Professor Layton and the Curious Village

This game was awesome. It is fun and educational for all ages. I highly recommend!

I like games that challenge my mind. This game was perfect. Some easy puzzles some harder ones. Most of them just require you to think about what they are asking. Some require a paper and pencil. None require a calculator. I can't wait for the next installment. You can't go wrong with this game.

Okay...so the cover doesn't look very good, but the game is great. You know what they say...Never judge a book by it's cover! Same with DS covers. If you're under 10, it might be a little hard for you. You definitely need to be able to read pretty well. And you definitely need good penmanship so the game recognizes what answers you are writing. It's not only fun, it's also educational...You never know which puzzle you are going to do next. You can do it by yourself or you can have your family help you. It's challenging for parents, too! My advice...if you only have enough money to buy one DS game, get this! (I wanted to rate it 4 1/2 stars.)

Rather than a game, this is a collection of 135 basic puzzles and trivial puzzles that only sound hard. The puzzles are unlocked sequentially by clicking through the linear story. It is marketed as some kind of detective/mystery/adventure game, but it's not. The story actually just plays by itself, and you answer the puzzles.

The trivial variety puzzle uses arbitrary wordplay or ambiguous definitions. This becomes annoying when you can't ask the game to clarify the ambiguous question; hence, you sometimes get penalized for doing things the "right" way. These make up about 10% of the questions.

If you find yourself taking more than a minute, remember that nothing here can't be solved by a 3rd grader, so you are probably doing a trivial question.

Overall, the game was worth the time for the story and art design. Puzzles were amusingly written at times, though few actually make you use dedicated thought. Since 3 players can independently save progress, this is an ideal family game, particularly for kids.

This game is a must-buy for all puzzle and adventure game lovers! The puzzles are very well done and range from simple to mind-bending, depending on your forte. Are you good at reading between the lines? At math, logic, picture puzzles, etc? There's puzzles for everyone all packed into this game. And it doesn't get tiring for a second, as the puzzles all serve an integral part in furthering the storyline. There are even hidden puzzles to find- how cool is that?

All in all, I found this game to be a great way to pass the time, and an excellent excuse to stay up late just to finally beat that one tricky puzzle. The only problem is that it has little replay value. After a while, though, you might feel like going back and playing your favorite puzzles over again once sufficient time has passed to wipe the solutions from your mind. Don't hesitate to pick this game up!