Professor Layton and The Curious Village (Nintendo DS)

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is part of a series of adventure/puzzle games for the DS handheld console. The main protagonists of the game are the Professor himself, an archaeologist and amateur detective with a penchant for puzzles, and his assistant Luke, a bright young boy, who unfortunately has an cockney accent as bad as Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins!The game begins with the pair being summoned by the mysterious Lady Dahlia to the strange village of St Mystere, where she hopes that they will help her to locate a treasure called the "golden apple" that was bequeathed by her husband the Baron to the person clever enough to solve the puzzles involved in finding it. Upon arrival in this curious village, the Professor and Luke soon realise that not is all as it seems, and their search for the treasure takes many twists and turns as they have many mysteries to solve on the way, such as the location of a missing cat, a servant who vanishes and reappears with no memory of what happened, and of course, a murder, with the Professor labeled as a suspect!Cleverly weaved into the story are 120 different puzzles, which need to be solved if you are to complete the game in its entirety and unlock 15 further bonus puzzles. For a game that looks at first glance to be aimed at children, the puzzles are fiendishly difficult to solve, and although the game is classified as suitable for age 7+, it is really only suitable for those aged 10 and over.The puzzles are the main part of the game and they are many and varied. Some are variations of very old puzzles and riddles that you will be vaguely familiar with, such as moving matchsticks and coins to make shapes, or trying to work out who is lying afer reading list of statements. The hardest puzzles are the sliding block puzzles, and one of the took me over 1000 moves before I finally managed it! The chess puzzles are also really hard, with one puzzle requiring you to place 8 queens on an 8X8 chessboard without any of them blocking the path of the others (try this one!). In the end, my son did it, to my shame, and I still don't know how it is done!This game is jaw droppingly impressive for many reasons. The first reason is the AMAZING use of animation and speech in the cutscenes. It is like watching a little cartoon on the DS, and I had no idea that the DS was capable of doing this. We have quite a few DS games and none of them are this sophisticated. The music of the game is very atmospheric and adds to the ambience of the viilage. There are loads of things to see and find in the game and lots of hidden goodies and puzzles. If you touch certain locations in the game, you get "hint coins" which are a big help when trying to solve some of the tougher puzzles.The game is a real treat visually, and I love the manga style characters, especially Flora, who has huge, saucer eyes! The game has a good variety of different characters that live in the village, who are all a bit quirky and love nothing better than asking you to solve puzzles! I would have preferred a bit more freedom in the game to go where I chose and explore more, as I felt like I had to follow a certain rigid path and order of events in order to see the game through. I was also a bit disappointed that all of the mysteries were solved for me at the end. I would have liked the chance to deduce things for myself, rather than being spoonfed the answer.The game is easy to navigate by means of the stylus, which you use for everything, from navigating the village and speaking to residents to solving the puzzles. Use of the stylus is easy and intuitive, and even people who are not familiar with gaming would soon get the hang of it.I had the game on Tuesday, and didn't start playing it until the evening. I was sucked in straight away, and became really curious about how the story would pan out, so I played it nearly all day on Wednesday, (ignoring the kids pleas for things like food!) finally completing the main story at 10:00 p.m. I popped back to the game a few times over Thursday and Friday, mopping up a few remaining puzzles that I had missed, and I finally completed the final puzzle today (Sat). On the down side, once you have completed the game, it is not really the kind of game that you can keep going back to, as once you know all the answers to the puzzles, there is no point in doing them twice, apart from the sliding block puzzles.I really enjoyed playing this game, and now my 10 year old son is sitting glued to it, driving me mad for solutions to the harder puzzles! I think it is a great testament to the versatility of the DS, and just shows what sort of things the console is capable of. I really like the fact that the DS is a console that can be enjoyed by people of any age, rather that just children or teenagers.

since i first saw this game advertised on Tv several years ago I have been desperate to get it, as well as all newer versions, i have loved brain teasing puzzles as long as i can remember so when brain training came out i got that and it kept me going,but i found there was not enough chalenges and spent most of the time doing sudoku on it, then a couple of weeks ago ni found prof. layton going cheap and ssnapped it up, and i am glad i did, at first the long video intro's made me think this is going to be boring, i was wrong, this game is absolutely brilliant and probably the best i have ever bought the game is rated aged 7 + and as a 38yr old with a high iQ even i found some of the puzzles quite hard, but never the less i completed the first 40 puzzles in 2 days, this game is suitable for almost anyone who likes a challenge, the puzzles are plentyfull and there is something for everyone, once a puzzle is completed it is then open for you to try again whenever you want via the main menu, whilst all the clicking on characters and video sequences do linger some times they can bee skipped through with a touch of the stylus or a press of the A button, the idea behind the video is to have you more involved as one of the characters, sometimes it's the professor other times it may be his assistant, this game was by far worth the wait and i am now hooked on it and cant wait to get the rest.prof. layton is a must for anyone who loves puzzles and brain teasers, i for one wish that i had bought it when it first came out.if you like puzzles this game is definately for you.

Great game

Bought this recently as I have quite enjoyed the Brain Training games and this one certainly hasn't let me down.Professor Layton's Curious Village is a collection of varied brain teasers and puzzles; the general jist is that you wander round the town speaking to people and solving their puzzles in order to solve the larger mystery of the Curious Village, gaining credits for the puzzles you solve. I did worry initially that it might be a little childish or that the puzzles would be really simple but that is not the case. In fact, some of the puzzles are really quite difficult, or so they seem until you really think about it. I got stuck a few times and enlisted the help of my husband who then also got hooked on working out the answer!My 10 year old nephews also tried to play it for a bit but got bored quite quickly when they couldn't work out the puzzles and started to guess so I would recommend it for kids who are slightly older and have more patience! But mostly I wanted to play it myself.Overall I wasn't that intrigued by the story and it, irritatingly, gave you a recap every time you turned the game on again and I couldn't find a way to cycle through it quickly. Other than that I would thoroughly recommend it for the enjoyment and as a great way to tease the little grey cells.

Arrived within estimated time and in described condition. Can recommend.

This is the classic that started it all; one of the best game series of all time. The game that I bought was used, but it really looked almost new. These are great games to play by anyone.

Acquistato ad un ottimo prezzo con il rischio della sola lingua inglese, con piacere ho scoperto che questa versione è multilingue!molto soddisfatta dell'imballaggio e della spedizione nei tempi previsti!ottimo gioco, buona trama forse il migliore della serie!

En lo que se refiere al producto, pese a que tanto la caja como el libreto están en inglés, todos los textos del juego están en castellano (y en alemán, italiano y francés). La foto tampoco se corresponde con la edición comercializada.En cuanto al juego, es una de las mejores series para Nintendo DS / 3DS. El argumento es muy bueno y engancha, los puzzles son bastante variados y estimulantes y los detalles están muy bien cuidados.

Overpriced, but I love this game and it's not available anywhere else...so I'm happy.

Comprés el producto como nuevo pero, en cambio, había partidas guardadas dentro del jugo a nombre de otras persona...por lo tanto...nuevo, nuevo no era...