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Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS) Official Thread

Teasel

Member
professorlayton-banner.jpg


***THE OFFICIAL PROFESSOR LAYTON THREAD***


___________________________________________________________________________

GAME INFO
___________________________________________________________________________

JP Box Art/NA Box Art/Euro Box Art
(none available yet)


Developed by - Level 5 (DQVIII, Dark Cloud, Rogue Galaxy)
Published by - Level 5

Release Dates:
JP - Feb 15, 2007
NA - TBA 2007
EU - TBA 2007
AU - TBA 2007

Genre - Adventure
Modes - Single-player
Price - $34.99?

Websites
Official Website <-- In Japanese
@ Wiki
@ IGN
@ Gamespot
@ 1up


PREVIEWS
Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village is an adventure game developed and published by Level-5 for the Nintendo DS. It combines a traditional narrative with puzzle focused gameplay similar to that of Nintendo's extremely popular Brain Training series.

1up said:
Layton is an adventure game with a twist -- the story is told through solving puzzles. Players take control of Professor Layton and his youthful assistant, Luke, and attempt to solve a variety of riddles in order to unravel the mysterious story surrounding "the village."
IGN - Nov. 3 said:
We're not sure if it will end up being an adventure to rival those three, but Level 5's Professor Layton and the Mysterious Town looks like another quality DS title in its own right. We sampled an early build at the Nintendo World event in Nagoya this past weekend.

The focus of this game is on solving puzzles, so we'll start there. The game presents its puzzles in a straightforward way. The top screen usually lists a problem with text, with the bottom screen allowing you to solve the problem directly with the stylus.

Different from the billion other puzzle and quiz based DS games, Layton has an adventure mode, with lots of text boxes and catchy character and background art. You move between the puzzles by selecting locations on a town map. In the demo version, the map indicated that we had 10 out of 11 puzzles remaining to be cleared.

There probably won't be any random battles or interstellar travel in Professor Layton, but intriguing puzzles and gorgeous art could make this another DS pick-up. We'll let you know how everything comes together when the game sees Japanese release next year. A US version has yet to be announced.


REVIEWS
coming soon!
EGM -
Famitsu -
IGN -
Gamespot -
Cubed (Jesusraz review) - http://www.cubed3.com/review/586

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STORY
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&#9679; Professor Layton and his assistant Luke on an adventure to unravel the riddles of the Mysterious Village.
&#9679;
&#9679;

1up said:
The village is home to a host of fascinating characters who are happy to tell more of the story as Layton and Luke solve puzzles. These puzzles are created by one Akira Tago, famous in Japan for his Head Gymnastics series of books, which has sold 12 million copies over 23 volumes. The puzzles featured in the books are recreated here in the mysterious village, for gamers eager to experience something a little more taxing than the average adventure game.

The game begins by telling the story of billionaire Allen Rhineford's death, which occurred two months earlier. There are unusual requests regarding his inheritance and Professor Layton drags young Luke along to see what it's all about. Before long, a number of unthinkable incidents starts occuring, and Layton gets caught up in the mysteries of the village.


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GAMEPLAY
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Specifics
&#9679; Use the stylus to solve riddles in a mini-game type setting.
&#9679; Includes over 2000 puzzles!
&#9679; more coming soon!

said:
Professor Layton's system is organised in "Layton's Briefcase," where players can save at any time, as well as get access to a number of convenient features. There's a memo pad, a dictionary of riddles and various charts. Puzzles are saved in the dictionary as they are encountered and can be put away for solving later if you can't quite get your head around them the first time you find them.

Controls
&#9679; Stylus
&#9679; more coming soon!


Characters and Enemies
&#9679; Professor Layton
&#9679; Luke, his assistant
&#9679; more coming soon!



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MEDIA
___________________________________________________________________________

&#9679; TRY A DEMO OF THE GAME HERE!! <--- You'll say WOW!
&#9679; DS Screen Shot Thread Post #1 - HERE
&#9679; DS Screen Shot Thread Post #2 - HERE

Screens

55201020070201_183239_0_big.jpg
55201020070201_183239_1_big.jpg
55201020070201_183240_3_big.jpg
55201020070201_183240_4_big.jpg


Videos

<---WARNING! If you watch this game you will be forced into frothing demand for this game!

Scans



Music
(Coming Soon!)

Check out a preview from the video clop--it's pretty ****ing good.

Ads

000.jpg


http://www.layton.jp/pr/index.html

JPN TV AD #1
JPN TV AD #2
JPN TV AD #3
JPN TV AD #4
JPN TV AD #5
JPN TV AD #6 <---Hilarious!

Box Art

JPN
B000N3PKEK.09._SS400_SCLZZZZZZZ_V46006843_.jpg


Click to enjoy!
&#9679; #043
&#9679; #141
&#9679; #050
&#9679; #173
&#9679; #152
&#9679; #003




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ARTWORK
___________________________________________________________________________
Coming soon!


Wallpapers
Coming soon!


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END NOTES
___________________________________________________________________________

&#9679; Layton's creation was a direct result of Hino's childhood love of Tago's popular Head Gymnastics series of puzzle books, which have sold more than 12 million copies to date in Japan. The game will make use of over 2,000 puzzles from Tago's books, all of which have been modified to support the DS stylus and touchscreen. Tago will also contribute 30 brand new puzzles to the game, developed specifically with the unique capabilities of the Nintendo DS in mind.

&#9679; There is no word yet on a U.S. release.
&#9679;


Requests
1. Please mark anything not expressly revealed in official releases with spoilers.
2. Feel free to post media/material that you think should be included in the OP.
3. Specificially looking for artwork and videos.
3. Impressions are requested and appreciated!





======================
~Thank you~
1. Panther Lotus for formatting this first post!
2. IGN Media
3. Wiki Members
4. Teasel, for starting this thread in the first place
5. (your name here)
 

Vic

Please help me with my bad english
I thought it was up since the day it was announced ???

-oh, it's a different website
 

Amir0x

Banned
what the flippin' hell IS that site. the videos are all...like...what?

i, uh, watched a video of a guy getting a huge cake and trying to find a way to cut it or something?

who knows
 

john tv

Member
Anyone try this yet? I just popped it in for 10 minutes and the damn thing seems to be -fully- voiced. Like, every single line of dialogue. WTF! Granted, I've barely played it, but if the whole game is like this, I'll be extremely impressed.
 

duckroll

Member
john tv said:
Anyone try this yet? I just popped it in for 10 minutes and the damn thing seems to be -fully- voiced. Like, every single line of dialogue. WTF! Granted, I've barely played it, but if the whole game is like this, I'll be extremely impressed.

The sound programming and streaming system handled by Mitsuda's Procyon Studio btw. They're pretty proud of it. I'm personally more interested in the FMVs. Are they actually crystal clear and perfectly encoded, or are they a mess like ZX and Lunar Knights?
 

john tv

Member
duckroll said:
The sound programming and streaming system handled by Mitsuda's Procyon Studio btw. They're pretty proud of it. I'm personally more interested in the FMVs. Are they actually crystal clear and perfectly encoded, or are they a mess like ZX and Lunar Knights?
I've seen one video so far, and it was definitely cleaner than the ones you mentioned. It's not full-screen, though; it looks like they opted to go for a widescreen approach (possibly to keep the quality high), so you have a small border on top and a larger one on the bottom. It looks good, though.
 

Error

Jealous of the Glory that is Johnny Depp
johntv, Rockman ZX had VA too for every cutscene in the game but the quality wasnt the best... how's the VA in this game? I mean audio quality wise.
 

john tv

Member
Error2k4 said:
johntv, Rockman ZX had VA too for every cutscene in the game but the quality wasnt the best... how's the VA in this game? I mean audio quality wise.
Audio quality from what I heard was excellent.
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
slaughterking said:
Are the chances for a localization small or very small?
With the way Nintendo has been helping Level 5 promote the game via their site in Japan I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo brought it over. I think the chances of someone bringing it over are fairly decent since it's been getting a good amount of attention, hopefully it's not UbiSoft though. Nintendo, Atlus, or someone who can give it a proper localization please.
 

john tv

Member
Ooh, played this some more over lunch and I like it a LOT. It's dripping with polish, and the music and writing has been very good so far (two areas past L-5 games have been so-so in, IMO). Sadly it's not import-friendly at all, so I would recommend against picking it up if you can't read Japanese.

Oh, BTW, it's not fully-voiced after all. The two main characters (Layton and Luke) have a lot of voiced scenes early on, but after you get past the intro, it seems like much of it goes to text-only. Still very early on though, so I can't say for sure how it'll turn out.
 

ethelred

Member
Good stuff. Thanks much for the great impressions, John -- keep 'em coming. :)

Hopefully this game (and its two sequels) will get a US localization by someone who'll treat them with some care. I'm really loving the DS adventure game trend so far.
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
*Thanks for letting me contribute!*

(I hope this gets people excited for the ****ING AWESOME SUPER PAPER MARIO OFFICIAL THREAD coming in several weeks)

Thanks John.
 

john tv

Member
Panther -- thanks! I put your stuff in the top post. Feel free to edit yours down now that the info is up top.

Cheers!
 

rareside

Member
I'm really enjoying the game so far... and that's all the while struggling through some of the dialog (my kanji is ASS!).

I've made it through about 10 puzzles or so, finally got stuck on a math/geometry problem. I'm not sure how the points work yet, but if you fail a puzzle or ask for hints, points will be taken away. Multiple endings maybe? Not sure. The variety in the puzzles has been great so far. I hope they stay fresh.

The music rocks too.

Might write some impressions later, gotta go brush up on middle school geometry in the meantime.
 

Jonnyram

Member
This game is AMAZING. It's hardcore puzzle porn for all puzzle fetishists out there. I hope it will be translated soon, although a couple of the puzzles so far are based on Japanese-specific things like kanji tricks, so they'll need changing.

There's lots of side stuff too, typical for a Level-5 game. I've done about 20 puzzles so far and am barely into the story, but it's intensely addictive. I'd love to write more about it but I'm a tad busy right now.
 
UPS frickin' didn't deliver this yesterday. They said I wasn't home. Hell yes I was home. ****. And now I read these impressions and am like ARGH WANT THIS.
 

lo zaffo

Member
From a distance, i.e. from my desktop pc, this Professor Layton seems pretty spectacular!!!

How Level 5 do manage to make a trilogy out of Layton and complete DQ IX, plus all other heavy hitters they have on the pipeline??? Awesome!

On top of that, if this Layton will end well westernized, i.e. good Italian translated, or English/American translated at least, I'll get my first ever DSLite, I promise!
 

Bebpo

Banned
Kobun Heat said:
UPS frickin' didn't deliver this yesterday. They said I wasn't home. Hell yes I was home. ****. And now I read these impressions and am like ARGH WANT THIS.

Well some people had an order sheet with all checks last night showing their DS package of Layton + Bleach 2 were ready to ship thurs morning to be delivered friday.

Yet it didn't leave the store and not only is it now a weekend but monday is a holiday so no Layton until tues.
 

rareside

Member
dovella said:
it playable for european and usa boys or its very important the lenguage in the game???

Definitely NOT recommended for people who can't read Japanese. There is no English option.
 
Bump for THIS GAME IS THE SHIT.

I've been playing all evening. The puzzles are awesome. This is what I am talking about when I say how much better Trace Memory or Hotel Dusk could be. They're engaging, difficult, and give you this great aha! feeling when you finish them.

The only caveat is that if you don't know Japanese, you'll likely be utterly lost. Of course, it wouldn't be difficult for somebody to just knock up a translation guide that only has the puzzle instructions, not the solutions.

Somebody quick bring this to America.
 
Kobun Heat said:
Bump for THIS GAME IS THE SHIT.

I've been playing all evening. The puzzles are awesome. This is what I am talking about when I say how much better Trace Memory or Hotel Dusk could be. They're engaging, difficult, and give you this great aha! feeling when you finish them.

Awesome! I've been disappointed that the wave of DS adventures up to this point have been pretty light on the puzzles :\
 
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