Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a game I didn't expect to grab my attention the way it did. I had heard about the Professor Layton games and I obviously was aware of Luke and Layton before even thinking about picking them up. My girlfriend insisted I play them. I knew they were puzzle games but I didn't expect to enjoy the game the way I did

Curious Village takes place in a fictional town in England called St. Mystere. You follow Hershel Layton and his assistant, Luke as they go to this town in search of the Golden Apple. The story is basic as basic gets going in but this game throws many twists that just blows your mind. All the characters are interesting to interact with because of how many characters there really are. It's also due to this game's amazing presentation. The art style is great. The music is pretty good too. Not to mention how fun exploring St. Mystere is

What dictates the game's pace is the puzzles. There are over 120 Puzzles to do in St. Mystere and 15 bonus puzzles. Making it a total of 135 Puzzles. Some of these puzzles are optional while others aren't. The difficulty of each puzzle is dictated by how many Picarats (The game's score) it's worth. 10 Picarats being the easiest, 99 being the hardest. Exploring St. Mystere can gain access to hidden puzzles and hint coins which allow you to purchase up to 3 hints per puzzle. With every failed answer, the Picarat score lowers which doesn't change the difficulty, but changes how many Picarats you will be earning.

Some of these puzzles are straightforward while others really require you to take a second and think. Some puzzles are so intense that I had to take a picture of the puzzle or get paper and write stuff down. These puzzles exceeded my expectations and some were REALLY hard to figure out which makes solving them extremely satisfying especially if you never bought a hint.

This game wouldn't be that interesting to me if it was just puzzles, but the story and characters are what drove me to keep going and the game got so fun that I accidentally solved all 135 puzzles without the goal in mind. The game even encourages you to play the sequel, Diabolical Box to find a password to use in this game. It's mindblowing. Trust me, these characters and the story will make you wanna keep going. It's also great to play with others. I played it with my girlfriend which was a blast. It still blew my mind to see animated cutscenes for a DS game.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village exceeded all my expectations and tho some of the story bits could have been better executed and some puzzles maybe should've been less repetitive, the game is a blast to go through and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to play a puzzle game with an equally engaging narrative.