12th Review
Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the DS is a very good game and a unique one as well with many great new features. I'll start off with the great things about this game.
Professor Layton is your standard point and click game but it has a lot of puzzles which really make it fun. The story is also very well done and there are amazing cutscenes that you will love to watch. The point and clicking is made fun with hint coins you can find throughout the game that are hidden it many spots and you just touch themspot with the stylus to find it. Obviously since it's point and click you'll be talking to lots of people and going around finding the next clue so it is standard there.
The puzzles are VERY good. You will encounter tons of puzzles throughout the game and they are a lot like stars in Super Mario 64 in that most of them are optional but you'll need to solve a certain amount of puzzles in order to get though some of the parts of the game so you'll want to do as many as you can.
I said they are very good because the difficulty is spot on. Each and every puzzle is made so perfect so that you won't spend lots and lots of time wondering how in the world to find the answer but you won't solve each puzzle very fast and each one will require you to think about it and with friends or family it is actually pretty fun. I liked to ask my friends and family when I was stuck and then they would help and then they'd want to do more puzzles. The puzzles are very addicting because of their perfect difficulty and set up.
Of course there are more hard puzzles then easy ones so you'll need your hint coins for those so be sure to search for them. You may get stuck and want to simply get the answer on the internet but I rarely did this and finally getting the answer can be quite rewarding.
The story is great. There will be lots and lots of mysteries and you'll think that they are all connected but then as they slowly reveal themselves you discover another force is at work and the story gets very interesting towards the end when it is all revealed. The voice acting is also very well done during the cutscenes. They match the characters perfectly.
I don't know what it is but the game just doesn't feel new to me. It just feels like a Freddi Fish or Pajama Sam game with a lot more puzzles and a better story so it just feels like it is lacking innovation. I don't know, once you beat the game and figure out the story you won't want to play it much more except for maybe getting all the puzzles solved, I don't think much can be done to the genre but hm, there were times when I wasn't doing puzzles when the game got a little boring.
The graphics are good, it's your standard point and click game graphics and the cutscenes are as gorgeous as ever and fun to watch over and over.
The music is good, but like Rocket Slime I feel there isn't enough. For example, there are 130 puzzles in the solve and there is only 1 song for each puzzle so bleh the song gets old, course this was the only part I felt it needed more songs and the other songs are all very good and when you unlock the soundtrack you many want to listen to some of the tunes, but man, 130 puzzles, in which you'll spend lots of time solving each one and every single one has the exact same song!? WHAT!? lol
To sum things up, Professor Layton is a simple yet fun game especially for fans of puzzles and finding hidden clues in sentences and such. The story and cutscenes are great, the puzzles are super fun, especially to do with others and see who can solve it first. The graphics and music are mostly good, and even though the game lacks innovation and replay value, it is a very addicting game and one that you will enjoy very much and just a real fun game.
Overall Score: 8.25 + Puzzles (0.50) + Story and Cutscenes (0.25) + Touch Screen Controls (0.25) - Little replay value (0.25) =
9.00 
