[WitchOfDoubt]

Gonzosports: I see it as a subgenre difference. Disliking adventure games with obviously artificial puzzles is like disliking musicals or operas with obviously artificial musical numbers.

All that singing in musicals can break the suspension of disbelief because it's so obviously unreal. But for some people, it contributes to the sense of a different world with different rules.

Just as people in a musical sing just because it's time for a song, puzzles sometimes exist just because it'd be cool if the protagonist solved a puzzle. Professor Layton does this fantastically well; the first five times you see a random puzzle pop out of a trash can, it's silly and nonsensical. By the hundredth time, that's just how things work in St. Mystere.

This kind of contrivance one of the charms and pitfalls of genre fiction and games. Miss Marple sure runs into a lot of mysteries for someone who isn't a detective! Princess Peach sure gets kidnapped a lot! And Guybrush Threepwood has a ridiculous number of obviously contrived puzzles to deal with.