Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney - My Thoughts and Review (Hexology pt. 2)
This review is best enjoyed on PC, where you can right-click the hyperlinks and tab out once you've seen the clips.
I solemnly swear no link in this video redirects to Rick Astley.
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but please do check out the links - they're there to add to this review.
A few months ago I wrote a review of the six main Professor Layton games and shared it with this sub. You can read it here if you missed it or want to reread it but at the end of the review, I promised you all my thoughts on what I thought of Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney once I got round to playing it.
Well, here it is.
This review will contain spoilers for the story of the game, so if you want to know what I think of the game here it is: I loved it. This game was exactly everything I wanted a crossover to be since I first learned of its inception way back in 2011. I have been a die-hard fan of Professor Layton since it first came out, as well as the main series Ace Attorney games. As such an avid fan of both series this game feels like it was practically made for me, u/JunpeiHarry, personally.
If you’re unsure if you’ll like the game or not, I’ll try my best to lay out what you’ve got in your hands before I start getting into heavy spoiler territory. My TL;DR recommendation is Yes, play this game but I appreciate you might need more convincing.
The game is divided into two different gameplay modes that will be familiar to AA fans but not Layton ones. The first is the courtroom mode, where you play as Ace Attorney’s Phoenix Wright to solve mysteries (nearly always murder cases) using evidence and legal procedure. AA is famously not a whodunnit – many times you’ll figure out the guy literally called Evilbas Turd is the culprit, but the fun in the game comes from figuring out HOW they did it yourself and telling the game through presenting evidence when asked loaded questions by the judge.
That Evilbas Turd guy wasn't me being pedantic, by the way. AA is notorious for abysmally punny names. Edit: Having played through some of Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy, I would like to amend that somewhat since Professor Layton has also got some truly godawful punny names.
The second mode is the “investigation” mode – this is the bit in AA where Phoenix steps out of the courtroom to wander around the murder scene, talking to witnesses and searching for evidence that may not have been pertinent to the case at the time. In PLvAA, the investigation sections remain relatively unchanged – but they have been overhauled so they are essentially the Layton experience (3DS games specifically – if you played Azran Legacy or Miracle Mask, you’ll jump right in here.)
How much you’ll get out of this game will depend on how much you like the gameplay of both series. So, if you want, let’s play a game:
Put your left thumb up, down, or in the middle depending on how much you like Layton. Do the same with your other hand for Ace Attorney. Then match it up to this helpful chart to see if you’d enjoy PLvAA.
| Layton 👍 | Layton 👉 | Layton 👎 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wright 👍 | Stop reading. Play this. Come back when you’re done, I’ll wait. This game, like me, was practically made for you. | There aren’t as many courtroom scenes in this game as the main series, but they’re far more novel and memorable. | I still very much recommend you play this, even though the balance of the game is 70-30 in favor of Layton. |
| Wright 👉 | You should play this game. If you’ve never played AA, this is a perfect trial (no pun intended) of the series and may well lead you to your new favorite set of games. | What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality? | If you’re being honest to god serious, I’d consider watching a Let’s Play. Slyzer did a no-commentary run of the game but honestly, you’d enjoy playing it more than watching it. |
| Wright 👎 | I still very much recommend you play this, but there’s no shame in using a guide for the courtroom segments if you’re no good at them. | If you’re being honest to god serious, I’d consider watching a Let’s Play. Slyzer did a no-commentary run of the game but honestly, you’d enjoy playing it more than watching it. | https://youtu.be/sYekLbgY080?t=75 |
Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney was my favorite Professor Layton game out of all of them, and certainly a very strong introduction to the AA franchise for newer fans. This game is the equivalent of an Italian chef kissing his fingers, a dish so sublime the Lord and Gord on Ramsey couldn't fault… but I’m about to talk a lot of shit about it.
Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney
Firstly, we need to talk about context. I've been playing Ace Attorney since April 2009 and Layton since, well, probably then too. I love Ace Attorney like a son but since many people here on r/ProfessorLayton may not I'd like to give some context to all the games I have played before I touched this game.
| Curious Village (x4 at least) | Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney (several, including LPs. I've beaten Rise From The Ashes three full times and the other cases more than I know.) |
| Diabolical Box (x2) | Phoenix Wright: Justice for All (x2 minimum, plus LPs) |
| Unwound Future (x2, counting an LP watch) | Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations (x2 EXCEPT case 3-2 and the final case. Did not like any new characters in that case, and the finale I will replay once I've beaten the series in a row like I did with Layton. I'm playing the remaster and currently on 2-3.) |
| Last Spectre | Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (x2, plus an LP. Great game but fuck that music puzzle, am I right?) |
| Miracle Mask | Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies (just the once at Christmas 2013. I need to go back and replay this, I really liked it.) |
| Azran Legacy (x2, counting an LP watch) | Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations (x2, but can't say I've replayed every case. I keep meaning to watch the translated LP of the sequel but, honestly, I'd rather play it. |
As you can see, I'm more familiar with Ace Attorney than Layton, but I have played Layton most recently. I am currently playing through the PS4 remaster of the first three AA games (also available on 2DS and 3DS, if you're playing through Layton yourself). I used to be very passionate about AA but as you can see I've dropped off a lot of that enthusiasm in my adult years. The reason I give you this context is to support my criticism - my opinion may be fallible, but my opinion is informed.
If you think I'm nitpicking here or there, then I understand - but know that if a design decision irks me, there's years of context backing it up and I'm not just knee-jerking because the dish came with onions but the menu didn't say "comes with onions".
Also, it must be said, I don't have the time or the character limit to dissect every section of the story. Having re-read the review in post, this feels more like a review of the trials and not the game as a whole. If you're reading this, I assume you know the story but if you need a refresher, please look it up on the Wiki.
Here’s where the review begins in earnest. Those of you who aren’t ready, back out now – the rest of you, buckle up.
The first thing you hear when you start the game is the title theme, and what a song it is. Sweeping, powerful, it sets the tone of the game and what to expect perfectly. This song was made for an FMV cutscene - I don't know that officially, but considering the title screen is just a courtroom with the fire burning in the crucible it's oddly out of place. I don't have the skill to do it myself, but if you play that track and watch the famous cutscene from Curious Village (CV SPOILERS) you'll see what I mean.
The game starts with a young girl being chased by witches, accompanied by a very Professor Layton-esque character. Carmine Accidenti (Ace Attorney naming conventions), the most major minor character in this game, is rushing the girl to Professor Layton, in order to request his help to solve the mystery of Labyrinthia. I'm not going to say he's a bad character but he's honestly pointless - he's put in an ambulance and never mentioned again in any meaningful capacity. The writers really could have tried here and they didn't. Imagine for a moment that Espella still ends up at Layton's door, but instead carrying a letter from Miles Edgeworth himself whose discovered a strange operation is going on but, because he's American, has no authority to investigate and thus must ask his father's acquaintance to check it out on his behalf. Layton never gets done reading the letter because then the witches come just as Edgeworth outlines what he knows as it does in game.
That's off the top of my head. I'm sure with enough time and effort someone could really string together something that makes sense despite the fact this game is officially non-canon in both universes.
Back to Espella. I don't like her.
That's a bit harsh. No, it's not that I don't like her - she's your typical Layton client asking to solve a mystery, but her name. It just rubs me the wrong way. She's called Espella Cantabella and, honestly, the rhyme is just so forced. Any Layton veteran knows that when the characters have voices in cutscenes, it's a special moment. Because the NDS games couldn't hold an entire game of voice acting, when you heard Christopher Robin Miller as Layton start to lay down the shit you sat up and paid attention. The 3DS tech meant that more of these scenes were included (yay) but in damn near every one you hear the characters insist on calling her by her full name, Espella Cantabella, and you can almost hear the awkward clunk of the rhyme like a silver gong crashing to the ground.
Other than that, she's fine as a character. I don't like it when she looks at me head-on, especially when she's doing the "possessed" fish face thing, but other than that, it's fine. Also, Layton fans, that's an AA thing. Layton's characters hang to the sides so you can watch the interactions, but AA does it head-on. The reason for that is because in Layton, you're not the Professor. You're the friend of Luke's who gets a letter, and thus you're imagining the interactions as a third-party (funny how we forget that, in't it?). AA has you face many characters head-on (outside of court) because in those games you ARE Phoenix Wright. If those moments feel off to you, then that may go some way to explain why.
I don't really have a lot to say about the Prologue, as it does an adequate job of easing you into the story. Phoenix Wright and Maya are flying in from Los Angeles, Japanifornia for a special Legal League of Attorney's (a "Justice" league, some might say). If you're thrown by the fact Phoenix is a regular dude and Maya is a Japanese Kimono girl, you'd have to play the first AA game. The simple gist is the AA games take place in a weird, "Japanifornia" style country because the first few games didn't see English releases. When they did, none of the Japanese backgrounds were changed but the game told you it was definitely Los Angeles, USA, leading to this strange juxtaposition:
Anyway, through one contrivance or another, Wright ends up in court defending Espella, giving you context on how THEY get involved in the story.
Now, every AA game has a first trial, which essentially acts as a tutorial. To say this trial is a write-off is a bit much, (AA3's first trial sets you up to shit the bed come case 3-4) but it's nearly never pertinent to the larger story. This is the same in PLvAA. My problem with this trial isn't the tutorial - it's needed for new players and AA always finds a reasonable excuse to put it in every game to fit the story. The problem is the story - the jewel heist is totally, absolutely, unrelated whatsoever to the story of the game. It's a little bit of AA fanservice, yes, but other than that it's pointless. Doing the writers jobs for them again, all that would be needed is to change the owner of the boat to the Labrelum Corp. The boat was smuggling shit to Labyrnthia and the employees thought Espella was trespassing - they didn't know she was from there because they get paid to sail the ship not meet and greet. Since Espella lived there all her life, the staff'd never have seen her even if they did anyway. At least that meaningfully ties into the ending of the story, rewarding you for keeping it in mind.
Sorry. I should review the game I played, not the one I'd like to make. There was another thing I didn't like about the starting trial... the voice acting.
Phoenix's actor phoned in his Objection, Hold It and Take That lines, and I'm honestly a bit annoyed about it. The original ones on the DS I remember were bitcrushed to all hell, but they seem to capture it just fine in the remasters. Trevor White does an adequate job, but was Ben Judd really so busy or expensive as to reprise a couple of lines? I know that's a nitpick, a real stretch to criticise if you only know Layton's games, but any AA fans here will pick up on it like dogs smelling sausages.
If you've never played an Ace Attorney game, this is how it feels when Wright says "Objection!" in this game.
And this is how it feels in the original trilogy.
If this was the only VA I had an issue with, then I'd accept I'm being a crybaby dick and move on, but it isn't.
Now, I've never been to Italy. I don't speak Italian or know anyone who does. I have, however, beaten Assassin's Creed 2.
I've beaten Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood with Italian voice acting (for the immersion. I've also beaten them in English) and while that qualifies me to judge no more than you, I can say that Olivia Aldente's (another rhyme!) accent is the most pathetic attempt at an Italian accent I've even heard. It's not bad because it's racist, it's bad because it's absolutely atrocious to listen to. And it just feels lazy. If you're going to do an Italian accent, at least make an attempt.
Anyway, that's all I really have to say about the prologue. I'm more than a quarter over my character limit so I'm just going to skip ahead to the introduction.
TRIAL ONE: THE FIRE WITCH
The first thing I noticed when I got to Labyrinthia was that the introduction with the wagon driver was eerily familiar.
Regardless, a bit more story happens and we get to meet the cast of characters and explore the setting of Labyrinthia. This is where the Layton aspects really come into their own and the puzzles start getting creative. The Puzzle theme is sublime, and the characters are just as over the top as Layton fans would expect. Honestly, I don't have a lot to say about this part of the game because I don't have a lot of faults to find with it. I very much liked that the Parade theme in the cutscene was later used (albeit only in motif) as the Storyteller's theme.
To briefly recap the story, the characters all meet, then Espella gets arrested for setting two crooks on fire. Once we're in the courtroom, we're playing as Phoenix and introduced to a concept that was both really novel and fun but I'm glad didn't become a mainstay - multiple witnesses.
If you want a summary of the trial, you can view that here on the AA wiki - they do a far better job running it down than me, and I have a character limit so I can only focus on what irks me.
The things I liked:
- Zacharias Barnham. He's great and while you might think he's a Primark Edgeworth (USA, read Wal-Mart Own Brand Edgeworth) his theme is just as good atmospherically and for a one-off character I couldn't do better if I tried.
- The Witnesses - putting Layton characters in the position of witnesses was really novel and in this trial, worked really well. At least, until:
The things I disliked:
- Emeer. My god, I hated this character. He's the second-worst character in the game (emphasis on second) and I got really sick of his shit by the end of this case. I liked how his name worked into undoing the witch's plan but honestly, I was glad to see him gone by the end of the case never to reappear (I know.). Wendy Oldbag, he was not.
- Kira.The only thing I don't like about Kira is her name. Evilbas Turd logic strikes again, it seems. Using Kira to mean "Killer" is a Japanese holdover that might have worked in a world where Death Note never entered the public mainstream. Thing was, however - it had. In fact, I'm willing to bet Death Note was most relevant just when this game came out and if anyone was caught off-guard by Kira they were either very young or very oblivious.
- The soundbites, but I'll talk about that in Trial 2.
TRIAL TWO: THE GOLDEN TRIAL
Once again, I've little to say between trial one and two in terms of story progression, but we do get to meet a new character called Jean Greyerl and... I'd like to talk about a character from Ace Attorney.
This woman, who shall remain nameless to protect Layton fans curious about Ace Attorney from spoilers, has an androgynous name. By that, what I mean is, her name would fit either a man or a woman. Names like Ashley, Jean, Jordan, Sam, Danny (at a stretch but I do know a Danielle that prefers Danny). The problem with androgynous names is that although they work for both genders, they skew towards one gender than another. Ashley is normally a girls name, Jordan is normally a boys name - Sam is the true neutral, although you'll usually guess the right gender from context.
This woman's name skews heavily, heavily towards the masculine side. If you heard it, you'd think she was a man. In fact, that becomes a plot point in the case she's involved in, where someone makes a fuck up and says "Yes, I met him." That fuck-up ends up unraveling the whole case, the whole GAME, and it behooves me to not say more than that.
Why is this relevant, you ask?
Because Jean Greyerl's name leans heavily towards the feminine side. The game has already told you, practically hammered it in, that only women can be witches. And then you meet this boy, who looks arguably feminine, with a very gender-neutral VO and a name most people would hear and think "I thought Jean was a girl's name.", at least in English.
This trope, the "Other Gender Reveal", is not that hard to pull off correctly. It is NOT. Persona and Danganronpa both did it well enough at the time (although those games had an edge, since I doubt many non-Japanese are familiar with their gender-neutral names), even if they are now a "No, Luke. I AM your father" trope.
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Anyway, let's skip to the courtroom.
Now, we've all seen a Disney film and know that Layton can't really die. We know he can't really be a statue... but at the same time, it's Layton. Layton games aren't about you figuring out the mystery - it's watching Layton tell you how it works and reveling at just how much sense it does make when it shouldn't. Out of all the characters, who is going to figure out the trick? Not Wright, anyway - and yet the game makes us do that. It's great. And sadly, it's the only part of the trial I like.
Things I dislike about the trial:
- Emeer. He's back and he's large and in charge. "oh, but the characters are sick of his shit this time too!". That doesn't make it okay. That doesn't make it funny. He derails already long trials further with his shit and he needs a good fucking slap.
- Mailer. There was one bit where she screeches "SIIIIIIR!" at the top of her voice, and the game puts in a microphone screech sound to show how everyone else's ears are ringing too. That was a little funny. What wasn't funny was the other five times when she screeches SIIIIIIIIR and my ears bled for no fucking good reason.
THIS CUNT.
Oh yeah, he gets his own segment.
You know how at the beginning in the context section I said I never played AA3's case 3-2 more than once? Do you know why? There are three characters that case introduces and I don't like any of them.
The first is this cocknose called Luke Atmey. He's a smug, unbearable, "Do you go to the Cloud District often?" prat and I hate him. Of course, you're MEANT to hate him. His name literally says it all. Well done, designers, making a character I was meant to want to punch. But no, I won't "love to hate" him. He's just an abhorrent knob and if there's a character I love to hate, then I'm just going to play case 3 with Alolan Phoenix Wright.
The second and third character I don't like is Ron DeLite, and his wide Desireé. Desireé, the wife, is a boring, bland, vapid character whos only real character trait is "I like to spend all my husband's money on expensive shit". AA fans, if we ever got to meet her not as Ron's wife but as one of Larry's girlfriends, I would argue she was fantastically written. He was in that fucking case. She contributes nothing to the investigation to exonerate her husband, however. And Ron - he's a crybaby whiner who steals expensive artwork and shit to sell because he's too much a timid prat to say to his wife "Baby, I love you, but you're bleeding me dry." Fuck 'em. I'm not looking forward to replaying that in the remaster when I get there, and I hope I'm wrong.
Anyway, Turdly is all three of these characters rolled up into one. He screeches like Ron (I forgot to mention, Ron also has this bad habit of screeching like Mailer. It's really annoying), he's as stuck up his own arse as Luke and contributes as much as Desireé. His testimony is worthless - each one a haiku of shite that gives no evidence to the case at hand. And that twang.
Turdly plays the lute, but everytime he has a textbox the game plays a bagpipe soundbite, which gets old really fucking fast. It gets even worse later on, when he gets upset, and the bagpipe plays an ever more annoyed "deflated" sound.
I went into the options menu and turned off the sound effects, so I didn't have to listen to the bagpipes or "SIIIIIIR" or "Barnham! Barnham! Barnham! Barnham!" This was all well and good until I learned this also turned off ALL THE VOICE ACTING SOUNDBITES, LIKE OBJECTION AND ALL THE VA SCENES.
Never, never in my life have I said "ewiemanewie ewiemanuwie" and meant that, and meant that.
Sorry, too much JonTron on the brain. Never, never in my life have I turned off the sound in an Ace Attorney game because it was physically painful to listen to. I have dealt with annoying characters and annoying puzzles (the badger vase is fine, but the Apollo Justice music one can fuck off country style) in Ace Attorney but never said to myself "the music? Yeah, I'd rather have the silence of my dark thoughts rattling around my head than the twang of a bagpipe full of bumblebees if bumblebees were busy being ballbags."
I don't like onions in my food. I don't like having to pick out onions in my food when I was not told: "may contain onions". To call Turdly an onion would be an affront to onions because at least onions have fucking layers.
I promise I like this game.
TRIAL THREE: THE FINAL TRIAL
Alright, I'm losing steam now, and I imagine the readers are as well. This is where the story hits a climax, and you have to interrogate all ten guards at once.
I like the idea of the ten guard cross-examination. What I don't like is how eight or nine of them are new characters, right at the end of the game, so you have no reason to form a connection to them. I remember, maybe like three - the girl one, the short Scottish one (Dzibilchaltunchunchucmil, and I liked how the only one who could say his name was Maya because it's Mayan) and Wordsworth, because he's a recurring character.
I'm not saying I want to say Emeer again. I would never say that. But instead of two masochistic knights vying for the attention of the girl one, why not have the regular villagers like Pryce (John Cleese man) or perhaps Cutter who filled in from time to time as guards when they needed a hand.
Hey, here's an idea - you could have had Johnny Smiles from the prologue as one of the knights as he got too wrapped up in the mystery to be left a loose end after the London incident. You wouldn't even need to mention it, just make it an allusion for the player. That would have gone a long way to making the characters memorable.
Was navigating ten testimonies at once, with the "Hang on!" mechanic, fun? Yeah, it was. But I'm also glad it, for this reason, it wasn't used before or since. A three-chapter-long trial was exhausting, and god help if you don't know what you're doing but got this far on sheer force of will.
Layton as the prosecutor was novel and caught me off guard, though I still think Barnham and Darklaw were great prosecutors. The thing I didnt' like about this one was the mystery of Bezella.
Now, it makes sense, the whole "bell" and "fire festival" thing, but the game really complicated things here. The bell came from an old-timey civilization (read, Azran) but the game is clearly set just before Unwound Future in the Layton timeline. Layton England already exists in a time nexus without adding that on top of it. In the Wright universe, the game is set somewhere between AA3 and AA4 (read, just before Trudy's adoption). Neither are canon, but that's where I would (logically) place them.
Yeah, this felt really needlessly complex. Just say the Azran thought the witch cursed the bell and the archeologists fucked up translation. That was all that had to be said. Painting the machines in Vantablack and that's why you couldn't see them? Sounds hokey but it's not like you can see your nose (you can, you just ignore it) or your glasses frames (same again) when you're wearing them.
I didn't like that line where they said "Wright was just here by accident." I get that Wright is the punching bag of this game (usually it's Gumshoe) but Wright has his shit together when he needs to. Ending of JFA, anyone? That whole case, honestly. Even Edgeworth cotton on Wright's acting out in that case, and says it's not like him to be so scattered.
What it should have been was "We took you by accident, Wright, because we thought you were that prosecutor Miles Edgeworth who stuck his nose into our business and wrote the letter to Layton so we needed you quiet". No, it's not my job to do the writing for the game for them. This excuse was an asspull and honestly, would have made that last cameo by Edgeworth a little more interesting, especially with the "let's hear your spell" line.
Because that's the main failing of this game. The characters don't interact with one another like they should. We don't get a chapter playing as Layton because Wright turned to gold, and Layton thinking "I'm normally good at deducing these mysteries, but I must say, in the heat of the moment and under this pressure, I find it rather vexing."
Or Wright exploring town, like he does, solving puzzles, like he does, but having to deal with mini-mysteries and juggle the "but a gentleman helps everyone in need" with his "I need to focus on the case at hand" mentality. Like a case from Katrielle but with Wright instead.
The story, as a whole, is excellent. There's very little I would do to change the current story, but useless characters like Carmine (maybe Flynch, but I would have made him more Level-5 Layton looking than a British Winston Payne) should be cut and replaced with characters from AA and Layton. What's the point of a crossover that's non-canon if you don't make use of the characters in it?
They'll never make a PLvAA 2, but if they did I'd hope they consider these points.
My final point is this game is fantastic. 4.8 out of 5, if you need a number. But it's those onions of bad design that stop this game being my favourite of all time.
Layton fans, if you enjoy this game then please look into the Ace Attorney Trilogy which is also on 3DS or 2DS (you'll have one if you're planning on playing all six main Layton games). You can also get the original trilogy separately on DS, but that may be more costly than it's worth and the remaster is $20 at most. You'll be able to play all the main AA games (there's six, I believe - I've not played the last one yet) on it too and only need to look out for a cart of AA4 - Apollo Justice - which is DS only, when the time comes.
Wright fans, if you enjoyed this game then look into playing the rest of Layton's games. They're all on 2DS/3DS (the first four are DS only but are backwards compatible) and the first two are on mobile. The games are incredibly cheap second hand for what it's worth and each one has replay value once you've solved the mystery and want to go back to see the foreshadowing (though don't do that right away, give yourself time to forget the nuances else you'll get bored).
Here's my review of all six Layton games which is a bit like this but in brief, because I wrote it at 3am immediately after beating Azran Legacy. Spoilers, obviously.
If you liked the story of this game and the puzzle-solving but not so much the courtroom bits then consider a game called Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. The guys who made AA wrote it, designed the characters, and the game is fantastic. You play as a guy called Sissel, who has died and needs to find out who he is (amnesia) and why he died before the morning else his soul will vanish forever. It's all the charm of Layton (the aesthetic is, I would say, Comic Book-esque) and the puzzles are a bit more hands on "think, point and click" rather than "which window is Schrader's apartment". The story is top notch and you won't regret it. Great music, great characters, a fantastic time to be had all around and that ending will leave you in tears like Unwound Future, I'm sure.
Slyzer did a non-commantary LP of that too, so I highly recommend you watch the first episode and see if it piques your interest.
If you like solving puzzles and good stories but not timing-based puzzles, then I suggest the Zero Escape trilogy, available on DS, 3DS, PS4, Vita and PC. They're "escape room" puzzles, and the story is fantastic (especially if you like meaty, Shrodinger's Cat type stories.) It's not for everyone, maybe three percent of you - and two percent will have no doubt played and loved them. But for that one percent, my god. Get on it.
If you liked the courtroom scenes but want a bit more murder-mystery then look into Danganronpa. I've only played the first two but it's a lot like the AA courtroom scenes but with a set cast you get to know better over time (like I was moaning about earlier). Again, most of you are probably on this already, but I don't know if everyone in the world has played Danganronpa. It's not as mainstream as people think.
If you've any other recommendations please let me know, there's more that I haven't thought of that could easily appeal to fans of Layton.
Edit as of 01/08/2020: I will not be reviewing Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy as first planned. I have finished three cases of that game and my initial impressions soon fell apart as I realized the game was simply... not for me, to put it diplomatically.
My thoughts on Katrielle are as follows: Play this Layton game first, but absolutely do not play it last. I played the 3DS version, maybe the switch is better, but I found it incredibly fiddly when writing in answers because a tap on the screen did a "pond-ripple" effect rather than writing, and I had to double-tap just to write.
I just... I just didn't like it, and I honestly don't expect it to get better. I figured the bird ate the camera roll... but the fact it SHIT ON THE ROLL, and Sheldon Cuntflaps was too proud to run the tape through the machine and cut it away shouldn't be lauded... it shouldn't even be laughed at. He should be fired for a) destruction of property and b) bringing an animal into work even though it was already against the rules.
That was when I said "fuck this, I'm out", which was a shame. Also, the names were all over the place this time. Lowonida, the Celtic word for London and also "Law and Order"? Contrived but damn clever. But Sherl O. C. Kholmes?
No. First time I heard that I think I actually, audibly retched. He even stumbles saying it in his puzzle victory speech. "They don't call me Sherl O. C. Kholmes for nothing." Maybe the O. C. stands for OC, like "My Sonic the Hedgehog OC DO NOT STEAL".
What was wrong with "Watson"? Or, like Earnest says, "Shirley"? Sherlock Basset, Shirley Basset for short. There you go - that's a name everyone can fucking enjoy.
Posted Dec 1, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC · edited