Okay so I might have the worst playthrought with this (stopped it midway cause TOTK hype) but it didn't prevent me from loving this game. While the start is kinda slow when you get to Folsense you get hooked for real. The vibe of this city is immaculate I loved running around and solving puzzles there. Talking about the puzzles they were great, your average Layton quality (except for the last one, broken mic iykyk). And of course the ending made me cry uncontrollably. But while I'm a sucker for those ending it would be nice to stop abusing this plot twist. The ending got me way more emotionnaly invested than in strange village but to be frank it was kinda rushed and a bit easy, I still have so many questions left unanswered. It's kinda like the game told us "go cry and stop thinking too much". But I'll forgive its flaws cause god this game has my heart, it was everything I wanted : epic and tragique scene, amazing character, peak ost and just the overall vibe...
So after being a bit dissapointed by strange village this trilogy is getting real good I cannot wait to play unwound future

More or less on the level of the previous game. A nice, heartfelt story, well-made cinematics, banging sountrack. There seem to be a bit more annoying puzzles, which aren't really logical, but instead require the player to notice one weird detail (though the first game took me months to finish so I might be misremembering the scope of it). I do like the setting a bit more, I feel like the spooky atmosphere suits the series perfectly. I also like the improvements to storytelling in form of collectible diary entries. I never would've thought I would compliment something like that in a video game, but here the entries feel somewhat intimate, and actually matter if you consider the main story. You can sort of piece toghether what's going to happen and it's a really satisfying feeling - in a way, you're a part of Layton and Luke's story.

What I fucking hate though is the treatment Flora's character. Not only does she get left out in the beginning and then again halfway through the game, her character is solely used to build up Don Paolo for the third game. He doesn't even do anything interesting in this one - he just follows Layton and Luke for a while and then leaves like nothing happened. This is some MCU-level bullshit. I really hope it will pay off in the third game, but so far it felt like the trilogy wasn't really planned out in advance and the setups weren't all that great. If they didn't manage to think of anything for Flora to do they should've just made her stay in St. Mystere, and completely skip Don Paolo or at least write him better in this game.

But yeah - still a decent time. I'll check out the third game soon.