From Aaron Stanton,
Your Guide to Nintendo Games.
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Professor Layton and the Curious Village is the first in a story-driven series of puzzle games. The new series contains puzzles similar to titles like Brain Age, but sets itself apart by moving through an interesting story with each success. The result is compelling, and a worthy launch to a franchise I fully expect to see more of.

• Ups: Attractive graphics. Interesting Story. Fun, non-timed Puzzles. Good dialog and voice acting.
  
  
• Downs: Occasionally slow story progression.
  
  
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Puzzle games like Brain Age or Big Brain Academy have established themselves as a very successful genre on the Nintendo DS. These games, which focus on short puzzles and relatively no storyline, help work the mental muscle in short bursts. Prof. Layton offers the same mental exercises, but packages them in a story-driven form, offering puzzles that allow the story to progress once solved. While the puzzles themselves rarely have anything of any significance to do with the plot of the game, the storytelling device serves as a nice framework for the puzzles. In my opinion, it's a far more entrancing approach to the genre than anything that's come before it.

The Puzzles Make Most of the Game:

The puzzles in Professor Layton and the Curious Village are what make up the heart and soul of the title. You'll be asked to mentally rotate objects in order to open gates, identify the weight of objects through deductive reasoning, and other similar tasks. If you've played Brain Age or Big Brain Academy, you'll find the puzzles familiar. The difference is that you don't find the puzzles thrust on you as a way of testing your mind; instead, these puzzles have to be solved in order to find out what happens next in the plot. Generally, the puzzles are very satisfying, though not too hard, and manage to be fun without being annoying. Probably the biggest advantage over other puzzle games is that Prof. Layton doesn't insist on relying on timed puzzles. You'll have time to puzzle through your problems, which is nice.

The Story:

The danger of having a story element in a puzzle game is the tendency to make the story of little consequence. To often, game designers think to themselves, "Well, the story really only exists to get gamers from puzzle to puzzle, so we won't worry about it too much."

Thankfully, Professor Layton and the Curious Village does an excellent job of keeping the story interesting, and the future a mystery. You play the role of two problem solvers, Professor Layton and his young assistant. At the start of the game you arrive in a village to help with a dispute over an old man's inheritance - he's apparently hidden something in the village, you see, and the person that finds it inherits a great deal of wealth.

This story leads you into deeper and darker mysteries, including a cast of interesting and suspicious characters. In a way, it reminds me of the old movie Clue, except set in a European village and interrupted by puzzles that have almost nothing to do with the storyline. It's strangely appealing.

Downloadable Content:

In a move that's still fairly rare on the Nintendo DS, Professor Layton and the Curious Village allows gamers to connect to the Internet and download additional puzzles. This is a fairly interesting aspect of the title, and certainly adds value, though puzzles outside the scope of the story sort of miss the point of the game.

Conclusions:

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a strong entry into the puzzle game genre, and certainly the title I'd buy if deciding between it and the other big dogs in the genre, such as Brain Age. The bright, cartoon graphics and interesting storyline serve to make it far more appealing to play than Brain Age or Big Brain Academy, while still offering a similar experience. Brain Age and similar games offer the essence of puzzle games, boiled down to nothing but puzzles. Professor Layton mixes that purity with adventure elements that - to this reviewer - are far more appealing than the puzzles alone. If you have any fondness for adventure games and want something to make you think, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a good way to go.

I only hope that the games that follow are as successful.