As a child, I would always look forward to a Saturday afternoon during the winter when my father would pull a box from the top of his closet.  It was always exciting because my sister and I did not get to play with the box’s contents very often and it was always a challenge.  The cardboard box was filled with various puzzles and challenging doodads.  We would try to out wit the brainteasers and mindbenders to claim victory over our box of treasures.  Professor Layton and the Curious Village affords you this same opportunity for fulfillment.  A point-and-click puzzle adventure on the Nintendo DS, Professor Layton offers the average gamer a well-paced, challenging romp through the fictional town of St. Mystere.

The first thing you will notice is that an elementary school-age boy is riding in a car and spending an inordinate amount of time with a middle-aged gentleman.  Once you get past your desire to call an Amber Alert, you begin to really look into the meat of the game and begin your well-paced adventure.  Professor Layton boasts 135 puzzles with only a few puzzles that have multiple variations of the same puzzle, giving you a large breadth of various trials to excite your mental capacities.  The puzzles themselves give you a decent idea of your purpose in the instructions, but also give you the possibility to purchase “hints” if the going gets tough.  The “hint coins” to purchase one of each puzzle’s 3 hints are found throughout the town hidden amongst the background.  Much to my chagrin, I did find myself pixel-hunting (tapping all over the screen on each background, every time) for hint coins to the point of stopping myself to solve puzzles and advance the story.

The story involves an invitation extended to Professor Layton to solve the mystery of the Golden Apple.  To solve the mystery Layton will need all of your wits to solve the residents’ puzzles in order to gather the clues.  Obsessed with puzzles, the citizens of St. Mystere have differing personalities that are enjoyable and their dialogue changes as the game moves along so as not to feel stale.  The story itself moves at a good pace where you don’t feel pushed to move on while also giving you the freedom of movement to explore the many facets of the town.  In fact, the game encourages you to roam and locate hidden puzzles, hint coins and participate in the collection side quests. 

The puzzles themselves are re-imagined versions of puzzles that have kept scholars quizzically scratching their heads over the past couple millennia.  Different visual, logic, mathematic and word puzzles will challenge you on multiple levels.  For example, there are puzzles that show an object made of matchsticks on a 2D surface.  You are charged with moving only one or two matchsticks and make a completely new object.  You will run into this puzzle more than once with increasing difficulty.  Another classic puzzle you will see is the one involving two different-sized containers filled with varying amounts of liquid and your job is to put a certain amount of liquid in each container.  If you have seen the movie Die Hard with a Vengeance, then you have seen this puzzle in action at the fountain in the park.  If I did have a gripe about the puzzles, it was that some of the puzzles gave you multiple choices, so if you did not know the answer, you could guess until you got it right, and, if you wanted to cheat, turn off your DS and start again with the right answer.   A tactic I may have employed if I wasn’t so lazy to wait for my DS to turn off and start up again.

Overall, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a good addition to the DS catalog.  The game works to the strengths of the DS.  It has easy start and stopping points, has crisp, stylized (read: cartoony) graphics and strongly utilizes the stylus gameplay.  Taking around 15 hours to complete the entire game, the story keeps you engrossed much of the time although I will say that the game doesn’t have much replay value since you already know many of the answers.  Any replay value is gained through downloading the puzzle of the week, which can be gained through your Nintendo wi-fi connection.  Best of all, it is a free service.

The average gamer will not be remiss for picking up Professor Layton and the Curious Village.  It does lean towards the casual market as this title is slightly lacking in the action department, but do not be fooled that this is for children.  There are many puzzles that require a little algebra or advanced problem-solving skills.  So, if you mentally feel up to the challenges of St. Mystere, grab your DS and join Professor Layton and his under-aged companion, Luke, for all the mystery and puzzles you can shake a stylus at.