It's a Layton game. The first one to be on 3DS, and the transition to 3D models is really well done, kinda love it. It gives it a bit more of a dynamic feel to them, especially Emmy who they put extra care into (I love her quick photograph snaps, even though she does it like 2 or 3 times in the whole game)
Speaking of Emmy they really didn't know what to do with her character huh? I don't think she did a single thing that mattered, she was kinda just there.

Anyway, the game itself is fine. The puzzles are once again also...fine...but truly feel like they've been re-hashed every time and most of them feel more like a chore to me.

The story is possibly the worst one yet with one of the most predictable twists I've ever seen. But at the same time, I like everything surrounding the twist, and how it was resolved. Wholesome stuff. It sort of felt like a kids movie or something, but that's okay. We also get a real look at Layton's past for once, and I liked that a lot.
But god, what a shitty antagonist these prequels have.

Definitely my least favorite ‘Layton’, maybe, though by only a smidge, but not for the reasons I expected. This game actually does a really great job on the transition from 2D to 3D, considering this is a series that, before this game, basically leaned mostly on the charm of their cartoony art style and animations that were made for 2D art and animation. The models in this game were not only very well done, but are well utilized to make some scenes a little more lively, with some non-2D-animated cutscenes using the models for some action scenes so that it’s not all the standard visual novel diorama. It gives the game a really great overall look that doesn’t veer far away from the established and well known style of the Professor Layton series.

Unfortunately, this game’s scenario and plot is just not even meeting its visual success in the middle. It is very interesting to dive into more of Layton’s past, after getting some insight into his love life in ‘Unwound Future’ and then seeing his early days at his current professor job in ‘Last Specter’. The scenario goes back and forth between past and present, as the professor recounts more of a story that’s directly intwined with the strange events that the gang is investigating. The thing is, the events of the present are not interesting after the very beginning and until the very end! It is a bit of a drag, pacing-wise, and the mystery just did not entice me. The chapters that make up the past are leagues more interesting, as we learn more about the stoic Hershel Layton’s closest friends of his teenhood. It made me wonder, constantly, of how this plot might’ve been better broken up or arranged in order to make for a better overall scenario.

Now, in these games, I don’t exactly hold a high standard for them to be extremely mind-boggling and surprising in terms of plot twists. Professor Layton games are very wacky and mystical and earnest, aiming for a wide audience of all ages. These games all revolve around Layton and his entourage unraveling a seemingly supernatural event, and not only explaining the phenomenon as a farce, but also uncovering the motives behind it. A problem in this installment is the game doesn’t really seem to be having any fun with the “explaining the phenom” part of the story. Professor Layton just seems to figure a lot of it out by talking about the events with others, and not a lot of investigating into each event happens, or puzzle solving, for that matter. There are less “a-ha!” moments and more “oh, okay,” ones, instead, I guess you could say. This is the fifth installment, and at this point, the audience knows that people magically disappearing or turning to stone might have some logic behind it, and the fun should be figuring out just how it was done, instead of figuring out that it was a trick in the first place.

Then, when it comes to motive, it is not exactly hard to connect the dots on what’s going on even as soon as all of the main players are introduced. The story, then, does not unfold with this in mind, and thus plays out as if we couldn’t possibly have a clue up until the last couple of chapters, when the professor himself begins hinting that he knows. Though, once you see even the first chapter that takes place in Layton’s past, I imagine any player could narrow it down a lot, and it becomes less about unmasking the masked villain of this story, and more about uncovering the motive. The game’s present story drags, mostly, because it takes a while to get to investigating a motive that might tie into events of the past that we still are dying to see.

The game’s finale also kind of falls flat. In my review of Professor Layton and the Last Specter, I fawned very hard over the climax of that game. The finale incorporates a lot of fun elements, and a lot of puzzles, and thus feels like a great finale, story- and game-wise. There’s only about a handful of puzzles even involved in this game’s final hour, and while they are fun I just couldn’t help but feel as if this game’s entire scenario was just really stringy, and wobbly, and not at all the kind of charming, woven quilt that most of the other installments share. For instance, part of the last chapter has you reading storybooks left as hints within a giant hotel so that Layton and co. know where to go to confront the antagonist. This amounts to you going to a room, finding the book after clicking around, then going to the next room. I feel like, in a puzzle/mystery game, it might be better to have the player be familiar with all of the rooms already, maybe by having already visited the area (it actually would’ve really served the story to have Layton be staying in this hotel during his entire visit), and then the player can figure out which room to go to themselves based on the hints instead of just, unlocking the room once you find the book, lol.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask transitions a landmark DS series to 3DS very, very well when it comes to UI and basic gameplay structure, and the visuals do not suffer from letting go of the classic 2D portraits and also switching things to the top screen to accomodate the 3DS’ hardware design. One of the most fun little reveals was actually that a chapter in the story is told entirely through a dungeon crawling segment, utilizing the game’s newfound 3D style to switch things up, gameplay-wise, and keep the series fresh and still inventive, and, thus, keeping the audience engaged. This game is definitely continuing from its predecessor and throwing in more ingredients into the pot than just a bunch more puzzles. However, the story’s execution just did not come together on this one, for me, and although I would still recommend this to any fan of the professor’s, as it still give some wonderful insight into the character, it definitely is the weakest installment, in my mind.

I was a bit worried about the jump to 3DS and the changes that came with it, but I think after a small adjustment period it hits the mark. Actually using both screens instead of just using one for puzzle info is a great change, and while I still prefer the 2D sprites of characters, the 3D models aren't too bad when you get used to them.

The navigation system is also way better than the previous games, though I'm not sure why it doesn't let you just click on a destination more than 1 screen away and navigate there immediately.

The story was nothing special, the twist was incredibly obvious, Descole still feels like nothing of importance, and the connections to Spectre's Call were very loose making this feel like more of a duology than a trilogy.

The past / present idea is a fun one for storytelling, and I enjoyed it, but the ruins of akbadain took far, far too long. It just kept going on and on everytime I thought it would end.

2011 was a big year for Japanese based developer Level-5 Inc.; in November, the Ni No Kuni series would reach shelves worldwide for the first time on the Playstation 3, winning audiences over with its gorgeously animated cutscenes. But before NNK, Level-5 was most renowned for its Professor Layton series on Nintendo handheld consoles. And in 2011, Level-5 was right in the middle of its 2nd Professor Layton trilogy, and the first for the Nintendo 3DS; Professor Layton & The Miracle Mask. Its first set of 3 titles were on the Nintendo DS, and the prequel trilogy began there as well, before making the transition to the 3DS with Miracle Mask. As such, character models were transitioned to 3D, with 3D-style background as well, all the while still retaining the gorgeous 2D-stylized cutscenes that the series was famous for.

If you're familiar with the Professor Layton series, Miracle Mask isn't likely to surprise you with its core gameplay. By the series's 5th entry, Level-5 had pretty much figured out the core formula; a variety of puzzles serving as the gameplay, with an overarching plot involving a mystery to solve. Minigames also return from previous entries, and while MM's are fine as distractions, none of them are interesting enough to warrant getting fully engrossed in. Professor Layton titles have always been able the core puzzles, and this entry delivers quite well on that end. Most of the 135 main series puzzles offered here serve a good mix between light brain teasers and decently challenging riddles, and as usual, its their variety and creativity that make them so engaging.

Most of the puzzles in this title are designed well, and plenty of them encourage outside the box thinking, although it's true that some of them take it a bit too far; a handful of later game puzzles seem intentionally vague or obtuse, and the solutions sometimes raise more questions than answers. (For example, one puzzle's answer reasons that a picture must have been when the sun was setting because a leaf is falling in it, which doesn't seem to make much sense.) The puzzles also don't take advantage of the 3DS as you might expect, so other than the character models, this doesn't feel much different from a DS title. By and large, though, it's still quite satisfying to solve most of these puzzles. Even if some concepts might be getting a bit familiar if you've played previous titles in the series, the variety is enough to keep it engaging.

Story wise, Miracle Mask is a serviceable, if a bit predictable and generic entry to the Professor Layton series. It's not particularly hard to work out the overall mystery, and only the minute details are left to be pondered upon. It is the game that probably focuses most on Layton's past, which is a benefit, but it's nothing revolutionary. Most interesting plot wise is the character dynamics, especially between Layton and the Ledores. There are some nice moments, of course, and the epilogue is decently heartwarming, if a bit cheesy. Pacing can be a bit of an issue, though, and that goes for both the story and the gameplay. Movement and dialogue could have been faster paced, and there are some sections which tend to drag on too long. Especially egregious in both story and gameplay is the 6th chapter in the game, where the traditional puzzle mode is sidetracked for a dungeon crawling session which goes on far longer than it needed to. Puzzles in this section are limited to 3 types, and it gets boring quite quickly, especially considering the overwhelming amount of needless dialogue present in this section. And while attempting to add gameplay variety is admirable, that's only if that variety adds enjoyment to the game, whereas this section only really drags the game down.

Fortunately, Miracle Mask has enough going for it for it to be a worthy addition to the series, even if there are some missteps. The grand extravagance of Monte d'Or contrasted with the humble dwellings of Stansbury create an interesting dynamic of facing past vs. present, and the soundtrack is excellent; one of the series's best. These aspects help create a decently immersive experience, and the generally great puzzles serve as a good vehicle to advance the game. And as with all Professor Layton titles, the key to the enjoyability is in the puzzles, and MM is no exception. Even with one of the series' weaker stories, and even if it failed to take advantage of its new hardware, Professor Layton & The Miracle Mask is a game that's just fun and stimulating enough to justify unraveling its mystery-even if it feel like that mystery is content to unravel itself.

While I certainly enjoyed my time with this game, I can't help but feel that this is the layton series' weakest showing yet. It is quite impressive to me that a game with elements I found extremely annoying still manages a 7 with the likability and charm of it's core cast and fun puzzles. However, the story and mysteries just feel underwhelming. I like the idea of jumping between past and present, all tied into one mystery. However, it relies on flat and boring characters and it really feels half baked. The city is neat, but somewhat uninspired. The mysteries have some truly ridiculous solutions that aren't ridiculous enough to be fun or reasonable enough to be figured out on your own. But, the dialouge is still good, there's plenty of fun moments. Plus the puzzles are still great. Lotta missteps here, but still a good time.

this one's good! despite the jarring transition from 2d into 3d that is about to take place.

a pleasant surprise, miracle mask marks the beginning of the inevitable point in time when level5 starts trying to make the story of these games more about layton himself. I'd say that while that there were some finer details of layton and randall's characterizations that miracle mask fails to take advantage of -- which in turn makes the the biggest difference between this game's story and that of unwound future -- gameplay wise, this one reaches a new high for me.

I had assumed all the non-puzzle gameplay components this series offered were going to remain gimmicky and overall unenjoyable. I was proven wrong by the ruins section in chapter 6, which was incredibly fun and filled with a mixture of terrain and bonus puzzles that really impressed me. I also loved this games structure, switching between layton's past and present, and felt the developers executed the balance of set-up and reveal between both of them pretty well overall. the characters this time around were also pretty great, both the plot-involved ones and the npcs. I love the clowns. all of them.

the puzzles in this were overall slightly better on the grand scale of layton games. the shop is my favorite trunk mini-game yet. if there's anything that held miracle mask back, I'd say it was the presentation, which isn't bad per say, but marks a step away from the traditional style of layton that I already have a great nostalgia for. that, and the fact that there's supposedly a giant desert in the UK for some reason. we're really just doing fucking whatever now.

It almost feels inevitable that the Professor Layton series would reach this point. Unfortunately, there's a pretty finite number of ways you can spin logic to create inventive puzzles. Miracle Mask runs thin on creative puzzles and feels like it's mostly recycling old formats. However, I can't really blame the game too much for that. For the most part, I still enjoyed solving the puzzles the game offers. The solutions are different even if the format is familiar. I also think that I enjoyed Miracle Mask's cast of characters more than The Last Specter. The game gets more personal with Layton's friendships and the sequences that take place in Layton's past lead to some pretty good character building moments. New characters like Dalston, Randall, Angela and Henry were pretty good additions. However, whilst the puzzle side remains intact I think the mystery element of Miracle Mask is particularly weak. I'll keep this spoiler free but the eventual big reveal is very predictable. The most climactic moment of the narrative has very little impact as a result. My final note is that the performance is very choppy. The transition to 3D models instead of sprites is definitely a rocky one. There were several moments where I experienced slowdown, which I feel took away from the gameplay experience. Overall, Professor Layton & The Miracle Mask does function as a puzzle game, but is far from the best the series has to offer.

Llevo 4 horas y me pareció un título decepcionante. Hay muros enormes de diálogo y el tiempo en que si juegas es muy poco. Los puzzles que vas resolviendo son cosas secundarias o que los personajes te piden solo porque les sale de la gana, y no son puzzles que vayan ligados a la trama o misterio central de la historia. Hablas con un npc random para pedirle información de lo que estás investigando, pero primero debes resolverle un puzzles random para hablarle, es demasiado artificial y hace sentir un desproposito la historia principal si a la larga no juegas algo para ir siguiendo el hilo de ésta. Claro que hay minijuegos extra pero son cosas secundarias y no elementos parte de la historia, como ayudar a una señora con una tienda o entrenar a un conejo. La historia principal parece novela visual en que solo lees textos enormes y no juegas nada.
Al menos la música está de lujo y el estilo artístico también, pero de poco sirve si a la larga es pura lectura y apenas hay juego, y lo poco que queda de juego es a través de misiones secundarias y prácticamente nada para la trama principal.