[DS] Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village.

Trailer (YouTube)

A new adventure (maybe?) game for DS developed by Level 5. You know Level 5, they made some fairly unknown games like uuh, oh, Dark Cloud 1 and 2, Rogue Galaxy and they've also got that White Knight Story for PlayStation 3.

Quote:

Titled Layton Kyoujuu to Fushigi na Machi (Professor Layton and the Mysterious Town), players assume the role of Professor Layton and a boy named Ruke, voiced respectively by Yo Oizumi and Maki Horikita. The game begins when the two, in search of an inheritance left behind by the wealthy Alan Reinford, visit the mysterious town of the title. They're greeted with a series of mysteries that require puzzle solving on the part of the player.

The puzzles of Mysterious Town take on a variety of forms, including geometry, number and quiz games. In one example, you have to use three cups to measure out an exact amount of water. Another example shows you a picture of two barbers and asks you whom you'd rather have cut your hair. You can ask for a hint, assuming you've found the requisite hint medallions from around town.

Mysterious Town uses the stylus for most of its controls. When moving about through town, you select your next location by pointing and tapping a map, and investigate key spots by directly tapping. The stylus is also used when solving puzzles, allowing for a bit of trial and error when presented with a challenge.

Level 5 president Akihiro Hino is serving as producer and planner on this title which, like many puzzle-based DS games, is being supervised by an old Japanese guy. This time, best-selling author Akira Tago takes the honors. Tago wrote a series of mental training books called Atama no Taisou, which went on to sell over 12 million copies. As a child, Hino was a fan of the series, prompting the start of this project.

A Japanese release for Mysterious Town is set for February 15, 2007. A US release has yet to be announced.

Here's something to click on if you want.





Apparently it has FMV, too.











ADVENTURE (MAYBE?!) TASTY.

Ugh what are Level 5 doing? Where is my half arsed dungeon crawling town planning hybrid?

Wow, I normally like Level 5 stuff, but this game looks B-O-R-I-N-G.

Essentially, it's all just still images?

You base this off screenshots? What?

Actually, yes. As you can see, most of those characters are just solid sprites, and some of the pics are just fullscreen stills for storyline.

What I'm saying is that there doesn't appear to be much in the way of animation. The drawings are too detailed to be fully articulate sprites. Plus, I dunno, I'm just turned off by the style (and the fact that it's essentially a collection of spatial thinking SAT-style puzzles with a story).

It looks like... some sort of German/French cartoon with some Spirited Away-inspiration.
Normally I'm a huge fan of Level 5, but this doesn't look... that great. However, if this means playing another adventure, I'm all for it.

Well I'm digging the art style for sure. It's a puzzle/adventure game. It's not likely to have big flashy 3D platforming doodlybobs. Makin' the cogs go, s'what this game is all about. I'm glad to see Level 5 take a stab in a different direction, despite their record of success with colorful RPGs.

Well this is certainly different. I am REALLY digging the art style of this. It almost looks like old school french animation. Almost "Tintin-ish" in a sense. I love games that experiment like this.

Originally Posted by JazzFlight

Actually, yes. As you can see, most of those characters are just solid sprites, and some of the pics are just fullscreen stills for storyline.

What I'm saying is that there doesn't appear to be much in the way of animation. The drawings are too detailed to be fully articulate sprites. Plus, I dunno, I'm just turned off by the style (and the fact that it's essentially a collection of spatial thinking SAT-style puzzles with a story).

Adventure games have had quite realistic animation of facial movement and motion for nearly a decade, now, even if the basic design is still a cariacture of a person. I mean, the way mouths, brows, cheeks, and all the other muscles moves fits the speech. 5-frame sprite animations were left behind a loooooooooong time ago on the PC, and it's quite possible this might use the same techniques.

If not, I'd be disappointed.

The FMV's got some nice cel-painted color, too, even if the main game is obviously CG, I like that.

First post updated with the trailer. Nice music and cartoony animey stuffy, but it shows very little of the game.

This game looks way too trippy to ignore. I'ma keep an eye on this one. Very little gameplay is actually shown. I'm tempted to go along with Jazzflight on this one. It looks like a bunch of stupidly hard puzzles with a story. I might try this game just for the story, and i am impressed with the artwork. Very Spirited Away.

Man, it looked so good up until the gameplaaaay ;____;

Still, it looks AWESOME. I LOVE the style (Tin Tin for the win!), and the music was groovy, so hopefully it ends up being fun too.

:eyebrow: This looks about as entertaining as a Miyazaki film.

They better fucking bring this game out here. I need my adventure fix. Fucking Lucas Arts. *grumble* *grumble*

"OH, IT DOESN'T HAVE THAT CRAPTASTIC CELL-SHADING, THIS GAME LOOKS BORING, I WANT ROGUE GALAXY INSTEAD............."

Seriously, what the hell, guys. As if Level 5 has some kind of obligation to you to make every game an RPG.

Personally, I can't tell if the gameplay will be just a series of minigames and puzzles, but I'm loving the visual style. Not just the characters and animation, but that wonderful building in the middle of the town looks so marvelous. It'd be a shame if the game will be lacking, but at least the look is great and I'm glad to see Level 5 try something different for once.

I can't stop watching the trailer for the music alone..

Now that this is out, does anyone else have it?

I'm really digging it, even though some of the puzzles really make you feel stupid with the answers that are common sense, but at the same time terribly obscure to someone who lacks common sense like me. I even managed to fail the first puzzle, embarrasingly enough, although I would have got it if I was patient and stared longer rather than try to find hidden meaning in the words and what twists they could hold.

Honestly, these puzzles are well-contrived even if lots of them have been done before in other places. Such puzzles with the following rationale for answers really make me both furrow my brows in awe, and facepalm at the same time:

Spoiler:

1) Connect the Biggest 5 in this galaxy; the earth itself is also one of the biggest.
2) You light the match, smack in the center of the screen, first instead of anything else.
3) One mouse can't self-reproduce, so put away those exponential functions you were brewing in your mind.

etc.

Somehow too, the neat thing was that as I was playing, 5 of my young friends came by and all got stuck with me on certain puzzles, and we sat for periods of time thinking about solutions to quite a few of them. They didn't get bored and were somehow drawn in by these logic puzzles.

The music is also nice and creepy, which I like.

I fucking love this game. My mom got it, and I'm borrowing it from her today since I'm working a long day. It's just a great little title with awesome puzzles. Well worth a purchase.