Puzzle games and I have a tumultuous relationship. I enjoy them a great deal, especially in the beginning, but the harder the puzzles get, the worse my patience becomes. This is most likely due to my lack of intelligence or my belief that I am stupider than I am, and I quit. I've heard a lot about Professor Layton games over the years and was trepidatious in pulling the trigger on the series as I didn't want another The Witness.

I needn’t have worried, as the game developers expertly balanced the puzzles in Curious Village. Early on, I thought I was a genius, getting almost every puzzle right the first time, and then I thought I was the stupidest man on the planet multiple times in the mid-to-late game. But thanks to the hint system, I only had to look up the answer a few times. It wasn't only the difficulty that I appreciated; I have to say that fun puzzles dramatically outnumber the rough ones. Which is a great ratio considering there are 120 of them and it could've easily lost steam and turned into a right grind. It was only the math-based ones and any sliding block puzzles that made me grimace. I've never been good at the former, and I'm still sick of the latter after all these years of playing games. I would almost go so far as to say that for a game made in 2007, Curious Village has some of the best puzzles around.

I adored the art style of this game. The mildly European steampunk aesthetic still felt fresh all these years later. The village itself wasn't exactly brimming with colour, but it felt Germanic and austere. I also loved the design of the characters. Layton and Luke were instantly iconic and basically perfect in every way, and the other villagers were also memorably designed. That gross guy who is constantly eating, or the snooty baroness, comes to mind. I will say that the flatness of the colours and the overall low resolution of the whole game do dampen my enthusiasm, but I'm sure that is fixed if you play the remastered release on Mobile.

The overall mystery and story of The Curious Village were a real slow burn. Yes, you're there for the puzzles first and the narrative second, but boy does it meander a bit in the middle. I lost the thread a couple of times, but thankfully the game has a great notebook (in the form of Layton's suitcase) that automatically fills in the story and any updates on the mystery. I did enjoy peeling back the mysteries and uncovering just why this otherworldly village is so puzzle-obsessed. I was even able to predict a couple of things, which I think is a sign of a great mystery. 

I will say that the final couple of chapters go absolutely bananas with the reveals and twists, in a good way, in my opinion. I won't say much, but the way Layton calmly explains what is going on made me appreciate him as a detective way more than I already did. Dude makes Sherlock Holmes look like a chump. Honestly, I was floored once the full scope was revealed. I can understand if some people scoff at the end, but I love ridiculous twists.

That's all I have to say, really. Great game. Lots of fun puzzles that don't get too fiendish, excellent characters, intriguing story, and just well designed all around. I can see why the series became such a juggernaut, and I look forward to playing more of them in the (lost) future.

P.S. I somehow did all 120 puzzles, which was a surprise.

Previously, my only exposure to the Professor Layton games was the crossover game with Ace Attorney, and I thought it was only polite that I check out what the rest of the series is like, starting with the first game, this one. I quite enjoyed it! This game was cozy and the puzzles were mostly fun, though some were tedious (trying to get the game to recognize the letter f took almost ten minutes) and I never appreciate having to do math. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. It was definitely very reminiscent of the crossover game's ending and it was definitely better executed here so I suppose there's that.

Overall, this was a charming experience, and I'll probably continue with the series and continue to look up the answer every time the game tries to trick me into doing math. Not today and not tomorrow.

I've recently gone back to play all the Layton games again in anticipation to the announcement of the 2025 one.

I had tried playing Curious Village before but never finished it properly as I had some of the later ones and I think this one being the first ever game just made it feel a bit of a less polished experience to go through as a kid, but revisiting it now, I'm very glad I did so.
The story of this game is properly enticing and never drags out or pretends you're stupid by either overly explaining or pretending something obvious isn't happening, that mixed with the story beats and twists being actually very original and unique makes it enjoyable in a way where you're curious what else can take place in this world.
The puzzles however I don't feel quite as excited about, I don't imagine it's easy to come up with 120+ puzzles and make them all bangers, but while this game does start off with a lot of them being either clever logic tricks, or puzzles where you have to catch the "flaw" in how the question is presented to you, towards the last quarter or so of the game, the puzzles can be very hit or miss, with some being outright math equations, move the block puzzles (I do enjoy these, but there's a lot of them), or questions that aren't worded as clearly as they need to be for you to understand what the game's logic is on something, like how you might consider the ground floor of a building to be 1st floor or "Ground" and the one after to be the 1st, which can lead to you getting the wrong answer based off that.

Altogether though, how much I enjoyed cracking the story massively overshines the last stretch of puzzles. As I go forward through the series I do imagine both story writing and puzzle quality to get more clever, all in all, a very good start to a classic series.