A mysterious letter. A strange town. A large, structurally impractical tower.

This is the world of Professor Layton and his apprentice, Luke. Intrigue, suspense, investigating.

All this talk reminds me of a puzzle.

PUZZLE 001

Bill, a man who is known for cheating everybody out of their money, because he claims they deserve it, because they don't really put that much thought into what he says before handing over their money, because he claims that everything he tells people is ridiculously simple to figure out, claims that he can predict the score of any football game even before the game begins.

How is this possible?

(answers at the bottom of the review)

Oh, forgive me for asking you to solve a puzzle that had almost nothing to do with my narrative. Hey! That reminds me of something: the entire gameplay of Professor Layton.

Don't get me wrong. The puzzles are absolutely brilliant in Professor Layton. Even if you've heard some of these brain teasers before, I can guarantee that you haven't played them on the DS before. Unless you're Japanese, and you played this game in Japanese. In which case, why don't you finish writing this review for me, jerk? Jerk-san?

That also reminds me of a puzzle!

PUZZLE 002

Mary and JoAnn are bootleggers. Each of them have several bathtubs full of bathtub whiskey.

Mary drunkenly remarks, "Yyyyyyyyyyyyknow, JoAnn, iffffffyou gifffffffvme oneoffyour bathtubssss, I'll hafff twice as--hic--twice as--hic--...double what you haffff."

JoAnn has a hollow leg. "Mary, you old drunk! If you give me one of YOUR bathtubs full of bathtub whiskey, we'll have EXACTLY THE SAME number of goats. And by goats, i mean bathtubs full of whiskey."

Although both Mary and JoAnn have consumed large amounts of bathtub whiskey, they're both right. How many bathtubs full of bathtub whiskey do Mary and JoAnn have?

Puzzles in the game are rated by Picarats, which show you how difficult each puzzle is. The easiest puzzle is a 10-picarat puzzle, and the hardest weighs in at 99 picarats. Some of the easier puzzles require you to recognize shapes of things. By that, I mean, the first puzzle requires you to recognize the shape of something. I won't tell you what. The harder puzzles actually require you to do some math. The game realizes this, and usually lets you write on the touch screen as if it were a piece of scratch paper. (I still needed to whip out the ol' calculator every once in a while.)

The game also provides you with a hint system. There are three hints for any of the 135 puzzles, which can be unlocked with Hint Coins. There are a limited number of Hint Coins in the game, which are hidden around the village like the hidden puzzles.

The game's story is actually pretty charming, despite the fact that the puzzles might seem out of place. However, after LEARNING THE GAME'S SECRETS...I get it. It all makes sense. I really don't want to ruin it, but it makes sense.

There are 120 puzzles in the main game. When you're not solving puzzles, you're exploring the village, talking to people and searching for hidden stuff. Most of the puzzles come from villagers, but a number of them are hidden in almost completely random places. (Here's a hint: one of them is by some random window in some room. CLICK EVERYTHING.)

The game features--hold on, I just remembered a puzzle!

PUZZLE 003

Steve was making apricot dynamite. He cut up all the apricots into the Bombamatic™ and pressed "Bombify!" However, he forgot to add in the nitroglycerin--35 grams per apricot. How will he know how to add the proper amount of nitroglycerin?

The game features a large amount of video and voice acting--for a DS game, anyway. It probably adds up to like 10 minutes of video. I'm not really sure, it could be more! The animation in the video is well done. I'd probably watch a Professor Layton movie. It was that awesome.

During the course of the game, you can unlock the remaining 15 bonus puzzles by accomplishing certain tasks. These challenges are HARD. At least, they were hard for me. If you're a super genius man or woman with a brain so big that you have to wear external brain packs taped around your waist like a belt, then you can probably solve them without buying any hints.

If 135 puzzles isn't enough for you, Mr/Ms Brainpack, the game allows you to download weekly new puzzles via Nintendo Wi-Fi. As I understand it, this game has been out over a year in Japan, and they are still receiving new puzzles every week.

The game also has a TOP SECRET PASSWORD that you can only get by playing the sequel to the game. You heard me...MORE PROFESSOR LAYTON.

I AGREE, NINTENDO. BRING IT ON.

That reminds me of a puzzle.

PUZZLE 004

You are flying the Millennium Falcon. The Falcon can make the Kessel Run in just under 12 parsecs. Chewbacca eats 12 bananas every parsec. R2-D2 beeps 32 times for every banana Chewbacca eats. Luke Skywalker whines constantly throughout the trip. Princess Leia redoes her hairdo every 3 parsecs, while C-3P0 says 62 words per beep. Who is in the pilot's seat?

Professor Layton is an absolute must buy. If you don't buy this game eventually, then you don't like video games. Are you gonna let some random person on the internet accuse you of not liking video games? I didn't think so.












HIGHLIGHT FOR ANSWERS:

001: Bill says that the score of every game is 0 to 0 at the beginning of each game. Bill is a horrible person, and his children hate him.

002: Mary has 7, and JoAnn has 5. THAT'S A LOT OF BOOTLEGGING!

003: By counting the pits, silly! Steve later accidentally exploded in his lab.

004: No, the answer isn't "you," it's Han Solo. No exceptions.

Labels: Nintendo DS, Reviews