Topic: Run The Series 8: Professor Layton

[ejamer]

Wow, that slipcase is pretty sweet.  Having a good way to store the set of related games together is a cool idea too.

You are a bit crazy though, tracking down all of the charms! 
(Not that I'm jealous or anything...)

Playing through The Last Specter now, and still really enjoying this series. Even when the puzzles are a bit hit and miss, the great art design and overall sense of style helps draw you in, and the silly mystery stories are a lot of fun. Top notch games!

[UncleBob]

I think that's where the first, maybe four?, games succeed so well, the fifth and sixth games struggle and, unfortunately, Katrielle really comes up short.

There's always going to be hit or miss puzzles.  Maybe it's something too similar to a bunch of previous puzzles.  Maybe it's just something that doesn't click with a specific type of player.  Maybe it's just a bad puzzle.

The first four-or-so games are so charming, with the music, the art style, the cast of characters, and even the over the top storylines that you're willing to muscle through a few sluggish puzzles here and there to keep going.

But when you get to playing a game where the story is meh or you start disliking the main characters (personally, I began disliking Luke in TLS), the "bad" puzzles just become more of a chore.

I think that's why Katrielle has performed poorly.  The very loosely interconnected stories, none of the main characters are all that great (Ernest being downright intolerable), and even the art by way of character designs seems a bit... bland.  Why play through some mediocre puzzles when we never even solve Katri's first case ("Any Mystery Solved" my ass.)  And this all comes from someone who enjoyed the game. 🤣

[UncleBob]

Double post because it keeps giving me an error when I try to edit..

If you want a bunch of puzzles without all the filler, you can always get:
https://www.amazon.com/Matchstick-Nintendo-DS/dp/B001FB6I40

[ejamer]

I think that's where the first, maybe four?, games succeed so well, the fifth and sixth games struggle and, unfortunately, Katrielle really comes up short.
...

This sounds reasonable - I really enjoyed the first three games a great deal, but found Miracle Mask (#5) a bit of a let down because for whatever reason I just couldn't get into the story.

At the time, I just assumed it was due to playing too many games from the series and getting tired of the formula they use. Now I'm less sure. Was it me, or did the game just lose some of the detail and charm that older entries had? Moving to the more powerful 3DS handheld did let them improve visuals, but maybe they spent more time/effort/money on visuals than other aspects of the story and presentation?

[Khushrenada]

Well, having finally played and beat Miracle Mask a few months, my thoughts are relatively fresh on it so allow me to weigh in with my thoughts since I also rated Miracle Mask on the lower end of the series.

First off all, the game does have some nice improvements over the DS games. I like that the 3D effect is used and the visuals have been upgraded from the DS so the game’s graphics stood out to me while still keeping that same Layton style. As well, the game introduced a curser you have to move over environments to alert you to points of interest. No more tapping around on every millimeter of the screen to find Picrats or hidden puzzles. The puzzles are the usual affair. Nothing really revelatory there. Music is good. I liked the main night theme when searching through Monte d’Or. On a technical level, I really don’t have anything negative I can point to and am quite positive about that side of it.

The main problem is the story. That’s the biggest glaring weakness to me which is a shame because it has a good hook to get you into it at first. There are multiple problems, however, that combine to bring it down. I'm going to dive into and things will be absolutely spoiled about this story. So, if you plan on playing at some point, I'm warning you know that while I'm still going to keep some things vague there will be other specifically spoiled and discussed.

[Khushrenada]

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.)

[Khushrenada]

There’s more I could get into about the story beats but this enough to show how the plotting in this game just comes off as weirdly unfocused creating a lot of headscratching moments with things that seem like they could be significant but then aren’t. Without those distractions, the end result is that the actual main story of Randall and his revenge plays out in a pretty basic fashion and an already thin story in that regard is stretched out longer than it maybe should have been. Actually, let’s add story pacing as another sort of issue. In Chapter 3, when Layton meets up with the Scotland Yard detectives, there’s a long spiel as the break down what the Masked Gentleman’s miracles have been and solve most of them. After that, it’s just chasing after the Masked Gentleman and waiting for the characters to unmask him. I think it is Chapter 6 where past Layton and Randall go through the cave system to find the Azran treasure. When first playing it, I appreciated the designers trying to incorporate new ways to play to keep things fresh. It is a bit like going through a 2D Zelda Dungeon. The problem is that it is a very basic Zelda Dungeon. Although the game tries to include puzzles of pushing and rolling boulders and defeating enemies to advance from room to room, these puzzles are just not very challenging or fun. Before long, I began wondering just how much longer this section was going to go on and it wears out its appeal probably halfway through.

So, let’s see, pacing issues in how the story plays out and is developed, unfocused in that the game seems to be looking ahead to the next story rather than the one it is telling now with elements that seem to go nowhere and underwhelming in the story it does tell. I appreciate that they tried for a more happy ending this time compared to some of the more bittersweet / downer endings previous games had but by the time it took to get to the ending, it was more meh than moving. Descole makes a very late appearance to reveal his machinations on the story and, after waiting for him to show up for most of the game, it is also an underwhelming appearance compared to Don Paolo’s surprises in the first three. Layton’s end revelation with Monty lands as a thud because Monty just seems to be added in the last chapter near the end and suddenly he’s an important piece to everything. Layton’s past is kind of underwhelming and there’s a lot more that could have been done there. If his hometown basically became a ghost town over time with a lot of the residents moving to Monte d’Or then what happened to his parents? How does he feel about that? If Randall’s family went bankrupt by continuing to search for him then why not tell them about the treasure that Randall had died to acquire and he found? (Because then there wouldn’t be a mystery of how Henry got his wealth and founded Monte d’Or.)

I know Layton mysteries dig into the fantastical with some of their solutions or elements in the case so it isn’t worth getting that hung up on story details. The difference is that the previous games were self-contained and not acting like a prologue for the next game and they moved smoothly enough that they made enough sense in how they progressed that the player doesn’t start questioning every detail and confused about what is relevant and what isn’t in the story. Yet, I will say that (aside from maybe the first game) I did end this game wanting to jump right into the next Layton game which isn’t something the Layton series usually fosters in me when I wrap things up. Heck, even most games in other franchises don’t usually create a feeling in me of wanting to play another or next entry right away. So, if the developers were looking for ways to keep players engaged in buying and playing the next entry then mission accomplished. Unfortunately, it also means you walk away from Miracle Mask thinking it was an ok game but not as good as what came before since it leaves you feeling the story is incomplete with the real story / mystery to come in the next game.

Anyways, there’s my manifesto on Miracle Mask. There’s been a lot I’ve kept on mind about the game since I’ve meant to do a Pietriots review for it when I finished but have just never found a way to really put my thoughts together on it in a way that pleases me. So, thanks for bringing it up. This is your fault Unclebob ejamer.

[ejamer]

Woot woot!  Finished playing through Layton and the Last Specter. Overall, it was solid and probably sits third out of the five games I've played (all being good titles overall).

Technically, I think this game shows a nice, steady improvement over previous entries in the series. The presentation is lovely (as expected) and the music was particularly good in my opinion - although I'm a sucker for music from all of the Layton games.  Puzzles were a mixed bag, with a few too many "just move stuff around until you find the solution" for my liking... but mostly avoided having silly trick questions that were obscured by poor or unusual wording. (It's been a while since playing any Layton games, but I remember some puzzles like that in other games from the series.)

The only thing really holding this game back in my opinion was the feeling that some of the key story points were rushed or missing. In particular, I felt like there wasn't nearly enough weight given to the plight of the children or the relationship the forged with their special friend. Even though some of that is by design - and expected as part of the big "reveal" sequences that always happen in Layton games - it felt like the writers could have taken a few sentences here or there to build background that would have added emotional depth to the sad events at game end... instead they end up being throw-away dramatics.

There are other moments and characters that seemed disappointing. Clark being played too straight for far too long, but then sending them to the cellar to find... nothing? And if he knew what was there, why is playing along anyway? The piping around town really felt like it should have had a better payoff, the excavation site was downplayed (more accurately: ignored) to the point it might as well have not existed, etc. None of these are deal-breakers though - it's just a consistent sense that things could have been slightly better in how the story was revealed.

That said, there is much to like about the game. I rather enjoyed having Emmy in the game, and felt like they did a pretty good job balancing the three protagonists. The overall plot was pretty good, and while they made it very clear this is the first part of a larger plot there weren't so many threads tied to future games that you feel like the experience was rushed or incomplete.

What's interesting to me now is reading Khushrenada's comments about Miracle Mask - which I generally agree with - and thinking about how they compare to what I just experienced. In almost all aspects (outside of presentation), I'd argue that The Last Specter was a better game.  It leaves me kind of nervous to play Azran Legacy though... will that game also be a disappointment, of will the "middle games" of both Layton trilogies be the weakest points?


The good news for me is that Last Specter left me excited for more. I want to re-watch The Eternal Diva now. Diving into another Layton game is something I'd happily do before long, after a short break to avoid puzzle fatigue. But should I play Miracle Mask again to refresh the story in my mind? Or maybe just watch relevant cut scenes on YouTube and move forward with Azran?