Put your thinking cap on. You're going to need it.
Humble and charming intellectual Professor Layton and his intuitive assistant Luke venture to a small down named St. Mystere. They were summoned to help find a treasure known as the Golden Apple, revealed in a will by the passing of the late baron. Soon, the puzzle-solving duo begin to notice that things aren't what they seem in St. Mystere. They are presented with puzzles by everyone they talk to and everything they come across.
The puzzles, the very heart of the game, are for the most part wonderful. They vary in difficulty as well. Each puzzle is worth a different amount of picarats, which is the game's score. They range from 10 all the way up to 99. As can be safely assumed, the more picarats the puzzle's worth, the harder it is to solve. If you fail to solve a puzzle, the amount of picarats you can score decreases.
To asssist you in your puzzle solving are hint coins. Each puzzle has three hints you can unlock to help you when you get stuck. You can find hint coins throughout the game by tapping on places they are hidden.
The puzzles themselves are greatly varied. Some are logic based. Some are math based. Some are slide puzzles, while others are chess-themed. The game also loves to play around with the wording on some of them in an attempt to trip you up. You get a great sense of accomplishment when you're staring a puzzle and the solution reveals itself. The only downside is that a few puzzles tend to be recycled a bit too frequently.
You're encouraged to poke around every place in St. Mystere, because you can find hidden puzzles not normally given to you by the townsfolk or otherwise. If you end up missing puzzles after finising a chapter, you can go back to a certain area later on and solve them at your leisure.
Some puzzles will give you gizmos that you can collect and put together, while others will give you puzzle pieces. You'll even find furniture from others that you place in your inn and try to make sort a feng shui vibe going on for Layton and Luke. All this collecting eventually goes to unlocking the game's more harder bonus puzzles.
The touch screen interface of the DS suits the game perfectly. In the town, point on what you want to examine, where you want to go or who you want to talk to. In puzzles, point to the answer, draw, or write the answer in and the handwriting recognition software takes over.
The presentation of the game is absolutely charming. The story is told with anime-style FMV cutsenes. The art and character design is wonderful, and the music suits the atmosphere of the game rather well, although it does tend to get repetitious a bit too quickly.
Professor Layton and the Curious Village is another one of those unique games that really makes the DS stand out. You're given a point and clicker that not only has great puzzles, but also an intriguing story. For that alone, it's in your best interest to not let this title go unplayed. It would be puzzling if you did.