I’m a sucker for puzzles. The problem with most puzzle games is that they usually focus on one kind of puzzle and I lose interest. (Yeah, Brain Age. I’m looking at you. I enjoy Sudoku, but solving 85 jabillion Sudoku puzzles gets old fast.)

Professor Layton, luckily, does not suffer from this problem. Some of the puzzle themes are repeated, but there’s never more than four or five puzzles for each theme. For example, one of the themes is "Matchstick Puzzles", and there are half a dozen or so total matchstick related puzzles in the game. This variety really helps, as there will surely be some puzzle types that people like less than others. (For me, my bane is magic squares. Luckily, there are only a couple in the game.)

Professor Layton does a good job of wrapping the puzzle solving into an actual story. Where the developers could have easily thrown something simple around the puzzles, the story is actually quite entertaining. I was very near the end of the game before I figured out the village’s secret.

The game went quickly for me, taking about eleven and a half hours to finish. I intend to let it sit for a while and replay it to try to use as few hints as I can. I also need to make sure I have plenty of free time, because this game is very hard to put down.

Not only are there well over 100 puzzles in the game to solve, there are additional puzzles available weekly for download via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.