After the masterpiece that was Lost Future, it would be extremely hard to live up to expectations with another sequel. So Level-5 decided to somewhat start over with a trilogy of prequels that will oficially be complete at the end of this year. It begins with The Specter's Call, which is now chronlogically the first game in the series.. Let's take a look:
The Story:
Back when Layton had no apprentices or assistants, he received a letter from a college friend about a giant specter terrorizing the city he lives in. After being joined by his new assistant Emmy Altava, who was appointed by the Dean of his university without his knowledge, Layton hurries to help his friend. As always, the story is fantastic, full of mystery and heart. One noteworthy addition in this game is the episodes feature, which allow you to unlock certain optional cutscenes that develop the new characters and some old ones. Most of them are unlocked through the main story, but if you want to watch them all you're gonna have to solve all 155 puzzles to unlock the optional ones. It's worth it though. Of course it wouldn't be a Layton story if it didn't end with an emotionally powerful ending right? Even though this one isn't as powerful as the ending of Lost Future, it's still a fantastic ending that makes all the hard work worth it. The characters are also great. Right from the get go, Emmy proves herself a charismatic addition to the main cast and the new villain is a serious threat to our heroes.
Overall it's a fantastic story with great characters.
9.5/10
The Gameplay:
The gameplay is exactly what we expect from the series. It's full of cleverly crafted puzzles for you to solve, puzzle minigames to complete and objects to collect. The city in this game is the biggest in the series yet, so this game introduces various methods to quickly travel to certain places.
Overall, the gameplay keeps the same level of quality that was reached in Lost Future.
10/10
The Audio:
Tomohito Nishiura gives us yet another brilliant soundtrack full of excellent tunes. The ending theme in particular is one of the best in the series. The voice acting is once again sublime and every actor puts their all into giving a great performance.
10/10
The Graphics:
Keeping the exact same art style and sprite animation style from the previous game, the game keeps all of the charm that's a trademark of the series. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
10/10
Overall Specter's Call is a brilliant game that starts off the prequel trilogy with great momentum.
Final Grade: 10/10
Join me next time when we move to the 3DS where Level-5 mixes things up with Miracle Mask. See ya then ;)
