While the first two acts of the story have some minor pacing issues (which, this game has made me realize, a lot of the Layton games seem to have) it's made up for by the really stellar finale; the game pulls out a handful of big twists in quick succession and somehow they all feel handled really well. It even does a good job on the emotional beats, which I really wasn't expecting since this was a replay (granted, the first one in a while, but still).

Also I really liked that one trick question puzzle at the beginning of the game.

Disappointing end to the prequel trilogy. This could have been the next Unwound Future, but fumbled it massively and ended up feeling like a Castle in the Sky or Assassins Creed rip-off.

Story-wise, almost all of the issues can be tied to letting you visit the world locations and solve the mysteries there in any order. It prevents the writing from carrying themes forward and leaves you with 6 separate stories that don't have much in common. As the stories are basically surreallist detective novels, it doesn't really work at building up the ending.

Gameplay-wise, the puzzles in the 3D games just feel too much like mini-games compared to the more puzzle-bookish puzzles in the 2D games. This, combined with the weird looking 3D graphics, makes the game feel a lot more childish than the previous ones. Miracle Mask also suffered from this, to some extent, but I didn't mind so much then because it wasn't the finale.

The point is that most of the story and gameplay feel quite simple and childish, and this then clashes massively with the ending, which in classic Layton-fashion is unexpectedly dark and mature. Additionally, 50% of the cutscenes happen at the end, so the majority of the game's dialogue is shown with goofy 3D-models of 2D characters gesturing wildly at each other.

However it is still a Layton game and a bad Layton game is still a good game relative to others on the DS/3DS, so I don't hate it but it did disappoint me after all the hype it built up.

my least favourite from the second trilogy, despite being the finale of it.

it has a great start, puzzles and soundtrack were great as always, but the story hampers down my overall enjoyment of the story. the middle part is dragged down by the whole world trip shenanigans, and not to mention that i wasn't satisfied with how the finale arc was executed.

i feel like level-5 was trying to pull off the same effect with the first trilogy but fails so hard bcos of how the story went. its a shame bcos layton is famous for pulling off tearjerkers at the end of the story.

Everything about Arzen Legacy is built on a solid foundation, the animation is great, the puzzles are great, and the formula of the series has been pretty much perfect'd at this point. Arzen Legacy by all means uses all the resources that previous Layton games had and makes use of them for it's own benefit and in a lot of ways is the logical conclusion of 6 games into one. That's the thing though, you can have everything work in favor for you and still lose it if you don't focus on a good story. Arzen Legacy felt like it was being built up throughout this whole prequel series and while there are some nice building blocks to the mystery, it ultimately fails to achieve this. The game feels far too bloated and misses a lot of beats to have all the twists and turns it has fall flat. It's a real shame too because the game really just needed to be longer or fix it's pacing in order to have all these mysteries feel satisfying. Still this doesn't ruin the game from being good on it's own, but it does notably suffer from it. Arzen Legacy is a decent last outing for Layton, but Unwonded Future still feels like the better end to the series, and I suppose I'm fine with that.

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy is the final game in the main Layton series, and it takes the story to heights the likes of which we haven’t seen before in these games. Being a prequel game to the series it feels a bit odd as the stakes laid out over the course of this games story are so grandiose in comparison to the original trilogy that the stories told in that game dwarf in comparison. But that said, that isn’t necessarily a great thing, I feel that the huge leap in what’s at stake can almost feel like a jump the shark type scenario for the series despite being built up from through Last Specter and Miracle Mask. Despite my shaky feeling about the larger than life narrative what makes me really appreciate the game once again is it’s characters. The new cast of characters introduced for the prequel trilogy seemed a bit shoe horned in at first, but as the trilogy told its story I became more invested in the microcosm that they inhabited watching all the characters relationships unfold into an ultimate climax in this entry was very satisfying. As for the gameplay, it takes the 3D Layton formula set up in Miracle Mask and improves on it just slightly to make the whole experience more enjoyable. Navigating the map and looking around an area remain largely the same but have been refined ever so slightly that it feels more enjoyable to control and explore, which was my biggest gripe with Miracle Mask. The game’s puzzles seemed to ease up on the math puzzles which I greatly appreciated but one thread that has continued throughout the prequel series the almost lack of any real creativity with the puzzles that we saw in the original trilogy. This does not mean the new puzzles are bad, far from it, but looking back at puzzles from Curious Village you can tell they were starting to run out of steam here. As for the environments you explore this game perhaps may be the largest in the series yet, as Layton and Co go on a globe trotting adventure exploring places like the Wild West, a tropical island, a Romani Village, amongst many others which are all displayed in high detail and brought to life with lovable NPCs and wonderful music. Overall I had a great time with Azran Legacy, and it is a great send off to the mainline series of games even if it bites off more than it can realistically chew. Any Layton fans should leave this game feeling satisfied at the very least.

It's a true Professor Layton game, through and through.

Good conclusion to the prequel trilogy, decent puzzles, great characters, and very charming all around, although both the stories and the puzzles drag in the middle.

It's biggest flaw is that it dumps all of it's lore on you in the third act and doesn't elaborate. It's horribly unbalanced, especially when compared to other entries in the series that sprinkle the lore throughout and then tie it up at the end (such as Unwound Future and Miracle Mask)

By far, the best Layton yet on a purely visual level: never have the environments and locales been so lushly detailed, each puzzle so lovingly illustrated and animated. The actual puzzles are nothing extraordinary, though: very entertaining and enjoyable in their variety, but the series has had more inventive and challenging collections. The narrative, however, is arguably the series' worst: the pacing suffers from the non-linear structure as the final act's developments feel rushed, forced and unearned, while the end aims for an anime-esque grandiosity that feels alien to the series' original identity.