Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 12:56 am
Layton: Curious Village in HD – Adventure Game Review
Layton: Curious Village in HD is a Adventure/Entertainment/Puzzle game from Level-5 Inc., first launched in 25th September 2018.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 309+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Layton: Curious Village in HD Stand Out
Awarded Best Handheld Game of 2008. Discover the title that launched a legacy!
With over 17 million units sold worldwide, discover the original title that shaped the puzzle-adventure genre and launched a legacy. Digitally remastered in HD for mobile devices and with new, never-before-seen animated cutscenes, it’s time to run the cerebral marathon with Professor Layton and the Curious Village.
The tale begins as Professor Layton, a true English gentleman and famous archeologist, drives to the remote settlement of St. Mystere with his apprentice, Luke, in response to a request from the widow of a wealthy baron. The baron’s will indicates that the family treasure, the Golden Apple, is hidden somewhere within the village, and whoever finds it will inherit the whole of the Reinhold Estate. The Professor and Luke must search the town for clues leading to the precious heirloom.
Featuring a distinctive artistic style that oozes old-world charm, the game’s quirky cast of characters instantly comes to life. The animated cutscenes, remastered in HD, tell key parts of the tale in gorgeous detail. And ever-present in the background, the original soundtrack, beloved by many players, keenly captures the mood of the Layton universe.
Based on the "Atama no Taisou" (lit. "Head Gymnastics") books by Akira Tago, Professor Layton and the Curious Village brings together more than 100 brain teasers including slide puzzles, matchstick puzzles, and even trick questions to flex players’ observation, logic, and critical thinking skills. In addition, rather than just selecting challenges from a list, players uncover puzzles through conversations with the villagers or by investigating their surroundings.
If you are obsessed with mind-bending puzzles, Professor Layton and the Curious Village is for you!
Game Features:
• 1st installment of the Layton Series
• Over 100 puzzles, designed by Akira Tago, that can be tackled on the way to solving the case
• New! Exclusive, never-before-seen animation footage
• Beautifully remastered in HD for mobile devices
• Engaging mini-games that include collecting gizmos and pieces of a mysterious painting, as well as pursuing side characters
• Offline play after initial download
This game can be played in English and French only.
- Requires OS 8.0 or higher (iPhone 4S and iPad 2 or newer)
This Adventure game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Layton: Curious Village in HD is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 6th June 2022
Recent improvements include:
Bug fixes.
Download & Availability
Layton: Curious Village in HD is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Layton: Curious Village in HD on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
We used to play these games on our Nintendo DS and 2DS as a kid, the storylines are always captivating and long and the puzzles would have us stumped for some time, but they were always fun to complete. The graphics are amazing, we also loved looking around at everything and tapping to find messages or hint coins. Overall a really fun series.
We absolutely love this on mobile. Im glad we bought the trilogy. The music and voices are so good, and you can adjust the volume. We recommend playing with headphones on. Thank you for this chill game.
This used to be one of our favorite DS games! Its much easier now that Im grown up but just as charming! We found the split screen really well done and the touch screen translated well. The addition of puzzle charms was fun too.
Games on mobile are awful these days and Im glad to enjoy something that isnt constantly asking for more money. The story and music are still charming and though some puzzles are written incorrectly or confusingly, theyre very good brain teasers and are all varied in style. Im so glad games like this can be preserved in the modern age, props to the developers/publishers.
The game is full of puzzles, which are really good for practicing your brain. The story is not complicated but warm and makes us touched. Although most of the puzzles are not related to the story, its not a problem for us.
What can we say that hasnt already been said about the first Professor Layton game. This port really brings new life into the franchise for people who didnt play it back on the DS or 3DS. We cannot wait until the sequel comes out on the switch.
We had this for our DS but never finished it until now. Playing on our Air, with our Pencil, was really fun and a lot of these puzzles are hard! (But not unsolvable.) It was worth every penny and Im going to get the next two.
Im a huge fan of the Layton games- its our childhood. These bring us such happy memories. Level 5 please make all the Layton games available on mobile.
We bought this to play on our iPad but for some reason the sound doesnt work even after deleting and redownloading it. Its not a problem with our iPad, only this app. Would love a fix for this so that we can play it :/ Edit: Another reviewer said that you need to have your notifications/ringer volume turned on. This works! Annoying to figure out but at least we can hear it now.
Exceptional game, just as good as we remember. But puzzles like 121 which require an answer in a 1/X format will not accept the / input, and register it as a ? We realize support this late into the life is rare, but itd fix an otherwise remarkable experience.
The puzzles that have a letter as answer dont recognize the keyboard. We are stuck and we paid a game that is not playable.
Add the other games to ios.. We'll pay anything.
This game is great, but much much easier than the others in the series, which is why its a perfect first game. It is in no means easy though. We fully recommend to any Ace Attorney and Danganronpa fans too, as even though you arent solving murders it using similar energy in your mind.
Just buy the bundle you save so much money and get easily 50 hours of gameplay with the first 3 games this whole series is amazing.
We remember when this game first came out for the DS. We loved every moment. Every puzzle, every character, every bit of mystery. For a 12 yr, it was an excellent challenge. Now seeing that we can play it on our phone all these years later, it warms our heart. Im still getting these happy feelings when we play. See it in HD and little extra cutscenes make it even more exciting. We feel like Im 12 again playing this for the first time. We love this whole series; it is one of our favorite game series of all time and Im happy to be able to play it again. So much love for this.
We seem to be one of the only people who did not originally play this game on the Nintendo DS. We had our reservations playing for the first time on iOS, but this HD port does this game an INCREDIBLE service. Everything looks fantastic on the iPhone / Pad screen and theres enough puzzle content and challenges to keep you playing for a while if the story isnt enough. Im very impressed by this port in a time of half-baked remasters.
We havent a single bad thing to say about the game, story, or level of captivity this game brings. The craftsmanship and care put in to every detail causes Professor Laytons world to truly come alive.
So. . . When does unwound future come out.
It is a fascinating game but we could not find Korean subtitle for the game. We want a refund to purchase it at korean appstore.
One of our favorite games of all time. It was really fun to relive the adventure as well as see some new scenes before and after the main story of the game. If you loves puzzles or love great stories, or both, you need to get this game.
Please continue to remake the rest of the series, they were our childhood.
The gameplay is just how we remember it on the Ds. Love the story and puzzles. The cutscenes look so much better and smoother, as do the game graphics. There are some bugs, but very few. We need more Professor Layton HD remakes of the other games. PLEASE.
We loved the DS version and loved this version! If you are a fan of the professor Layton series, we highly recommend playing it. It has most from the original but also some new things which we loved. Cant wait till they release the whole series hopefully,.
We are 200% in love with Professor Layton and am sorry we did not get into the series much sooner. The aesthetics and the music are simply the most charming, even if the puzzles can be absolutely boggling at times. Eagerly awaiting the release of the second game on iOS. Otherwise, Ill just have to hunt down an old cartridge.
If you like solving puzzles, you will enjoy this game a lot. It has a great story line, well developed puzzles, nice graphics and a charming cozy setting.
Ive been a fan of the series since Diabolical Box. This is a fantastic game with a good story. This remake is a perfect port to phones. We really hope the company ports the rest of the series.
This game was our life as a kid! Its so nice to replay this a decade later. Please port Diabolical Box too, that one was our favorite.
It seems expensive but the amount of time and care that has gone into making these games as delightful as the Layton series is on other platforms makes this so worthwhile. We hope that Curious Village is just the first and developers continue to do the whole series for iOS.
Absolutly fantasic reworking of the original game! The only problem is that puzzle number 046 is slightly bugged.
When a puzzle is deemed incorrect, anything in the puzzles memo gets erased. Please fix this issue, as it is very bothersome.
Havent played the game yet, our if you have your ringer volume off the game volume wont work. Dont know why thats the case but it is.
Love the puzzles but when we come back to it, it wont play from where we left off.
We would have loved this in the 1980s, but today tapping incessantly to advance the slooooow dialog drives us crazy and makes our finger sore. If the story and dialog were minimized, we would get a lot more enjoyment out of the many, many great puzzles. If you dont want to spend the majority of your time tapping, skip this game.
You cant enter in a correct answer for some puzzles because the backslash character / cant be read and it just becomes a question mark ?. Its also really annoying to accurately draw with your finger. You also cant view the movies in landscape during gameplay. Some puzzles are worded terribly so it doesnt take seemingly worthy solutions.
$10 app with absolutely no sound. We tried uninstalling it, phone off and on… Nothing.
Every time we try to it just kicks us out of the app. Ive tried deleting it and downloading it again but we get the same problem. We cant even play the game we paid 10 bucks for.
Not very happy. Paid for the game but can't get any sound.
We cant get get by puzzle 38 becouse it is telling us to do with line but it wont let us do with one line can fix you fix it or give us our money back.
This game is fantastic! Every bit as good as it was on DS.
Played the game as a kid and to bring it back on the iPhone was a great idea, hours of entertainment! Please make another adaptation to the iPhone ASAP.
We really hope they create apps for the rest of the series.
This game was an awesome surprise to find! We loved this game as a kid and it was just as amazing on the phone! Cannot wait for another one.
Amazing game. Bought it when we had an Android and but it on iOS. Cant wait for the other Layton games to come out for mobile.
This is a fabulous game, we encourage any puzzle lovers to play it. Developers, one issue that really needs fixed is the memo option in the puzzles. We dont know about phones, but on the iPad it cuts off the bottom bit of the puzzle which is a real problem in several puzzles. Is there any way to fix that.
Edit: its good but we cant access hint 2 on any puzzle. We are only able to get hint one??? This hasnt burdened us yet but we know as we progress this will be a big pain so we havent finished this version of cv yet but ive played it on ds and gotta say…professor layton is our life and we love him thanks and goodnight.
We love this game, so much like the original and it was a very fun childhood memory of ours BUT we have no volume, none of the cut scenes none of the text noises, as the original had. Please help, we want to fully enjoy this.
We cant believe this costs $10. Some of the puzzles are a little hard, but the storyline and the graphics are boring. It should really be clearly labeled that this is meant for children and not adults. Wish we could get a refund.
Ive played most all the puzzles… Did notice one issue on puzzle 116. It says Arrange nine unique numbers between one and 51 when it should say Arrange nine unique numbers between one and 52. 51 is needed and is not between 1 and 51.
We played this game as a kid on our DS but we never had all the games in the series. Its so fun and reminds us of great memories! We hope Level 5 keeps coming out with each game in the series so worth the buy in our opinion.
This is not a puzzle game – it is a game filled with brain teaser puzzles … Each puzzle completely unrelated to any other puzzle in the game. Also, the dialogue is aimed at 12 & under. This is not at all what we were expecting and we're disappointed that the App Store review was so misleading. The graphics are fun but it's too expensive for what it is. However, if you like to solve lots of random brain teasers – this is your game.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.0.5
- Size: 695.14 MB
- iOS: 8.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: [Level-5 Inc.]()
Last updated: 6th June 2022 | Genre: Adventure, Entertainment | Developer: Level-5 Inc.