So, yeah. I just finished this game. Welcome to five years ago! I'm not sure what possessed me to start it back up again. But I was probably inspired by receiving Mask of Miracle in the mail and throwing it into my ever-growing pile of Layton games.
I'll preface by saying that I've always been somewhat of a Level-5 hater. Though they ARE certifiable technical wizards, I've always found their stories to be so-so, their action RPG combat systems to be shitty, and their game design to be overcomplicated and monotonous.
But I did enjoy what I had previously played of Curious Village. I rationalize that by telling myself that, as in Dragon Quest VIII, they didn't really
design the majority of the 'gameplay'. Essentially, they put a framework around Akira Tago's puzzles. On my initial foray into the Curious Village, that framework kind of annoyed me, to be honest. Solving puzzles in the context of an adventure game is pretty traditional, I guess, but it just felt like an awkward fit to me. I wanted everyone to shut up so that I could get to the next puzzle. And tapping every screen for hint coins was maddening. Like an even-more-annoying version of scanning.
So what do I think now that I've finished it? First off, tapping for hint coins still sucks. What a terrible 'mechanic'. It might have been okay if the coins were hidden only in things like light poles and garbage cans, but they were also found in random bits of pavement. And, actually, it
wouldn't have been okay, either way. Bleah.
However, the story DID begin to interest me towards the midpoint of the game. I wanted to see how it would all end, and it concluded in a fairly satisfying way. I still don't think that the puzzles were well-integrated into the plot, though. Instead of having every key moment portrayed through a cutscene, the developers should've made you
solve your way out of the crisis. Like, at least make me
assemble that getaway kite! And I would have liked to have more involvement in the solving of the mystery. A little touch of Ace Attorney flavor. But I did enjoy the story. It was weird and, towards the end, oddly affecting.
I think a lot of the credit for that should go to the presentation. The music and graphics of Curious Village really create a consistent and powerful sense of place and atmosphere.
The puzzles themselves were (mostly) very fun. I solved 108 out of the 109 I found in the game proper, only receiving false negatives on the judging once or twice. The only challenge that I ran out of patience with was that fucking apple slide puzzle. Does ANYBODY enjoy those? The "move the ball to the exit" puzzles were also quite challenging for me. And I remember some of the downloadable puzzles being irritatingly hard, so I don't know if I'll try to complete those.
I'm usually burned out by the end of a game, but, oddly enough, I feel like I could roll right into the second game in the Layton franchise. Maybe I just will...
(or maybe I'll finally finish the first Ace Attorney game).
Anyway, what did you guys think of Curious Village? Can you even remember, at this point? Which puzzles were your favorite/least favorite? And how would you rank the Layton games, overall?
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