At heart, Professor Layton And The Curious
Village is just a collection of classic
puzzles and brainteasers: rearrange matchsticks, get the wolves and sheep
across the river, and so forth. The game wraps its 120-plus puzzles in a
whimsical story about a detective and his sidekick who explore the village of
St. Mystere in search of a hidden treasure. But the story is just garnish: You
get to watch a mystery unfold, but you have no real opportunities to make a
difference.
What makes Professor
Layton shine is its genuine love for
puzzles. Where a lesser developer might have dumped these into a bargain Super
Puzzle Fun Time package with barely a menu
to tie them together, Professor Layton chooses its puzzles carefully, escalates through several of the same
type, and peppers the solutions with history and trivia. If you ask for hints,
the game gives you just enough guidance without handing over the solution: You
always have to brain your way through.
Beyond the game: Educational games have
long taken a bad rap, largely thanks to "edutainment" titles that mix tedious
drills with mindless gameplay. Professor Layton proves the argument made
by the Education Arcade, among others, that games teach best when they do what
games normally do: exercise skills like problem-solving and abstract reasoning,
while allowing players plenty of room to screw up and try again.
Worth
playing for: Every
time you solve a puzzle, it's moved to your "Puzzle Index" for easy
replay—which is handy if you want to share a puzzle or stump your
roommate.
Frustration sets in when: Many of the puzzles have
players use the DS touchscreen to manipulate objects or sketch out solutions.
The interface is mostly flawless, but an "Erase" mode would have come in handy
on some of the messier puzzles.
Final
judgment: A
top-notch package that'll make you love puzzles as much as the game's
designers.