Professor Layton and the Lost Future : DS
Ah Professor Layton, here we go again!
My disappointment about the second Layton game had thankfully faded somewhat by the time I put this into my DS. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t take a big break (i.e. longer than it takes to sleep) so that I didn’t have that disjointed feel I fell into during Pandora’s Box and it took a while before I felt I had the available time slot to even play this game. That time, however, eventually came and I sat down to the opening sequence in exactly the right frame of mind to enjoy myself.
Layton III feels better than its predecessors right off the blocks. The storyline is immediately interesting, involving a letter sent to the professor from the future, and a time travel experiment gone a little wrong and you jump immediately into the plot with glee. Professor Layton games are about two main things really; the story and the puzzles, and here they’ve improved both. Gone are the long tedious ‘move the block around until you get it out of the hole’ puzzles (OK, there are still a couple, but a couple doesn’t offend) and there are a few more new interesting ideas in there. Unfortunately, like before, all the puzzles are way too easy and serve more as a something-to-do-break between the story pieces. If anything, the real puzzle is in finding all the puzzles which is hard to do but thankfully a hundred times better than it was in Pandora’s Box (where it was just a mess).
It’s difficult to write a review of the third game in a series which is more of the same. Let me say now though that I did thoroughly enjoy Lost Future and consider it the best of the trilogy. Sure, the puzzles are too simple and the plot likes to wander occasionally into classic crazy-japanese territory, but it’s neatly put together and has some genuinely lovely moments. The developers have also improved the interface somewhat, and it all feels a lot more polished. I also think there are more cut-sequences and story parts than before which leads me to a strange thing; this game took me twelve hours to nail, with all the puzzles done bar eight or so which I didn’t immediately find before the credits rolled. Compared to the first game which I remember being 24 hours, and the second which was similar, I cannot understand how this is so short. It feels like there is as much, if not more, storyline, and the puzzle count is identical. Perhaps it’s as simple as practice on my part makes me a lot faster at the game. Who knows? Still, it’s a good twelve hours and I still need to go back to get the last few puzzles done.
The three mini-game-collectable-puzzles in this episode are also improved. There’s a cool car game, an interesting picture book sticker thing, and an occasionally difficult parrot-jumping game (yup!). All three of these are worthy additions and are considerably better than the horrific tea-making nightmare of Pandora’s Box.
With the best plot of the three, the cleanest interface of the three, the best graphics of the three, the least frustrating puzzles of the three and the most animated sequences of the three, it’s fair to say that the end of the first trilogy is by far the best of the group. If only it were a little longer, I might have more to say myself.
