Hey Bitmob! I hope everyone is doing well out there. This article is going to introduce my series of articles I will be starting when I review a game. However the title of these articles will be called Conversations. The reason for this is because I tend to dislike to highly formal reviews that exist throughout the print media and video game websites. My reviews, like anyone else’s are a matter of taste to a certain extent. The best way to express your thoughts on a game is through an informal conversation. This means there will be no letter grades or silly numbers, just my thoughts and feelings. I hope that because of this, you guys will comment on my reviews. If you agree, let me know, if you think I am full of baloney that is fine with me but shout off on it! I will be reviewing mostly games in my backlog or games under most people’s radar. I find that if I review a hot game of the day (say Uncharted 2: Among Thieves) I will generally just be saying something that has already been said before and probably better too. I also warn those that in these conversations, there will be spoilers as I assume that people who would enjoy these conversations are people who have already beaten the game. You have been warned. With that let me begin.

Curiosity Killed the Layton

I bought Professor Layton and the curious village over the summer. I had heard good things about it plus some screen shots and videos of it in action piqued my interest enough to take the plunge. I began playing it over the hot summer months and generally enjoyed it. Of course logic puzzles are not my forte, but I still got by. I enjoyed the olde European feel to right, right down to the game’s soundtrack that had a lot of accordion music which appeals to me. Also the characters are so wacky that I found myself having fun walking the streets of St.Mystere solving puzzles. I was also impressed with the videos that were voiced by the characters which were something I did not expect. However around chapter 5 my interest in continuing the game greatly waned. Call it being naive or not doing enough research but a puzzle game with an overarching mystery to be solved led me to believe that the puzzles I would be solving would be directly related to the investigation. I was terribly wrong.

Layton and Luke. Likeable characters, a rarity nowadays.

I found myself solving absolutely random puzzle from seemingly random places. When the game instructed me to ask townsfolk the whereabouts of a person in interest I had to solve a puzzle. Or while searching for hint coin, a random object reminded the professor of this one puzzle he knows about.  While this seems harmless at first, I found myself constantly taken out of any feeling of immersion. I kept asking myself “Why must I solve this puzzle, just tell me where the guy is!” The game answers this at the end saying the town was a “test” for an outsider who wanted to find the secret of St.Mystere.  I thought that was lame. While some would say at the end of the game there are gates with locks that have puzzles in them so that is directly linked to the story at hand, however that was too little too late.

Don Paolo, easily the best character in the game.

I get that people like logic puzzles, the challenge, the cognitive test and I also get that people like mysteries too, feeding their natural human curiosity.  However Professor Layton and the Curious Village fails to mix these two elements properly. Each puzzle felt more like an artificial roadblock that something necessary for the greater picture. While the mysteries did have a nice twist at the end, by then I had lost all motivation and merely used a GameFAQs walk through to get by the game. If I am going to pay 30-40 dollars for a game, it would be nice to have them (Puzzles and Mystery) intertwine in a way to get me immersed and enjoy the experience. If I wanted mystery, I will read an Agatha Christie book, if I wanted logic puzzles there is the internet. I was looking forward to the second Professor Layton game, however after this game I will not be purchasing it.

Professor Layton starts off well, but bumbles around in its execution and eventually lost all my motivation for playing it.

A Penny Arcade comic teasing about the puzzles.

There is the first one, I don’t have a formal schedule for these, seeing as how I am in University plus I have no idea when I will have my next game in my backlog done but there will be more for the future. Feel like I was too tough, just got it right or was half right, half wrong? Let me know and continue the conversation.