuffed full of astonishingly good animated clips (and I mean that – you will watch them again and again), excellent scripts, fun characters, and beautiful environments that lead to a depth of presentation that will absorb and entertain you, making you forget that you’re essentially playing a Brain Training game. Layton and Luke wander the land, it seems, solving puzzles. They have been summoned to the village of St. Mystere by a rich widow with a mystery to solve, but are quickly involved in a tale of murder and kidnapping that distract them from discovering the secret of the Golden Apple.

A Puzzle Quest

On their quest, Layton and Luke are continually set puzzles by the locals – the sole export of St. Mystere is the puzzle, you see. “Weird, but ok,” you’ll say, “I’ll go with that.” Somehow, the set-up lets it work, and the uncovered story utterly makes sense. This is helped by the way the puzzles themselves are presented.

There are some 120 scattered through the game world. Most are given by the locals, some are stumbled across by tapping the environment, and others are unlockable bonuses – there’s even the opportunity to ‘download’ a weekly puzzle using the Wi-Fi connection, though it is suspected that the puzzles are already on the cart and are merely unlocked by the downloaded. Who cares?! Believe me, play this and you won’t.

Each puzzle has a picarat rating, from 20 to 100, and collecting picarats unlocks bonuses in the menu, including the chance to view character art, listen to sound samples and music, or watch the animated videos again (and again, and again). Also, solving puzzles will give you pieces of a painting, a robot friend (that helps uncover secrets), and even items of furniture. Complete the robot, the painting, and furnish the rooms to the satisfaction of Layton and Luke, and you unlock additional puzzles. Completing the main game and finishing all the puzzles unlocks additional challenges. There’s even a secret door that unlocks with a code obtained in the sequel! Yay! A sequel!

Picarats Make Prizes

Guessing wrong in the puzzles loses you picarats, but the reward on offer never drops below a certain point. This means there’s always a reason to finish the puzzle. You can ‘buy’ up to three hints per puzzle using hint coins. You start off with a lot, and more can be found around the village, again by tapping the screen in often random places (yes, it’s a bit dull) or through the help of your robot friend. The clues can sometimes not help (particularly on a very few of the tougher puzzles later on), or occasionally pretty much tell you the answer (the very easy questions only), but are usually well thought out.

The picarats are not just a reward, though. They also work as part of the puzzle. For example, you can find yourself stumped on a 70 point puzzle only to suddenly realise it’s actually really simple. By offering a high reward, the puzzle designer is making you think the simple answer can’t possibly be true. Similarly, the reward on a 30 point puzzle can fool you into going for what looks like the answer, only to find the question is a trick one, hiding a deceptively tricky answer. Brilliant!

Not All Sunshine And Flowers (Just Mostly)

Now, on to the few negatives. Though there is little replay value to the game, finishing it will take time and will be so satisfying that you will have a rosy glow of genuine achievement for days after. There’s no multiplayer as such, but you will draw your friends around you to help with certain puzzles. In itself, that’s more fun than any tacked-on multiplayer afterthought. The way certain puzzles or hints are worded could be better, but these can literally be counted on the fingers of one hand – not bad at more than 130 puzzles in a translated game!

Of course, this game is not going to appeal to everyone, though it bloody well should! Game design this good should be compulsory for anyone with an interest in what makes games good. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is not just style over substance – it’s style and substance and platform all working in perfect harmony. That is impossibly rare.

The sequel is out in Japan. The sooner it arrives, the happier I will be. If it’s not as good as the first, I may resort to self-harm… The nine out of ten awarded to the good Professor’s dazzling debut may fly against the maths of the preceding numbers, but it’s thoroughly deserved.