Inevitable return…
Typically I want to do a really refined review of a game, with an anecdotal first person view of the game as one of the main characters. That’s what’s gotten me recognized in the past, but well, that requires creativity, and when you have a case of writers block the size of the Chrysler building it doesn’t quite work out that way. I made the mistake of falling asleep while watching, well, I don’t even know what I was watching, and can’t sleep any more. So, for your consideration I’m going to simply do what everyone else does in the case of talking about games, i.e. talk about games.
Professor Layton is one of those games that you want to carry around with you for some ungodly reason. It’s remarkably well designed, with beautiful European animation stylizations, and characters that are both intriguing and beguiling, and other words with that weird “ui” in odd places. You wander around the town poking at every nook, cranny, and crevice trying to find hint coins as you and your small child companion (and what cartoonish detective doesn’t have a small child companion, and yet doesn’t seem nearly as pedophilic as it could) that plays a good Watson to your Holmes.
The story draws you in, and you play puzzle after puzzle through out an overarching mystery of what the hell is up with this tiny town that has everything except a bathroom…including a ferris wheel. Everywhere you go, someone wants you to do their bloody math homework. Some of the puzzles are frustratingly difficult, which is why you poke at everything, including around the sewer, to get some of the finitely numbered hint coins so you can progress through the puzzles that have you bashing your head against a wall. Consider Professor Layton and the Curious Village to be Brain Age on crack, but without having to yell “brue” at my DS with a horrible Engrish accent.
The game is entertaining, and is one of those things that you want to have near your DS at all times. The Nintendo WiFi connection has weekly offerings of downloadable puzzles, some of which will leave your forehead bleeding profusely if you happen to not be in the particular mindset to solve that puzzle and have solved everything else in the game.
Go get it so they hurry up with the sequel.