Kopi Talk - Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Hi Gabriel another article about gaming keep it flowing Thanks

As any handheld gamer worth his salt (or even some non handheld gamers worth their salt) would know, the DS (short for Nintendo Dual-Screen, I would think) has always been home to an assortment of unique titles. While the system might not have the raw technical power of the Sony PSP, the dual screens (the bottom one being a touch screen) open up a whole new world of possibilities for different gameplay mechanics and elements to be brought in that have never been done before.

Of course, while there are several games that rely on the touch screen to make their mark in the gaming scene (cue Cooking Mama and Trauma Centre, both excellent games that were only possible with the touch screen, although both have been adapted to the Wii, with its motion sensor controls, with moderate success), the DS is only known to host several quirky games. These games (the acclaimed Phoenix Wright series and Hotel Dusk 215), while not relying solely on the touch screen, have their own presentation style and bring a type of game style that has rarely been done before to the table. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is one of these types of games.


Based on a simple yet addictive concept, PLCV (as I’ll call it from now) is, to put it simply, a game of mini puzzles. The player plays through a simple (yet inexplicably charming) storyline as the titular professor (and his bumbling assistant a la Robin of Batman and Robin fame), proceeding through the story by solving mind-boggling puzzle after puzzle.

While the plot and the basis of the game aren’t much to write home or shout about, what sets PLCV apart from other puzzle based games is its presentation and execution.

Firstly, the game’s graphics are, like most of the game itself, simple and quaint yet unbelievably elegant and beautiful. Sporting a colourful cartoonish palette, the game is ravishing from head-to-toe, at once evoking a sense of nostalgia from those old French-styled cartoons from our youth as well as the simplistic art of anime classics such as Spirited Away. Once in a while, there is even a short cut-scene or two featuring videos that look like they literally popped out from the nearest cartoon.

Next, the presentation of the game is linear and easy to follow. Featuring uncluttered menus and a pretty straight path to follow, the gamer never once feels lost or frustrated (well, other than with certain brain-numbing puzzles). Instead, the game is done simply enough to let the player reach his next puzzle soon enough, but still well enough to keep his attention to the game.

Of course, the meat of the game would be the puzzles and here is another area where it shines. The game, in its basic form, consists of over 120 puzzles, ranging from simple ones which require basic common sense to some skull-cracking frustrations that ask of logic and some true brainwork. That said, though, the puzzles are never impossible to solve and, most of the time, players just have to step back, read the question carefully (for there are several intentionally trickily phrased questions) and the answer will occur to them after a while. To help the truly stumped, the game even offers hints (at a price of course; players have to pay for them with coins found throughout the game, which makes using them only a solution in the toughest of cases).
To up the value even more, more puzzles can be downloaded online for free on a weekly basis so, once you’ve finished the game and solved all the puzzles, there’s still always something to look out for in weeks to come.

While most of the puzzles don’t have much replay value and you won’t want to go through again once you’ve solved them, that’s the only glitch (which, technically, is just the nature of puzzle games, anyway) in what is otherwise a solidly done game. Like a reviewer of this game once said, PCLV could have just been a hastily hashed together collection of puzzles with nothing to link them together or entice the player. Instead, it is so much more.

Rating: Beautiful graphics, an alluring storyline, truly entertaining brain challenges (take that, Brain Age) and weekly downloadable puzzles; the game is easily a 5 out of 5.