Went back to this one, specifically, after an itch for a puzzle game on my phone needed to be scratched, mainly because this is the installment in the first trilogy that I was farthest from 100%-ing as of my latest playthrough. So, I figured, I try harder to find every puzzle and complete every mini-game. Unfortunately, there is something about arriving in Folsense that really takes the wind out of my desire to sink my teeth deep here.

Something I noticed, and I’ll admit quickly that this may be a symptom of my last ‘Layton’ playthrough being the latest installment, is that the numbered order of puzzles does not run very parallel to the order in which a player might organically discover each puzzle throughout the game. Maybe not a design flaw, in the grand scheme of things, but it definitely will throw off returning players as they begin back-tracking once they find the next puzzle they found after No. 11 was No. 19. Then after retracing one’s steps only nets most of those missing puzzles, you’ll find that puzzle No. 12 was actually a story puzzle waiting for you at the end of a chapter.

Back-tracking and retracing is not a huge problem, of course. It’s a point & click adventure game, you’re going to do plenty of that. Though, it’s a lot easier in an area like the Molentary Express and the small village of Dropstone, but then you’re dropped into the town of Folsense. Once I was finding puzzles No. 129 and No. 67 back-to-back, it was feeling very daunting to fully complete this one. Then, not finding every puzzle means not getting everything you need for each mini-game. The ones in this one being SO. MID. The camera is great (both constructing it and using it), but the Hamster feels not super imaginative and the tea set can go fuck itself, frankly.

I half-felt like just blasting through the last couple of chapters because I like the ending, but a quick YouTube search for the finale would be the final nail in this playthrough’s coffin. Sorry, professor.