Despite small issues, a wonderful game that should appeal to young and old, hardcore and casual gamers alike.
Since Professor Layton and the Curious Village's most prominent feature is its puzzles, I'm going to start there. There is a wide range of puzzles and riddles, some which you may have heard or seen throughout your life. Others are completely new and innovative, unless you happen to be a hardcore puzzle fanatic or are familiar with the works of Professor Akira Tago. In any case, a good majority of the puzzles were constructed well in the sense that they'll work the mind of the average Joe and leave him feeling satisfied following a correct answer. However, there are a few flaws that I found here and there, more so in the middle of the game than the beginning or end.
In this game they coach you to pay close attention to detail, so sometimes a single word or phrase can be the difference between a "correct' and an "incorrect" answer. Only sometimes, paying close attention to the wording was exactly what made my answer incorrect. For instance, in one puzzle the player is asked how many juice cups they would need to [move] in order to make the top arrangement identical to the one on the bottom. It says the cups need to be moved by hand, and only one at a time. When I looked at the puzzle, only two cups needed to be switched. One contained juice, the other did not. It's not that I didn't think of moving the juice, but the puzzle specifically said the cups themselves needed to be moved, not their contents. I got the puzzle wrong because I interpreted the wording incorrectly. I realize that mentioning being allowed to move the juice would have given away the answer, but the game ranked it as an easy puzzle anyways. I'll take solving a puzzle that's too easy over one where I feel like the "correct" answer was in fact incorrect any day.
Of course, since Professor Layton has gone through the translation process I don't know if this was a problem with the actual wording or just the translation. Regardless, I feel that some of this problem may have been alleviated by a labeling system so that the player doesn't do something like examine wording too closely on a math problem. Alas, there is a labeling system, but it's not the kind of labeling I had in mind. The labels tell you if the puzzle is multiple choice, circle the answer, a matchstick puzzle, pitcher puzzle, and so on, but they say nothing on what sort of skill the player might need to use. Furthermore, these labels are only available after the player has completed the puzzle instead of during the puzzle.
The only sort of warning there is as to what sort of puzzle is coming up is in the form of Picarats. Picarats are like points received for solving each puzzle that come with the mysterious promise of something good happening if enough of them are collected. The alternate purpose they serve is to determine the difficulty level of the incoming puzzle. That would be so helpful if it were only effective. At the beginning I thought most Picarat labels gave me an accurate idea of how difficult the puzzles were, but that changed as I got into the game. I would get stuck on what the Picarats told me were fairly easy problems, and was able to solve some of the "hard" ones in under a minute. I don't know if I'm the only one this happened with, but it made me question the purpose of the Picarats if they weren't going to help me determine the puzzle difficulty or give me any immediate rewards.
Another lovely ability the Picarats have is the one to go down for every wrong answer until a certain point. This would distress any perfectionist player as it did me; especially when a small mistake warrants an incorrect answer and a decrease in Picarats. The Picarats the puzzle is worth begin to dwindle with the first wrong answer. I figure that this is to encourage thinking and discourage guessing, but why would I buy a puzzle game if I was going to guess my way through? When I made an honest mistake and figured out what I'd done wrong, I felt unjustly punished for it. A one mistake leeway would have been greatly appreciated. Get it wrong once, it might have been a mistake. Get it wrong twice, and I'm either looking at the puzzle completely wrong or guessing.
In the case that the player does get terribly, horribly stuck, there are hint coins. Decidedly a limited amount of them. Not that there's anything wrong with that or looking for the hint coins around St. Mystere, but there's an issue with the actual hint system. Each puzzle has three hints that are all unlocked when you solve the puzzle, each costing a hint coin during the puzzle. However, sometimes the first hint or two is entirely useless. The first hint might be something that says to look harder, with either no play on words or the vaguest ever. In these cases the third hint is usually enough to figure the puzzle out, if it hasn't completely given away the answer. I didn't run into this problem too often, but when I was really stuck and had to spend three hint coins for a single useful hint, it was a bit frustrating. Also, sometimes the message displayed after submitting an incorrect answer is enough to solve the puzzle. So lose hint coins, or lose Picarats. I definitely feel that the hint system could have been balanced a bit better.
This concludes my complaining, and now on to the good stuff. The second largest component in Professor Layton was the story, and I gotta say it was a pretty darn cool story. We come in as Professor Layton and Luke are finding their way towards St. Mystere to settle an inheritance dispute. The inheritance is in the form of a Golden Apple that the late Baron Reinhold has hidden somewhere within the town. His family would now like to find it, and that's where the Professor comes in, but from there it gets wacky.
The story is paced fairly well, and what I liked most about this game is that it's perfectly portable. This is a game that one could pick up and play for a few minutes anywhere without having to worry about waiting through much of anything long and mandatory besides an exceptionally hard puzzle. There is a journal with snippets of the story inside, so one could even put the game down for an extended period of time, come back, and be able to refresh their memory of all the important events. It truly is a desirable game both to play on the go and to plow through at home.
To complement the story is the stunning visuals. The Curious Village has some of the best visuals I've seen on the DS. The character design is…interesting, to say the least, but also cute and unique. Making the environment and stationary characters move, if only by a few pixels, was a nice touch as well. Though the animated cutscenes definitely take the cake, and were a welcome storytelling element. Unfortunately they aren't evenly distributed and are more frequent towards the end, but satisfactory nonetheless.
The music was another well-done piece, although I might even say too well-done. To fit the mood of the game I imagine, the music is very slow and soothing. There are no timed puzzles, you don't feel rushed, and the slow, calming music fits well with the concept that the player has all of the time in the world. The problem for me is that if I was tired and tried to play this game, the combination of music and thinking would lull me to sleep in the middle of a puzzle. I was planning to play through this game quickly, but that really threw a monkey wrench in my gears. So warning: Do not try to play when tired. It is more like than not you too will be lulled to sleep.
As for the more minor details, loading times were fast and unremarkable, the player is able to save at pretty much whatever point they want, and when moving things it was sometimes necessary to press slightly harder than lightly. There are also little mini-games that require items from completed puzzles, and these completed mini-games unlock puzzles in the bonus section. If you happen to miss a puzzle while playing through? Don't worry about it. The puzzles that are no longer where they used to be are in a place where you can complete them at your leisure. Everything is unlocked at the end of the game except for the bonus puzzles, meaning character profiles, cutscenes, and even voice snippets.
Overall and despite the issues I had with it, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a great game that is well suited to both a younger and adult audience. Whether it's Professor Layton's gentlemanly persona or the challenge of the puzzles, you should find something to love that's well worth the $15 the game is going for now. Come one, come all, and try Professor Layton!