While it's certainly weaker than superstar saga and bowser's inside story, it's still pretty fun and well worth checking out. The gameplay, combat, exploration, everything is well done. But there's many small flaws that steadily mar the experience. Most areas go on a bit longer than they probably should, most bosses and enemies have a bit too much health (like the terrible final boss that has an INSANE health pool). There's a lot of padding and unintuitive design. It's still fun at it's core, however.

A fun layton game, but it feels like a step down from the previous entries. While everything is still good here, most elements just feel lesser. The stakes are smaller, the environment and plot are less interesting, the character interaction isn't as fun, puzzles aren't as consistently great as before. However, everything here is still pretty fun. It looks good, music is great, everything you would want in a puzzle game visual novel like this is accounted for. I was a bit mixed on newcomer Emmy. I like what she adds to the group dynamic, but it felt like she was missing something to flesh out her character more. One of the things I really like about the series is the dynamic between Luke and Layton, and since this is a prequel, the dynamic isn't really there since Luke acts pretty different this time around. It doesn't make it bad or anything, just less strong than previous. I would probably rate it higher if it wasn't released after the best Layton game.