Poll

How many games in the series have you beat?

Professor Layton and the Curious Village
5 (13.9%)
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
5 (13.9%)
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
5 (13.9%)
Professor Layton and the Last Specter
5 (13.9%)
Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
6 (16.7%)
Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy
3 (8.3%)
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy
0 (0%)
Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
3 (8.3%)
I've Completed Every Game Fully (The Few and the Proud)
0 (0%)
I've Never Finished/Played a Game in the Series (The Few and the Not-So-Proud)
4 (11.1%)

Total Members Voted: 11

Voting closed: March 23, 2020, 06:58:11 PM

Author Topic: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton  (Read 21716 times)

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Offline Khushrenada

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Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« on: October 25, 2019, 11:32:22 AM »
Hello NWR Forum users. Welcome to the 8th edition of Run the Series, a long running series of threads which is mainly long-running because each new entry seems to take so much longer to get posted since the last one. Of course, you may have thought this thing was dead since the last entry was a year ago. I guess you'll just have to blame October for bringing another dead thing back to life to haunt these forums.


Run the Series Mission Statement

From past posts, I am sometimes surprised at what games users on these forums have played or missed in a franchise and it's made me curious about the gaming habits of all our various users here. It also made curious as to what my gaming experience looks like compared to others. I thought I'd see if I could find out more information on the matter by creating a series of threads designed to look at different franchises found on Nintendo systems to see what series the users here like. What franchises do people still find important to keep up with and what series have they let lapse or play infrequently? What are the franchises people haven't even touched or have fully completed? Which games are the most common shared experience in a series and which ones are the least?

For each entry, I've created a poll and the poll lists all the games considered as franchise entries.* Users can then select which games in the series they have beat. When I mean beat, I'm just referring to completing the main quest or storyline and seeing the credits and not if you've completed every other side quest or mission similar to how Backloggery would classify those terms. This poll is a chance to let all users see how they stack up again users from this forum.

In addition, if you want to provide more information about what your level of completion is on games, feel free to post about it. For that matter, feel free to give your thoughts on the series. Why you play it, why you don't, what's your favorite entry, least favorite entry, how you'd rank the entry in the series, what you'd like to see, what you don't want to see, etc. You know the drill. Whatever comments you want to make based on the series under discussion or specific games in the poll, this thread is open for you to do so.

*Or at least my take on what the series consists of. You are welcome to tell me how wrong I am with my selections.  :'(

Past Entries in the Series

1st Edition - 2D Mario Platformers
2nd Edition - Pokémon Main Series
3rd Edition - Donkey Kong (Country Style)
4th Edition - Wario Platformers
5th Edition - Mario Kart
6th Edition - 2D Zelda Games
7th Edition - Star Fox

If you are new to this forum series and/or you missed an entry and/or have recently played something in the series and now want to comment on it, feel free to check out the past entries and post as desired. Bumping Khushrenada threads is always a welcome practice on these forums.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2019, 06:49:42 PM »
The Series Up for Discussion

Even though the Console and Handheld forums have now merged like Nintendo did with the Switch, I still would like to try and alternate the series but up for discussion between the series that are or contain many entries between console and handheld games. Thus, I thought I'd bring up a handheld series that doesn't get too much discussion these days. (Although maybe that will just result in this thread not getting much discussion either.  :P) That series is the Professor Layton series.

Released back when the DS was red-hot and creating new experiences for handheld gaming with Kirby Canvas Curse, Electroplankton and Brain Age, the creation of the Professor Layton was probably influenced by what was dubbed "casual" games or casual gamers who had seemed to embrace the DS and the different kinds of software being released for it. Professor Layton sort of rode in on the "gaming can be good for your brain" obsession of the time by making a game based around various styles of puzzles and brain teasers. It packaged those puzzles in a point and click mystery story with a bit of a European Animation style flair to provide a bit more puzzling action. Oddly, despite scoring very positively when the first game was released in North America, it would take Lisa Kudrow of all people to help boost sales of Curious Village enough to make NoA feel safe to keep porting over the other entries in the series that were already being released in Japan.

For awhile, from 2007 - 2013, a Professor Layton release was almost a yearly staple. Then Level 5 made a curious decision. It was announced that the namesake of the series, Hershel Layton, would not be featured as the main protagonist in future games. This basically seemed to end the series as nothing else was made for it until 2017 with the release of Layton's Mystery Journal with a new protagonist featured of Katrielle Layton. However, unlike the early Layton games, another sequel with the Lady Layton has been slow in coming.


Why Are These Games Part of the Series?

So far, there have 9 games released for this series in addition to some other media in the form of a movie and tv series. However, we are just focusing on the games of the series for now. There have been two spin-offs of the main series. One has been included in this list of games and one has not. I've included the Professor Layton / Phoenix Wright crossover because it has enough of a Layton element in the game and he's still got a big role. Moreover, there aren't that many Layton games out there to require multiple entries in this Run the Series feature. I'd have included the other spin-off of Layton Bros. Mystery Room if not for one important detail which will now be explained in the next section.


What Games Weren't Included

As the text in the Mission Statement mentions, this is "to look at different franchises found on Nintendo systems to see what series the users here like." Because of the Nintendo focus, I've only been interested in the games of a series that were released on or for Nintendo consoles. Up to this point, that hasn't mattered since it has all been first party games and series. However, if doing something like Castlevania or Sonic then there are games I would leave out of the series listing when doing a thread on them. The games left off would be because those games that weren't released on a Nintendo console but on other systems. So now you know my extra interpretation of the rule. I suppose I could throw a non-Nintendo system game up as an optional choice for extra credit but with polls on these forums always getting the options mixed up later on, I'm just leaving them off. If publishers want us to play and buy these games then they'd better put them on Nintendo hardware or they are dead to us, RIGHT?!  >:(

Because of this, I left off Layton Bros. Mystery Room which was only released for mobile. Lady Layton was released on mobile too but was later brought over to the 3DS and now will soon be on the Switch. If Level-5 wants to bring over Layton Bros. then I'll add it to the list but I highly doubt that is coming and from the reviews of it, it doesn't seem like anyone is missing much by not having the game ported over. However, if anyone has played it and wants to comment on it in their posts then feel free to do so. I'm just not going to include as part of the series for Nintendo gamers to complete.


So, with that quick little rundown, let's open it up to the rest of you forum users and let's see how well NWR has Run the Series!
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Offline BeautifulShy

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2019, 08:16:20 PM »
I've never played a game in the series. I was looking at Ace Attorney vs Professor Layton for a time but I didn't play it.  Closest thing on my radar that is related to Professor Layton at least tangentally is this.  https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x41mqda
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2019, 08:53:40 PM »
I played Layton vs Wright and I have the first 3 games on DS but haven't gotten around to them. Capcom did a better job of making Ace Attorney more readily available with a shiny 3DS digital collection than Level 5 did with Layton unfortunately.

Offline ejamer

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #4 on: October 25, 2019, 10:05:42 PM »
... Capcom did a better job of making Ace Attorney more readily available with a shiny 3DS digital collection than Level 5 did with Layton unfortunately.

I held out for a long time hoping that a 3DS collection would arrive... but broke down earlier this year and picked up all six of the main Professor Layton games after watching the Professor Layton movie togther with my kids. Layton is a great series of brain teasers, and the delightful production values and cute stories provide a nice framework for each adventure.

Haven't played Last Specter or Azran Legacy yet. Looking forward to both games - so the timing of this Run the Series is excellent since both are on my short list and it's time to pick my next game from the shelves. It'll be hard for either to beat the sublime Unwound Future though!


Did anyone have thoughts about the movie? I was surprised at how true to form it felt, with some puzzles you could try to guess along the way and others that turned into dramatic reveals by Professor Layton. The story was kind of absurd in a charming, Layton-esque way that fit the series extremely well. We found a copy from the local library and would happily watch it again.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2019, 10:13:34 PM by ejamer »
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Offline nickmitch

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2019, 01:24:25 AM »
I never saw the movie and actually had forgotten about it until I read your post. I gotta find a way to dig it up.  The cut scenes in the series are really some of the best parts.

I played all the games that aren't about his kids.  I was a big fan of the series.  I think RFN actually convinced me to finally give it a try, and I ended up liking it a lot.  I think it was James who joked that people basically ask you to do their math homework and that was the game.
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Offline TOPHATANT123

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #6 on: October 26, 2019, 07:42:23 AM »
I've played everything apart from Katrielle , which is a shame but maybe the switch version will fix that.

The movie is fantastic and is essentially one long cutscene from the games.

I loved how all the endings to these games (with the exception of maybe the 5th) were bitter sweet. Not a lot of games have the courage to make their endings sad and emotional.

Offline ejamer

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #7 on: October 26, 2019, 09:00:04 PM »
...
I loved how all the endings to these games (with the exception of maybe the 5th) were bitter sweet. Not a lot of games have the courage to make their endings sad and emotional.

Agreed!  The stories are all kind of silly and sweet and sad at the same time.  They really did elevate these games beyond a collection of brain-teasers into something I wanted to experience - and of course nobody really remembers the puzzles once they finish, so the stories are crucial to giving the overall games value.

I'm not sure that I loved the "trilogy" approach where you really needed to play multiple games to get the connections between stories - availability of the games wasn't always great, and it just ended up being a really big time/effort commitment if you weren't playing as they got released.  Still, it made things a bit richer for the later entries in each set.

Did you guys like the unlockable games and puzzles?  Did you play beyond the stories?  Although I did spend a bit of extra time with more puzzles, and tried to finish all puzzles in the base game, I didn't always try to experience everything the carts had to offer.  That seems like it could have made each game a huge time sink (in a good way) for completionists, though.
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Offline UncleBob

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2019, 01:19:31 AM »
I hate you, Khushrenada.

I love Layton and have all the games (even downloaded the Layton Bros. game... never managed to force myself all the way through it though).  I imported two Club Nintendo prizes for Layton (an awesome slip case box for the original trilogy and a... uh... luggage tag.  But I own it.

Anywhoo, this thread had me googling Layton stuff again and I found out there were NFC Charms released in Japan for the Switch version of Millionaires' Conspiracy.

I just threw down $140 to get most of the set imported from Japan.  SUPER is going to order two of them because they don't ship to the US.

You just made me spend $140 on smaller, less functional (probably non-functional in the US Release), less cool looking amiibo.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2019, 02:50:17 AM »
I hate you, Khushrenada.

Well, this thread took a darker turn that I anticipated.

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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #10 on: October 27, 2019, 03:18:43 AM »
For myself, I've owned all the Layton games usually getting them within a year of so of their release. As such, I do own all the games on the list. However, I've really taken my time in playing them and spacing them out. But part of that is because:

Did you guys like the unlockable games and puzzles?  Did you play beyond the stories?  Although I did spend a bit of extra time with more puzzles, and tried to finish all puzzles in the base game, I didn't always try to experience everything the carts had to offer.  That seems like it could have made each game a huge time sink (in a good way) for completionists, though.

Yes, I am one of those people / players who downloaded all the extra free puzzles and completed them along with unlocking and playing through all the bonus content and puzzles in a cart. The only extra bonus content I didn't really get into or do much with was the London Life oddity in the Last Specter game.

However, I think that by doing so, I find that I completely get my fill of puzzles for sometime and then it means I need a couple years to pass before I get that itch of wanting to do more puzzles and riddles again.

It came up in the 3DS Top Playtime thread found in this section of the forums but a few months ago, I finally delved into the fifth game Miracle Mask and completed it. That means I've gone through the first 5 leaving just Azran Legacy, vs Phoenix Wright and Layton's Mystery Journal as the only games I've still got to get to.

As of right now, I'd say my ranking of the series is:

5. Diabolical Box
4. Miracle Mask
3. Unwound Future
2. Curious Village
1. Last Specter

I seem to be one of the few people who is not as enamored by Unwound Future's story as much as everyone else seems to be. I may get into some spoiler space regarding my thoughts on these stories yet in this thread but that time will be later in the future. Too much other game discussion I still need to be involved in.

of course nobody really remembers the puzzles once they finish,

I was thinking about this a bit while playing Miracle Mask. There are some types of puzzles that seem like they could pop up in every game like Sliding Block puzzles or Logic Puzzles. It got me wondering whether each game actually has new puzzles or if there are bunch that have been reused exactly or had a different skin put on them. Because of the gaps between games when I've played them, I wouldn't know. I wonder if Level-5 keeps track and knows that themselves. That said, there are some select puzzles that I can remember between games but usually that's because they've had a few variations and show up 4 or 5 times in a game.
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Offline TOPHATANT123

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #11 on: October 27, 2019, 10:01:03 AM »
I'm still salty to this day that PAL territories didn't get London Life

Offline UncleBob

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #12 on: October 27, 2019, 10:16:30 AM »
I'm still salty to this day that PAL territories didn't get London Life

For what it's worth, the DS is region free and the game is fairly common in the US second hand market.

I hate you, Khushrenada.

Well, this thread took a darker turn that I anticipated.

What's worse is trying to track down information on these charms.

I *think* I have them all, although I did have to buy a copy of the Japanese game, as it had one included as a preorder bonus.

https://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/layton/

This is about the only real list I've found.  And because Tomy apparently hates me, all the text is in images.  So I had to grab the image file URLs, upload them to an OCR scanner to extract the text, then run that text through Google translate.  It would have been easier to learn Japanese at this point. 🤣
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Offline decoyman

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #13 on: October 29, 2019, 06:20:32 PM »
That is master-level collection dedication there, UncleBob. *golfclap*

I love all Layton games I've played, even the weird Bros one that I completely finished, tyvm. Never got to play the other spin-offs, though I did pick up Millionaire's Conspiracy for my niece (maybe I should try to borrow it from her :P)...

But how did I not know there was a movie?!?! =o
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Offline ejamer

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #14 on: October 29, 2019, 07:38:16 PM »
...
But how did I not know there was a movie?!?! =o

Definitely track it down if you like the series. Won't blow your mind, but will be a totally enjoyable watch. :)
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Offline UncleBob

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #15 on: October 29, 2019, 08:57:09 PM »
The movie is *great*.  It's not a cinematic masterpiece, but fans of the series will enjoy it.

I've been watching bootleg subtitled uploads of the spin-off anime and I'm really enjoying it too.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #16 on: October 31, 2019, 12:07:47 PM »
The movie has been on my mind of late also because while going through some of the last issues of Nintendo Power for their thoughts on the 3DS VC, there were ads for the Layton movie, usually on the back cover. I had forgotten about it and looking at the ad/poster for it, I see it is set during the time of the second trilogy with Emmy and Descole shown. Having only gotten around to the second trilogy in the past three years, I don't think I even realized the significance of those characters at the time. While I doubt it will spoil anything, I wonder if I should finish the trilogy first before seeing the movie. Does it relate much to what happens in the games?
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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #17 on: October 31, 2019, 12:53:58 PM »
Unfortunately I've never played any of these games, so I don't have much to say. I do have two of them, which are Curious Village and The Last Specter, but I've never tried them. Perhaps I'll get to them eventually... maybe...

Offline TOPHATANT123

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #18 on: October 31, 2019, 03:48:52 PM »
The movie has been on my mind of late also because while going through some of the last issues of Nintendo Power for their thoughts on the 3DS VC, there were ads for the Layton movie, usually on the back cover. I had forgotten about it and looking at the ad/poster for it, I see it is set during the time of the second trilogy with Emmy and Descole shown. Having only gotten around to the second trilogy in the past three years, I don't think I even realized the significance of those characters at the time. While I doubt it will spoil anything, I wonder if I should finish the trilogy first before seeing the movie. Does it relate much to what happens in the games?
The movie takes place between 4 and 5, so you only need to have played The Last Specter to watch the movie.

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #19 on: October 31, 2019, 06:47:16 PM »
Sweet! I'm good to go.
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Offline UncleBob

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #20 on: November 19, 2019, 10:01:47 PM »


This is on you Khush.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #21 on: November 19, 2019, 10:56:26 PM »
You're welcome.

(Why do you have two copies of the movie?)
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Offline UncleBob

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #22 on: November 19, 2019, 11:03:21 PM »
Ordered the movie when it came out in the UK because they hadn't announced a US release yet.  Bought the US release when it came out in the US because reasons.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #23 on: November 19, 2019, 11:41:10 PM »
What's the box above the Lady Layton game?

EDIT: Nevermind. Went back to your earlier post and saw you mention "an awesome slip case box for the original trilogy" so that is probably it. And yeah, storing the original trilogy in that would definitely be the best way to keep those games.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2019, 11:43:55 PM by Khushrenada »
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Offline UncleBob

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Re: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton
« Reply #24 on: November 20, 2019, 12:11:49 AM »
Yeah, it's the slipcase.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=enICZGX7K8g

Sadly, it is an import from the UK - where DS games are in bigger cases because Europe had to overcompensate or something (in reality, I believe it was to allow for thicker manuals in multiple languages).  But this means there's a bit of wiggle room with the NA releases inside.
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