First Impression:
Ah, another Layton game! About time that it came out as it's been out in Japan for a while now. Luke and the Professor are yet again off on another whirlwind adventure and chasing after a mysterious box that kills those who try to open it. Sounds like fun. Let's do this thing.
Gameplay:
Like the game before it, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, you control Professor Hershel Layton and his young apprentice Luke as they solve a great baffling mystery. This time, Layton's going after a mysterious box and somehow, this involves a train ride.
As always, the entire thing is stylus controlled. You use the stylus to do most everything: move around, investigate your surroundings, open up the menu and solve puzzles.
AND BOY WILL YOU BE SOLVING PUZZLES.
This world seems to be a strange alternate universe where people spend their time thinking up brainteasers and almost everything reminds someone of a puzzle. Tapping on a vase of flowers might remind Layton of a puzzle. Talking to someone on the street will suddenly cause them to challenge you to solve a puzzle they've been thinking of. Strange world. Not complaining.
As far as I've observed, puzzles can be categorized into a few major types: There are your visual puzzles which have you staring at something for a long while in order to figure out just what the puzzle needs. There's your math oriented type which makes good use of the memo feature seeing as you'd end up writing your equations there. There's the maze type which has you solving a maze and... my love-it-or-hate-it, the slidey puzzle. You know. The one that has you sliding pieces around the board to form a picture or get something from point A to point B?
During puzzles, the top screen has your hints and puzzle explanation while the touchscreen has your puzzle itself. You have a memo tab which you can tap to bring up a translucent white sheet over your puzzle. Handy for mazes and such where you have to trace over parts or mark them. If you're stuck, you can buy a hint for one hint coin with three hints per puzzle. The first hint is usually pretty obvious while the last hint is usually all you need. Sometimes.
Normally though, your screen looks like this (as pictured above). You have a map on the top screen and on the bottom screen is a large static picture of your current location. Here, you can interact with NPCs, click through dialogue and poke around (quite literally) for puzzles and hint coins.
Over the course of the game, you get to unlock several other goodies which make the game much more enjoyable. First is the camera which you have to put together much like the mechanical dog from the first game. (Where the hell is that dog?!) After you put the camera together, something cool happens.
Second is an overweight hamster. Some puzzles give you hamster toys as prizes and using these toys, you make tubby walk. The more steps he takes, the fitter he gets. (If only it was that easy...) The hamster exercising scene happens with somewhat 3D-ish generated images. Not bad.
Third (And my personal favourite) is a tea brewing section. Some puzzles award you with tea leaves and these tea leaves can be combined to create different sorts of tea.
Last words:
It looks, feels and sounds kinda like the first game. Level 5 took the rule of "If it's not broken, don't fix it" which is good for this sort of thing. All in all, you can say that Professor Layton is a puzzle book done in such a way that it doesn't feel like a boring puzzle book. Fans of puzzles will be happy. There are a LOT to do.
Protip:
-When you reach a new location TAP EVERWHERE. You never know where a hint coin or a puzzle may be hiding. Try windows and lamps and little pebbles on the ground.
-If you miss a puzzle, they go into Granny Riddleton's shack where you can solve them without penalty.
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Rating:
Graphics: 5/5
I'm fond of the graphic style used for the Professor Layton games. They're crisp and clean. The animated cutscenes are a treat. The backgrounds are colorful and detailed.
Gameplay: 5/5
Everything is controlled by the stylus. One tap brings up a menu, interacts with an NPC and scrolls through dialogue. The puzzles are numerous and vary in both type and difficulty. Some are easy, some are total headscratchers. Both make you think, which is good. The minigames are a great addition. All in all, this is a good pick up and put down game which you can play in bursts of hours... or five minutes.
Soundtrack: 4.5/5
The sounds are nice and the background music played during puzzles I find rather relaxing. Some other tracks aren't all that memorable though. The voice acting isn't tooth grating (Did they get a new voicer for Layton? I'm not quite sure.) and though some people may hate Luke's voice, I rather don't. XD;
The Look and Feel: 4/5
Menu isn't at all awkward. Everything's laid out before your eyes the minute you pull up the menu. Navigation is easy and fairly simple. Some puzzles are easy to miss though but thankfully, they get gathered in one place if you miss their location outright.
Rating: 9/10
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