The first thing I’d point to is that it isn’t quite a standalone story. Unlike past Layton games, this one begins to set-up the story and introduce characters that have little to do with the Monte d’Or story in preparation for Hershel’s next and last game with Azran legacy. In fact, the game even sort of ends with a cliffhanger animation of the mysterious new villain facing off against Descole and raising questions as to what their pasts and motivations are. As such, it makes the Miracle Mask mystery come off as a minor diversion or side quest in the face of a much larger threat.
At the same time, Miracle Mask adds to that feeling of this game being a minor Layton mystery by not really being all that mysterious. There’s usually 10 mysteries that the game considers important in solving. In this case, there is stuff like the secret of the Mask of Chaos, what is the identity of the Masked Gentleman, how did he pull off this miracle. One of the biggest ones is the identity of the Masked Gentleman but that is pretty much clear by the time you finish Chapter 2 of the story or at least you should have a very strong suspect in mind. The game also splits the story a bit by almost doing two stories with the second acting as a bit of a Layton origin story and tying that into the current story events. While it was sort of neat to see a different style of Layton at first, it ultimately doesn’t do too much to flesh out his character. Moreover, the flashbacks center around the tragedy of Randall so you are playing them out for that moment to occur. Yet, it is hard to care that much about it since, again, the game is making it quite clear that Randall is the Masked Gentleman. Thus, the emotional beats for the flashbacks and Randall tragedy don’t really land because they are not going to have any permanence. Truthfully, I was really hoping that Randall being the masked gentleman was going to be a big misdirect but as the story progressed, the possibilities for who else could be the gentleman continued to shrink.
On top of that, there are just all sorts of weird loose ends and stuff that seems to go nowhere. Layton’s mother is worried because strange men seemed insistent on having his father show them the ruins outside of town. Then the father later says the mother just overreacted and nothing is brought up about it again. So, was it a false alarm or was it significant? There’s a hoodlum you meet on the way to Henry’s home when you first travel in Monte d’or. The hoodlum seems to imply he’s got business with Henry and Angela or at least that’s what I thought from the initial conversation. The hoodlum also a partner who’s got the crescent moon shaped head. You encounter a few more times in the game but, in the end, they seem to have no connection with anybody. They aren’t working for Henry or his rival or Descole or the other new villain introduced. They’re just a couple ruffians in town, I guess. The Scotland Yard detective sort of disappears after awhile and then just shows up once near the end in a quick animated scene which is the first glimpse of Descole’s rival. (Which is a shame because I was hoping that he might be the Masked Gentleman and pretending to Randall to throw everyone off the scent.)