The first of the Layton challenges and my personal favourite! Brought for my hubby at Christmas (when it first went on general sale) because we were seduced by the hype of the television advert. My initial scepticism was 1(is the game really aimed at adults and 2) will there be enough content within to keep the interst up to justify the then £30 or so price tag? and right from the word go it was very clear that this was going to be a formidable game and something quite different from the usual handhelds that we are used to.

The game play is based around the story of the title character Professor Layton told through visual motion animations, stunning stills and cryptic puzzles that are abundent through out the game (the only gripe I would have is that the quality of the visuals through out the game (although very good) is better during the motion animations). The graphics and ongoing story have been well excecuted and there is a wide range of puzzles to be solved in order to progress through the game.

The game contains a wide range of head scratching puzzles and mind boggling cryptics most of which are based on lateral thinking and (as is always the case) quite simple once you know the answer! They are also usually a lot simpler than the game lets on and even though you are aware of this you still fall into the trap of over complicating your workings out! There is enough variation in puzzles to suit everyone, I would deem this to be the puzzle game for people who dont like puzzles as I am not the biggest fan of cryptic style games but once I picked it up i could literally lose hours baffling over simple problems! Some puzzles are cumpolsary (you can not continue the game until solved) whilst others are optional and you can revert back to them at a later date (presumably when you get that "light bulb over the head moment" and realise how to solve them!) Hint coins are available to assist with those trickier problems although you have to go find them and some puzzles can only be accessed by nosing around the village.

There is a good 20 or so hours of actual game play (unless you are an Einstein incarnation and manage to complete everything first time in record time) as well as additional puzzles and downloads available after the game is completed.

Professor Layton is well worth the money and I fail to see why any one would be disappointed with this challenging game. Its largely aimed at adults but I think it is suitable for youngsters as well. My oldest son was 10 when we purchased this and he had endless hours of fun with it.

Prepare to be mind boggled even when your not playing because you will probably find yourself thinking about that tricky puzzle you were stuck on earlier and prepare to say goodbye to your family before you commence the game because they probably wont get any sense out of you until you complete it!

It is one of my favourite DS games and although we have since brought into the Layton francaise this is my favourite of the three released so far!