I picked up Professor Layton and the Curious Village the other day for the Nintendo DS. It is a great game that I am really enjoying. I almost hate to admit it, but Penny Arcade’s comic commentary on the game is pretty darn accurate. As much as I love puzzles, a good majority of them seemed a little forced into a storyline.
While playing, I found myself constantly thinking back to Perplex City, and the puzzle-centric nature of it. In fact, ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
entelein and I had a little online conversation about it this morning. I have to agree with her that Layton has a much more friendly, human, and whimsical feel to it. Although to me, the puzzles seem a bit forced. In PXC, the reasoning and backstory for the puzzles was well thought-out and they made great sense in context, but the human touch sometimes felt a little pushed aside, replaced by a little elitism, which was sometimes off-putting.
Regardless of the believability of the framework surrounding the puzzles in Professor Layton, I’m still getting a great deal of enjoyment out of it. That and Puzzle Quest are the only two DS games I’m playing anymore. If/when I finish Puzzle Quest, I think it will have some good replay value–especially with the “instant quest” mode. I am not sure about Professor Layton, but given the WiFi puzzle-a-week and the extra bonus materials unlocked as you play, I have high hopes.
