I just wrapped up on playing the iOS version of Professor Layton: The Curious Village (HD) and let me just say, it was an experience I wasn’t expecting. I’m curious how other people think about these games.
My overall impression was that the game is really well animated and stylized, the music is really well done and relaxing, and the story is (in my opinion) mostly just fine until the end where things close out on a very sweet and touching note. The controls are also surprisingly good for being a DS touchscreen port.
As for the puzzles, there’s really good variety here and the hint system makes sure that you never get stuck unless you want to be. They’re basic puzzles for the most part but I’d say your average adult is still going to take 5-10 minutes on harder puzzles and 15-20 minutes on just a few of them. Some of them are looking for obscure solutions or are worded wrong, not a big deal but noticeable.
If you like brain teasers or logic puzzles and you want a good mobile game that’s easy to pick up and put down, this is really good and it’s worth the $10 or so. I got about 8 hours out of it (so says my save file), so I’d say that was money well spent.
Let me know if you played these games on the DS and how the other ones in the series are!
I also played the android version of Curious Village soon after it released and enjoyed it. From what my friends have said, the rest of the series really is more of the same, just with new puzzles and another simple new story. Safe to say if you enjoyed the first one you’ll like the rest. Unwound Future seems to be the most well-liked one in the series.
This is actually why I didn’t get very far in Diabolical Box. I had a decent time with Curious Village, but I needed a little more, and it was clear the second game wasn’t going to get there.