Professor Layton Retrospective - The Miracle Mask

Following Specter's Call, Level-5 started development on the next game in the series. It started out as another DS game, but after looking at a developer kit of the Nintendo 3DS, Akihiro Hino decided to order development to start over from scratch to take full advantage of the new console's capabilities.
The result is Miracle Mask, the first of the 2 Layton games on the platform. Let's take a look:

The Story:

One day, the Professor receives a letter from Angela Ledore, a woman he went to high school with.
In it, she asks for help. Her city, Monte D'Or, is being attacked by an individual known as the Masked Gentleman, who apparently can perform terrible miracles. Layton, Luke and Emmy arrive at Monte D'Or just in time to see the Masked Gentleman turn half the people in the City Plaza into stone. It's up to the Professor to figure out who is this man and what is he after. The story is as expected absolutely engaging. In this game we get to see Layton's past in detail and how he became the perfect gentleman we all know and love. It's got tragedy, humor and intrigue all the way through, culminating into a heartwarming climax that you would have to be very bitter not to love. The "Episodes" menu from Specter's Call returns with extra cutscenes that further develop the story and the characters, and this time they all get unlocked as you go through the story.

Overall it's yet another wonderful tale of mystery that will engage you like few stories in games can.

10/10


The Gameplay:

Taking advantage of the capabilities of the 3DS, the game now gives you a new control scheme to explore the 3D environments. This time, you have an actual cursor, like in a point and click adventure game that you drag around by using the touch screen. It allows for 3D investigation that wouldn't be possible in the 2D areas of previous games. Another noteworthy aspect of the gameplay is the added variety. At certain times in the game, you will encounter certain different gameplay styles according to what makes sense in the context of the story. I would like to mention the Zelda-like dungeon with 6 floors where you see things from a top-down perspective and solve puzzles reminiscent of Nintendo's action-adventure series. Aside from this, though, it's the same deal we all know already: Numerous puzzles that will test your brain in various ways.

Overall, the gameplay does a fantastic job of complimenting the story, having variety and staying true to what made this series what it is.

10/10



The Audio:

Once again Tomohito Nishiura gives us a wonderful soundtrack that gives the world of the game great atmosphere, complements the emotional moments of the plot and just has you humming to it.
The voice acting is as always absolutely stellar.

10/10


The Graphics:

Taking advantage of the capabilities of the 3DS, the whole world of Layton is now a fully 3D cel-shaded environment. The characters also now have 3D models, and in some cutscenes are actually fully animated. Some people dislike this and prefer the visual consistency between FMVs and the 2D ingame visuals of previous games. Me personally, I appreciate that Level-5 is trying to fully use the capabilities of the system. The use of 3D is pretty superficial, as it doesn't compliment the gameplay like in other 3DS titles and is just for visual spectacle. It should be noted, however, that this game was a launch title in Japan, and since the artists didn't have any basis to follow, I think they can be forgiven.

9/10

Overall the first 3D entry in the series is an excellent chapter that brings a welcome breath of fresh air into the series while still staying true to what makes it special.

Final Grade: 10/10


It was without a doubt a pleasure to play through the titles of this series back to back, and now the wait for the final chapter of the saga, Azran Legacy, begins. See you next review ;)

Professor Layton Retrospective - The Specter's Call

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 ;)

Professor Layton Retrospective - The Lost Future

After two hits in a row, the first Layton trilogy comes to an end with "The Lost Future". It is currently the last game in the series chronologically, as the new, ongoing trilogy is a prequel series. It ties all the loose ends of every sub-plot that started in "Curious Village" while telling its own story. Let's take a look:

The Story:

The professor and Luke receive a letter from someone claiming to be Luke himself from ten years in the future. In it, he requests the professor's assistance to stop the future version of Layton, who has apparently became a mob boss, rendering police useless, and now rules London.
The story is once again fantastic. The time travel aspect is handled in a brilliant way to the point that it creates no plotholes at all, thanks to a specific plot point that prevents that possibility.
The characters are also quite great. We get some character development for old characters, including the main duo, and the new characters are all charismatic and interesting. As Layton tradition demands, it all builds up into an emotionally powerful climax, and this one is even better than the previous one.

Overall, it's a fantastic story with fantastic characters.

10/10


The Gameplay:

This game perfects the formula that was already established in the previous two games. The puzzles are as clever and creative as ever, and all of them use the touch screen brilliantly. The puzzle mini-games are also better this time around, especially one where you have to lead a car through a course that resembles SEGA's "Chu-Chu Rocket". There's also the addition of a Super Hint added to the three hint system from the previous games, which pretty much tells you the answer to the puzzle at the cost of two hint coins.

Overall, the gameplay is the Layton formula perfected.

10/10


The Audio:

Tomohito Nishiura once again did the music and it's once again charming thanks to the European flavor the accordion gives it. I don't find this soundtrack to be quite as catchy as previous ones, but the brilliant composition more than makes for it, as it always fits the context of every situation. The track for the Puzzle Battles in particular is fantastic. The voice acting is once again brilliant. Christopher Miller, in particular, gives a standout performance as Layton.

9.5/10


The Graphics:

Just as in previous entries, the game uses 2D animated sprites to achieve a hand drawn look. The FMVs are, as always, very well made and help the cinematic feel a lot, and character design is still full of variety and charm.

10/10


Overall, The first Layton trilogy stands as one of the greatest ever in any entertainment medium. Each game is better than the last, and it tells an overall brilliant plot.

Final Grade: 10/10


Next time, we take a look at Level-5's attempt at pulling off what George Lucas couldn't: Create a great trilogy of prequels. See ya then ;)

Professor Layton Retrospective: The Eternal Diva

Four days before the 3rd Professor Layton game came out, The first movie installment of the franchise was released in Europe. It was made by Level-5 themselves in collaboration with P.A Works, the company that makes the FMVs for the games. Loved by fans, this is one of those rare good video game movies. The movie takes place after Specter's Call and before The Miracle Mask, let's take a look:

The Script:

Professor Layton receives a letter from Janice, a former student of his who's an opera singer. In it she informs the professor that a young girl claims to be a reincarnation of a dead friend of hers. It's up to the Professor and Luke to solve this mystery. The story is great, as it retains the family friendly but emotionally deep themes that the series is known for. The characters are also very interesting and likable, especially Janice. The script does a fantastic job of being a 1:1 translation of the games into movie format. It sucessfully blends puzzle-solving and adventure without making it feel forced.

Overall it's a fantastic script.

9/10

The Direction:

The direction of the movie is great. The movie deals character moments with great care, action scenes are stylish and epic in scope, and comedy is very well timed. It's incredibly easy to be swept by Layton's lovable world.

9/10

The Audio:

Just like in the games, we have Tomohito Nishiura in charge of the soundtrack. For the first time a Layton story is enhanced by a full orchestra instead of DS synths and it sounds phenomenal. Hearing the series trademark tunes fully orchestrated is a real treat for fans, and the new tracks are equally catchy and effective. The voice acting is, as expected, truly brilliant.

10/10

The Animation:

P.A Works bring the work they do for the games into the big screen and it looks great. All the characters look and move just like in the games, which will please fans. The only problem is the integration of the CG. For the most part it looks fine, but sometimes a cg vehicle can clash with the hand-drawn style.

8.5/10


Overall, Level-5's first venture into the movie business is a smashing sucess. It's touching, it's incredibly fun, the characters are just as lovable as they are in the games and it sucessfully blends all the elements that make the games great into one tight package.

Final Grade: 9/10


Join me next time when we go back to the games for the last game of the first Layton trilogy: The Lost Future. See you then ;)

Professor Layton Retrospective: The Pandora's Box

Curious Village sold 5 million units worldwide and was loved by critics and gamers alike. The Layton character became Level-5's mascot and the franchise is now the company's flagship series.
Since it was originally planned as a trilogy, Team Layton started work on the second game right away: Pandora's Box. Let's take a look:

The Story:

After receiving a letter from Layton's mentor Dr. Schrader about the Pandora's Box, he and Luke travel to his home to find more about it. To their surprise, they find Dr. Schrader dead and the box stolen. It's up to them to solve this mystery, which goes way deeper than they can imagine.
The story is phenomenal, it gets more and more interesting the more you progress through the game, and as in the first game, it all builds up to a wonderfully emotional climax. All the new characters are very interesting and memorable, and the returning ones are just as charming as ever.

Overall it's a wonderful story with great characters.

9/10

The Gameplay:

This game takes the gameplay from Curious Village and refines it. We still solve puzzles to advance in the story, but now there are puzzle-like mini-games like assembling a camera that gives you 9 "Find the differences in both images" challenges and for convenience we now have the ability to take notes during puzzles. Aside from that the gameplay is pretty much the same because well, if it ain't broken don't fix it.

9/10

The Audio:

Tomohito Nishiura returns to score the game, giving us one of the best DS soundtracks ever made. The music is still very accordion-driven and always fits the mood of the situation. Emotional tunes, atmospheric tunes, Ominous tunes, it's all here. The voice acting is again brilliant especially in the climax, and this time there's more voiced in-game cutscenes instead of just the first one like in the first game.

10/10

The Graphics:

The handmade look from the first game returns and is more detailed this time, with more animations and more detailed backgrounds. There are also twice more FMVs than the first game, which helps the story experience a lot. Character design is also like in the first game, and there's alot more variety this time around.

10/10


Overall, Pandora's Box is an excellent sequel that expands on everything the first game did. It's a brilliant game that any DS owner should own.

Final Grade: 9.5/10


Next time we'll do something different: We'll take a look at the first movie in the series: Eternal Diva. See you then ;)

Professor Layton Retrospective - Curious Village

Professor Layton is a series created by Level-5, more specifically its owner Akihiro Hino. As a child, Hino was a big fan of Japan's Head Gymnastics books written by Prof. Akira Tago, and after finally meeting him, he managed to convince him to help him create a series where the player solves the mystery in a detective story by solving brain teasing riddles. Developed specifically for the Nintendo DS, Curious Village takes the player through a string of 135 puzzles.

The Story:

This is a story about the famous detective Hershel Layton and his apprentice Luke Triton. Layton is hired by a rich widow to come to a village called St. Mystere(Yes, you read right) to investigate the disappearence of her husband's inheritance. As they arrive and meet the townspeople both are baffled by how the villagers are obsessed with giving Layton puzzles to solve. As they solve puzzles and question people about the mystery of the disappearence they keep finding incredibly odd things about the town and its mysterious tower in the center. The story, while not brimmimg with depth, is very charming in its simplicity. The game does a great job of keeping the player interested in what is the duo gonna find next. The climax is also very heartwarming, making for a great reward for solving the game's difficult puzzles. The cast of characters is also very charismatic. They may not be incredibly well developed, but they manage to be memorable thanks mostly to the puzzles they give you. Alot of times finding a certain character again makes you remember how his/her last puzzle gave you trouble.

Overall it's a charming and intriguing story with charismatic characters.

8/10


The Gameplay:

The gameplay mixes elements from classic point and click adventures and brain teasing puzzle games. You point and touch the screen to investigate something, talk to someone or go somewhere.
The core of the gameplay is obviously the puzzles. They can be anything from math problems to logical riddles that test your attention skills. All of them use the stylus in some way, some just to pick an answer and others to use it to move objects. They are very well constructed and always make you feel either really stupid or very smart. The sense of accomplishment you get from solving a hard puzzle without cheating is something truly priceless and only adds to the charm of the game. About a quarter of the story mode's puzzles are optional and have to be found somewhere while exploring the village which gives the game replay value. There are also tons of extra puzzles that you can download using the console's Wi-Fi capabilities.

Overall, the gameplay is incredibly addicting and never gets dull.

9/10


The Audio:

The soundtrack was composed by longtime Level-5 composer Tomohito Nishiura. The european feel of the accordion driven music gives the game a very unique atmosphere and the tracks themselves get stuck in your head, especially the one that plays during a puzzle. The voice acting is fantastic and helps bring every main character to life, especially Layton's voice actor.

9/10


The Graphics:

There are very few DS games that look as good as this series does. The in game graphics use 2D sprite animation to create an old fashioned European animation look and the handmade animated FMVs look gorgeous. Character design is akin to British child books and only adds to their charm. It goes to show that you don't need a powerful console to create great visuals.

10/10


Overall, Curious Village is a fantastic game that entertains you with great storytelling while challenging your brain with very cool puzzles, and is a testament to the talent and creativity of Level-5.

Final Grade: 9/10

Next time, on the Layton retrospective, I review the second game in the series: Pandora's Box. See you then ;)

Ni no Kuni - Wrath of the White Witch Review

With games like the Dark Cloud duology, Dragon Quest VIII / IX and the Professor Layton series, Level-5 have established themselves as one of the most talented game developers of our time. They always put a lot of love and thought into their games and it always shows. The Lead Designer, President and CEO of the company, Akihiro Hino, is a huge Studio Ghibli fan and always wanted to make a game with them. It wasn't easy, though, since one of the co-owners, Hayao Miyazaki, doesn't like video games. One day, however, Mr. Hino and his staff went to Studio Ghibli to give everybody there a presentation on what kind of story they wanted to tell, and about the otherworldly feel they wanted the world of the game to have. Impressed by how much passion Mr. Hino felt for his work, Miyazaki decided to allow this once in a lifetime collaboration. Ni no Kuni is a love letter to traditional JRPGs from the golden age. Let's take a look:

The Story:

This game tells the story of a young and innocent boy called Oliver, who finds a magic being called Drippy that helps him open a portal into another world so they can search for something very dear to him. The story is wonderful, masterfully balancing humor and drama thanks to great writing. All the characters have very strong personalities and a lot of charm. As is the norm for a Level-5 game, Ni no Kuni has a very charming sense of humor that cleverly uses plays on words and character traits to get laughs. Throughout the game you'll learn more and more about this new world and the secrets of the people orchestrating its demise. Every sub-plot has a great payoff resulting in an incredibly satisfying narrative.

Overall it's a fantastic story with fantastic characters.

10/10


The Gameplay:

Ni no Kuni is an homage to various famous JRPG franchises. It has the large and explorable world map from classic FF games, a combat system that mixes FFXII with Tales and a  monster-catching mechanic reminiscent of Pokémon. One of its noteworthy unique mechanics, however, is a magical locket. In this world, the villains, in order to keep people from defying them, remove certain emotions from people's hearts, leaving them completely unlike themselves. It's your job to save the people by taking bits of a certain emotion from a person who has it in abundance and giving it to people lacking it in order to restore them to their properselves. This will happen not just in the main story, but in side-quests, too, and it's the primary way of interacting with the people of this world. Speaking of side-quests, they're numerous and very rewarding, as they present you with great items, alchemy formulas and money. One in particular, in which you help the ghost of a dead wizard find out who he was in life, is very satisfying.

But the most well designed aspect of the game might just be the combat system. When you find a monster on the field, you enter into a 3D battle area where you can move freely and run from incoming attacks in Tales style and select your action commands in real-time. Cycling through the menus, however, stops the action like in the old school ATB system from classic FF games. What really makes the combat system great is its philosophy of rewarding and punishing players depending on how well they play. Everytime you use the "Defend" command to block any incoming attack, the enemy drops HP and MP recovery orbs. Exploiting elemental weaknesses deals more damage, and using specific strategies that depend on which enemy you're facing can stun it so that you get time to heal or attack even more. Every time you sucessfully perform one of these tasks, you increase the chance of a golden orb appearing on the field, which unlocks a special attack that deals massive damage. So to sum up: The brilliant combat system punishes players who try to brutally force their way through the game with longer battles, but rewards methodical players by making their lives easier.

The only real gameplay issue I can find is that catching monsters is for the most part luck-based, which makes catching specific monsters you might want more of a hassle than it needs to be. Fortunately,the game doesn't require that you catch more than just a few of them, so it doesn't hurt the experience.

Overall the gameplay is excellent. It's diverse and has a ton of depth while remaining user-friendly.

9.5/10


The Audio:

Studio Ghibli contacted renowned Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi (Known for making music for all of Hayao Miyazaki's movies) to consider working on the game. After also being impressed by how much passion Level-5 had for this project, he decided to accept. Every track in this game is catchy, epic, powerful and always fits the situation it's used in. The music was performed by the famous Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and it sounds absolutely wonderful. The vocal theme, "Pieces of a Broken Heart", is performed by the composer's daugher Mai in the Japanese version, and Archie Buchanan in the English version. Both of them sound absolutely beautiful. The voice acting is also exceptionally well done. Every actor handles both comedy relief and dramatic moments very well.

10/10


The Graphics:

Studio Ghibli working on the visuals of a video game is basically the dream of anyone who loves animation and gaming. Well, we can stop dreaming, because it's true. The hand made FMV cut-scenes look exactly like they were taken from one of their movies. The in-game cutscenes also look absolutely gorgeous, making the best use of cel-shaded graphics since Wind Waker. As usual with Level-5, there's an incredible attention to detail with character animations, graphical effects and backgrounds, which are absolutely filled with pretty things to look at. Character design is also very Ghibli-esque and monster design is the best I've ever seen. Every monster in this game is charming, cute or just cool looking, which makes it hard to resist capturing them for your party.

10/10


Ni no Kuni is a masterpiece. It's the wonderful result of a collaboration between two studios that are absolute masters in their field of work. If you have ever enjoyed a JRPG in your life, give this game a chance. You'll be doing yourself a massive disservice if you don't.

Final Grade: 10/10


Thank you Level-5 for this wonderful game :)