Professor Layton and the Curious Village - a review

I’m still enjoying a few remaining puzzles in this game, however; I’ve finished the story and feel like if I don’t remember to update this blog, it will become forgotten entirely (again).

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a puzzle/adventure game by the Japanese developer Level-5 for the Nintendo DS.

The story begins as the Professor, an apparently world-renowned puzzle-solver, and his assistant Luke are called to the village of St Mystere by Lady Dahlia Reinhold to solve a mystery written into the will of her husband, the late Baron Reinhold; it challenges any would-be heirs to find ‘The Golden Apple’, promising that any who do will inherit his fortune. The aim is to navigate the story and solve this mystery among others; though it would probably be a very short game indeed if every resident of St Mystere didn’t insist on giving a puzzle to be solved before they will speak to Layton or Luke.

The first thing that hit me about this game is the art; charming and beautiful in a way that’s both as distinctly Japanese as Studio Ghibli but with a wonderful European flavour . The game is presented in the style of a point and click adventure with still pictures to be clicked on in order to find hidden puzzles and ‘hint coins’ (a currency to be bartered for clues - when it’s just not your kind of puzzle) with beautifully animated cut-scenes throughout.

The story is simple, but sweet and is interesting enough of itself that I wasn’t skipping past it to get to the next puzzle – helpfully also, there is a short recap every time you start the game, so you never forget where you are.

Of course, your appreciation of the game will still be somewhat limited if you’re not a puzzle fan. If you are a puzzle fan then you’re in luck. There are, according to Wikipedia, a total of 135 brain teasers throughout the game. These are of so many assorted kinds; from numbers, to shape recognition, to chess, that there is a puzzle for every sort of problem-solving brain. You will need certain puzzles to be solved before you can progress through the story, but far from all of them – they’re just there for your enjoyment and to collect items for further puzzles (or to assemble a handy coin-finding robot-dog) – and thanks to the aforementioned hint coins, there’s no need to resort to frustrated internet searches for the solution if you really don’t get it.

The criticisms I have of this game are really very small in comparison to its obvious virtues; Luke’s ‘English’ accent for example sounds a little too much like Dick Van Dyke on helium for my taste, and towards the end of the game, wandering around the village and pointing at everything you see in hope of finding those one or two missed puzzles does become tiring.

However, for any puzzle fan in need of a game to fill a few spare hours, I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Fahrenheit - better late than never

So I started playing Heavy Rain and was, with a couple of little niggles, enjoying it. I kept being asked, if I was enjoying Heavy Rain, how did I feel about Fahrenheit? (Indigo Prophesy in the US to avoid confusion with anything else that might have the word ‘Fahrenheit’ in the title.)

... I’d never played Fahrenheit. Why not? Who knows, just hadn’t. Something I’m very interested in is narrative in video games, so seemed too obvious to have missed. So I dutifully borrowed a PS2 and a copy of the game and began to play.

Having finished Fahrenheit, I’m going to write my thought now in semi-review form – mostly getting my thoughts in order in order to get a better idea about using the video-game format as a way to tell stories, and in preparation for Heavy Rain when I complete that and hopefully write a review here. Bear in mind that I am still only part way through Heavy Rain, so I’ll make a few comparisons to that game and the way the controls and so forth have evolved, but can’t comment on it as a whole yet.

Fahrenheit is like Heavy Rain in that it’s an ‘interactive drama’ – like a film which periodically asks for some input – sometimes you can alter the course of the narrative; sometimes not. You can move around the room when you have control, inspect and interact with certain objects and some more involved actions are overlaid with variations on the Quick Time Event.

Story-wise, Fahrenheit begins very well.

The action begins right away – all the worst of the violence is out of the way in the opening cut-scene as you watch your character, Lucas murder a man in a public toilet; lurching towards him like a marionette with tangled strings. Then you gain control. This opening scene is almost pitch perfect. Enough choices to have you really deliberating and all the emotional beats are there.

I’m someone who can become immersed in a story very quickly and Fahrenheit is a game that really draws the player in; if you’re open to it. After finding myself the murderer in the middle of a crime scene and feeling that panic, I then found myself in the role of the police detectives called to investigate the murder. Somewhat jarring. Do I do the best job I can in each role? Or am I too invested in Lucas’ fate to want to assist in his capture?

The sanity meter (a measure of the character's happiness - become too miserable and it's game-over) is a nice touch, if the player needs some reason to wander around the apartment and essentially ‘role’play’ the part. I feel like Maxis’ The Sims probably prepares a person more than adequately for some of it – even before playing Fahrenheit, in Heavy Rain I did seem to find myself wanting to use the toilets, and the fridge and so forth, though it has no real purpose in that game – the small touches that make a better rounded whole.

The odd thing about it is that once the game has played through, the way it’s made almost encourages you to think about it like a film rather than a game. For all the emphasis on player agency (the ‘interactivity’ part), the story becomes very linear. There are three endings and only a limited way you can change how the story unfolds – most of your actions are based around progressing along that story and keeping your character away from the teetering brink of sanity (sex and coffee are key).

The scenes which don’t work towards driving forward the strategy, especially if they only involve more Simon Says, feel quite redundant though – almost to the point where the character of Tyler feels redundant. I used him a couple of times to re-attempt a conversation I had failed with Carla and it was interesting to be able to go over the laundrette crime scene twice, but even that wasn’t much help.

Tyler's scenes are there to provide some relief or minor puzzle solving between the Lucas scenes I suppose, but didn’t feel like it flowed.

While Heavy Rain attempts to make your movements evoke the physical pressures and demands on screen, Fahrenheit feels more like a movie that tests your hand-eye coordination before letting you progress to the next scene. Not that it doesn’t try; but after the first couple of scenes, it’s all ‘Simon Says’ with the analog sticks and alternately pressing L1/R1 at different speeds. I do like the ‘rhythm game’ feel of some of the analog stick movements – though few and far between; such as if you decide to play the guitar in Lucas’ apartment. On the other hand, apart from a few innovative uses like that towards the beginning, by the end it feels like a normal, slightly irritating QTE – easier to design and program than the ability to control fight scenes directly.

The game really begins on at its highest point, and it’s a nice ride for a while, but as it enters the point where it should be building to its climax, as a friend of mind said; ‘the dog ate the script’ – and it quickly becomes too ridiculous. But the beginning is far too promising to just write it off – as an experiment in narrative, it’s wonderful – Quantic Dream just needs to take the time to craft their story.

In short, I have high hopes for Heavy Rain; make a little more of your medium and create a better-rounded story, and you’ll be fine.