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.
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.