Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Before i get started i want to tell everyone that im 23 yr female and im new to Nintendo DS so i dont know alot about games and because the prices are high on some, i completely rely on customer reviews before i spend the money on a game.I bought this game because i wanted to get a game that would keep me intrested. I can say i was surprised!!! this game is great! im so glad i bought it. The puzzles are great, the story line keeps you guessing and wanting more, I'm really enjoying it. The best part is when im stuck on a puzzle I'll ask a family member or a friend to take a crack at and we end up working it out together. Its a great way to get others involved! my friends who have Nintendo DS never would of thought of buying this game because they figured it would be just another puzzle game. I have to litterally take "Professor Layton and The Curious Village" from them! This game is for all ages and i highly reccommend this game for everyone. It really is a must have! im so glad i took everyones advice here and bought this game, ive had so much fun with it! i hope they come out with a sequal or something like it. Buy this game and ENJOY!!!!!

Hi, I've recently purchased Professor Layton and the Curious Village. This is a challenging and fun nintendo DS puzzle game.

The touch screen to solve puzzles is brilliantly used, and the Nintendo WiFi connection allows you to download new puzzles weekly.

I recommend this game to anyone.

All in all, not a bad game. I don't feel like I'm "in" the game - there is a story line with puzzles that pop up as you discover them, but the puzzles really don't directly relate to the game (as with something like Zelda). For instance, there are matchstick rearranging puzzles that you can solve, but it doesn't involve the game's characters. Once I accepted that I wasn't a character in a puzzle game, but was solving a bunch of puzzles, I have enjoyed it more :-).

I'm a 40-something who's always liked the Zelda-type RPG games for the puzzles but who's always hated the monster-battles and the fact that you couldn't save at any time you liked, so you would always get thrown back to a point well back if you ran out of lives before you won a given monster battle, so you'd have to repeat previous stages again and again until you beat the monster. I don't see the point of that ridiculous & repetitive cheese-chasing. I buy games for relaxation and some mental workout challenge, not frustration. I get enough frustration at work -- and at least there I get PAID for it.

That's why I liked this game so much. There wasn't any time pressure, you could save & stop at any point you liked, and most of the puzzles were challenging enough to be interesting.

I took off a star for a few reasons:
1. The 'back-story' games, like building up the stuff in the Inn rooms, or creating a painting from the scraps you were awarded, seemed pointless.
2. You couldn't get an answer to any puzzles that truly stumped you.
3. In 2 puzzles, I had a definitively correct answer but since it wasn't THE correct answer I had to keep trying again and again to figure out what the game wanted me to say. (Case in point: The Tile puzzle.)
4. And, most annoying: I discovered that you should never ever ever go back thru the tower door once you've gone thru the first time. If you do, you'll get stuck in the unstoppable little mini-movie that begins once you choose to enter the doors, and doesn't end until all the credits have s-l-o-w-l-y crawled off the screen. (Well, you can just shut off the DS, but if you've solved extra puzzles in the meantime, your progress would be lost if you did.)

Nice little plus that you can download extra free puzzles weekly if you have Wireless Broadband in your home. I have a secure network but just plugged in the WEP key and now can download new puzzles.

Solved the game in about 17 hours, but have spent a few extra hours to solve the additional download puzzles.

I got what I wanted from it - relaxation, some mental challenge, and a pleasant diversion. What else could you do that would give you 17+ hours of that for just $29?

At first this game seemed cool because I enjoy puzzles, however, there were too many boring puzzles that seemed repetitive. I found myself searching for action and adventure. It seems like the creators of this game made a template and filled in the blanks with hundreds of boring, slow, and repetitive puzzles. I wanted more.