Review: Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Grade: B-
Time Spent Playing: 13 hours


An hour or so into Layton I was prepared to write it off as a 5 dollar grocery store puzzle book, gussied up by a charming cast of characters and gorgeous aesthetic. Having now finished it, that's pretty much exactly what Professor Layton is.

That doesn't make it not fun, I just find the disconnect between the world your exploring and the puzzles you're solving in it to be unappetizing. While I should have been more interested in the carefree goings on of Layton and Luke, I was more focused on finding and solving the inventive and involving puzzles, often to the detriment of my investment in the story and characters. I find that to be a shame because within five minutes of turning the game on I was in love with the whole concept; as if Layton were some cherished cartoon from my childhood given new life on my DS. This is probably why I'm more interested in seeing the upcoming movie than I am playing the sequels.

Thinking about it now, it seems ridiculous that I'm finding such fault with marrying the two aspects of the game that I enjoy so much independently of each other, but I really do think the two don't compliment each other. I will probably give a sequel a try, but I really hope that they make the puzzles more context sensitive to what is actually going on in the story.