An absolute marvel, visually and technically, and just absolutely rebounds from the series' first attempt at 3D. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, this series' first on the 3DS, wasn't an awful game by far, but, especially compared to what this game accomplishes, really shows that they had a long way to go (complimentary). Just really builds high on the foundation that 'Miracle Mask' built, because this is a series that should've been really tough to adapt from 2D, since most of the charm of these games is its art. Upon playing this game for the first time, the only 'Layton' that I hadn't played before, I was astounded, again and again, at the environments and visuals this game creates within the bounds of the visual novel's diorama. After playing 'Azran Legacy', I have much higher expectations for the new installment, since this was just an amazing note to end on.

Story-wise, this game kind of pulls a "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull," in that it's just crazy how we got to here. The twists and turns that unravel in the final couple of hours just really start to craft a web whose string spells out "oh, holy shit... uh-huh..." Just kind of wanna run them down with you, real quick, for those curious or who might need a reminder.

- Professor Layton's assistant who has been by his side for three entire games (and one feature length animated film) is actually a double agent who has been working for a para-military force of international mercenaries run by a Hershel Layton's biological father.
- Which, yeah, Hershel Layton is adopted, by the way, but real quick, the archaeologist that invited Layton and co. to travel with him around the world is actually Layton's masked rival, Jean Descole, the antagonist of the last two games (and one feature-length animated film)!
- Oh, and he's Hershel Layton's biological older brother, whose name is actually Hershel. Yeah, turns out when they were around, idk, 7- & 3-years-old, Hershel was set to be adopted by the Laytons, but told his little brother, Theodore, to take his name and go away with the nice family. This left the future Jean Descole to toil away, alone, and obsess over the ancient civilization that his father was so obsessed with that he joined a para-military force of international mercenaries.
- Because, yes, the main antagonist, Leon Bronev, is Professor Layton and Jean Descole's biological father, who was kidnapped by a para-military force of international mercenaries who were hellbent on discovering the treasures of an ancient civilization that are, canonically, promethean humans whose big treasure they left for future civilizations to discover was actually the golem workforce that they gave conscious and reason to, who, during a slave uprising, almost annihilated said ancient civilization.

So, yeah, after unearthing that, I would also be like, "Hey, kiddo, I kind of feel bad I got you into a situation where you almost gave up your life for the entire human race, do you wanna just do an easy one and go to this curious village?"

This series is, just, so important to me. I really hope we get some news for the new one and that it's on the horizon for the first half of the new year. Level-5 on top!

This is the most thought provoking mid game for me. At face value there's really not a lot to take away from Azran Legacy, the puzzles are solid, but the story is the weakest in the series and certainly the most unfocused. Completely separating the chapters from one another in a non-linear fashion prevents this game from having a cohesive developing narrative unlike its predecessors. By the end of the plot nothing has had any time to develop and the conflict is wrapped up way too quickly, which would normally lead to a totally unsatisfying ending. However, while I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking that way, despite it all I was completely satisfied for reasons which I can't tell were intended by the developers or not.

This is one of the most depressing and somber video games I've ever played. That may make me sound insane, but I derive most of this game's meaning from areas outside of the main story because where else are you supposed to get that from lmao. This game just has a sense of "I don't want it to be over" in the tone and music from start to finish if that makes any sense. I think the nature of this game, at the time anyway, being the last entry in the series gives it weight that it wouldn't otherwise have. I can feel the devs desire to make one last grand outing before the series must be put to rest, and gives the seemingly weak story and execution much more significance to me.

I obviously expect a lot of people to not really understand what I'm talking about, and that's fine, we all interpret different things from art. I just think that regardless of how this game turned out, even if it's the weakest of the original six games, the emotional weight is more prevalent than ever. To me, Azran Legacy is a story about things ending, life changing, but moving forward. And regardless of its quality, I think that's still a perfectly satisfactory way to end the series. I know that even though I find this finale underwhelming, I still cried harder than I ever have at any piece of media before in my life. I still cared despite my many issues with the game, gaming is an interesting medium huh?

I just hope that New World of Steam doesn't miss the point they may or may not have been trying to make here, as excited for it as I may be.

Not all empires can last forever, what matters is the legacy they leave behind

Professor Layton is one of my favorite series. I started playing them in 2020, and have finally finished the 2nd trilogy. For some reason I took a year break in between starting azran legacy and finishing it.

This is one of the weaker entries in the series, although it makes up for it by being the largest. Each Layton game is eager to slightly one-up the previous in puzzle count. Azran legacy is the sixth iteration in this arms race... wow there's a lot of puzzles packed into this one. I need to put into perspective just how each entry in this awesome series scales up in content: I spent 16 hours playing through Curious Village and 50 playing through Azran legacy.

Azran Legacy is also impressively high effort. It has many gorgeous 3D environments, a beautiful 2.3 hour soundtrack, charming puzzle visuals, and plenty of characters. All of this is spread across a fairly wide spread of themes and locations.

There is some padding in the structure of the game, but make no mistake the main attraction of the puzzles is wonderful the whole time. As a puzzle enjoyer, this game was well worth my time. One of my favorite parts about Professor Layton games is the diversity of puzzles, it's refreshing to play a random puzzle collection instead of a game that iterates on one theme and set of mechanics. This aspect truly shines in Azran Legacy, although most of the puzzles in this game have at least one sequel. One small quibble that's worth noting is that the picarat ratings are weirdly inflated in this game and I think there's actually a slight absence of truly evil puzzles.

Like every other prequel trilogy layton game, the trunk is home to fairly involved and interesting puzzle minigames . Bloom Burst has interesting mechanics and is surprisingly tricky. I like the optionial challenge of trying to green every square, although I didn't go for that on the last 3 levels. Nutty Roller was a lot of fun as well. The fashion minigame is cute and not annoying, I guess that's all I can say about it. {Wait, I have something else to say. WHY IS ONE OF THE OUTFIT PIECES NOT OBTATINABLE UNTIL YOU GET TO THE NEST. Literally every other thing in the trunk resolves before you visit there. It is maddening to feel like I've obviously missed something only to look it up and realize no it's just this one thing I can't get yet before this telegraphed "finish your business traveling around the world first". }
Also The "episodes" scenes are incredibly uninteresting.

I appreciate how each Professor Layton game has such a distinct tone and style. Azran legacy is centered around travelling the world, mystery of the week storytelling and a huge vibe of "hey we watched castle in the sky". Unfortunately this is probably the weakest vibe of the series... it's entirely outclassed by the other games. One of the big reasons for this is due to the travelling around the world gimmick. It sacrifices too much of something core to the layton identity: spending time in an intriguing place. The places are just settings for the adventure, rather than the adventure being fundamentally about exploring the mystery of some location...I'm definetly not a fan.

The most eggregious flaw in the game is the chapter where you search for eggs. Tragically, each location you visit for this bulk of the game is uninteresting and shallow. To make it worse, the puzzle placement and world times articles will require you to revisit each of these areas multiple times. I spent quite a bit of the playthrough doing another sweep through each area... only for all of them to unlock more puzzles after I thought I was ready to activate the eggs. Maybe this terrible pacing is why this game took me so long to finally finish.
I can't believe a layton game has places this boring
To be clear, there's quite a few locations I enjoyed, but my disappointment in these egg areas really killed a lot of this game for me

Ok time for some specifics and spoilers (note: I offhandedly and vaguely mention some stuff from previous games in the series as well)

Froenborg and London are awesome, shoutout especially to their music. Kodh has a solid vibe. The jungle and wild west are a total waste of time. The beach is amusing for the joke of there being tons of eggs and has nothing else going for it. The Dragonlord village and phoenix city are definitely the best of the egg ones, although they aren't amazing. At least those two have the decency to have something intriguing. My favorite of those 2 is definitely the phoenix city, although the answer for why the adults are all asleep is pretty lame. {I'm used to the answers to questions in this series being many things... lame is not one of them. This is pitiful compared to most of the crazy stuff in this series}

The nest is awesome, I wish you got to explore more of it. The Azran ruins look pretty cool, although they have the sin of overusing the Norwell track. That's unfortunate because what was associated with a strong emotionial moment in miracle mask has been repurposed to just be the theme of azran ruins.


My biggest disappointment is with the story. The whole time I was eagerly awaiting my dose of layton's signature reveals. What wild way would the Azrans be entirely fake (and replaced with something hilariously less believable)? It's strangely out of character for the main premise to actually be real. In some ways it's kind of like an amusing joke, but Unwound Future did that better.

Almost every twist around the climax of this game felt pointless. Ok who cares that Emmy was a targent traitor {although the awkward regret she feels in some of the epilogue scenes is neat}. Ok who cares that Bronev was actually layton's biological father. Descole and layton being brothers... literally who asked. These aren't quite the caliber of reveals I expect from layton games. It's like the writers heard that Layton is known for it's twists, but they didn't understand what makes them work so well.

The payoff for the Azran is quite bad. They choose to go such a generic direction with it. There's very little emotional weight (something the series normally excels at, even when you're laughing you're head off at the absurdity ). The whole "you're willing to kill Aurora, the humans are evil, let's unleash the golems and kill them all lmao" is dumb. Everyone "sacrificing" themselves in the beams of light is even more dumb. I don't mean the fun dumb that throws my suspension of disbelief on a rollercoaster, i just mean boring and uninspired writing dumb.