Ranking Professor Layton Games

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Ranking Professor Layton Games

Professor Layton is a series of puzzle games that were released on the DS and eventually 3DS. This is such a charming, beautiful franchise that features strong gameplay, lovely characters and truly phenomenal storytelling.  It’s one of my favorite gaming franchises, so ranking the mainline entries in particular will not be easy, but here we go. Here is my ranking of all eight Layton games, excluding only the crossover game.

8. Layton Brothers: Mystery Room

Layton Brothers: Mystery Room is the only game in the series released for mobile phones. It is fine for what it is, which is a solid adventure detective game with a strong script and particularly superb character development. But it felt particularly cheap in its lack of voice acting and rather basic graphics. The gameplay is also a mixed-bag. It has its strong points, but it was mostly repetitive and nowhere near as engaging as the mainline puzzle games. I liked this game to a degree, but it was the only Layton game that I did not love.

7. Layton’s Mystery Journey

Unlike all of its predecessors, Layton’s Mystery Journey doesn’t have an all-encompassing story. This game is contrasted from other entries by being fragmented in approach – instead of one case, it consists of twelve different cases. This was not a great choice as it led to a particularly weaker narrative that never tied up its loose threads into a coherent whole. With that being said, I actually really enjoyed this game and I found it to be quite underrated. The characters are actually fantastic (Kat is an instantly iconic character) while the visuals are wonderful, the puzzles are surprisingly strong and the charm is evident throughout.

6. Diabolical Box

It paints me to put this game so low on the list, but I had to rank the main franchise somehow and Diabolical Box is the weakest of the six films, though all of them are excellent in their own right. This first sequel started the trend of mini-games actually being better than the puzzles themselves – the hamster game was particularly terrific. The graphics and score are just as good as they were in the original and the world building is wonderful. It’s a strong sequel, but one that was inferior to the original in the puzzles department – they were infuriatingly difficult and unfair.

5. Unwound Future

I do realize that this placement is very contentious, but this is my personal list and I simply have never loved this game as much as most people and critics did (most put it at number one). The puzzles here were at their most difficult and unfair. The ratio of plot and gameplay was not the best one too. With that being said, the mini-games were fantastic and the addition of the super hint coin was most welcome. Above all else, this game is particularly impressive in its storytelling and characterization. The twisty third act was thrilling and so emotionally rewarding while Layton and Luke got a truly tremendous arc.

4. Last Specter

This was the first entry in the prequel trilogy and it was a stellar beginning by all accounts. It is uneven in its puzzle difficulty, but the mini-games were once again the highlights and the sliding puzzles were a delight. The reason why this game worked so well lies in its prequel elements. It was so intriguing and very touching to witness the first meeting of Layton and Luke and how their budding friendship progressed was so well explored here. The overall storyline was structurally familiar, but still undeniably entertaining, magical and quite emotional.

3. Azran Legacy

This was the last traditional Layton game, and as such, it was certainly very moving. The eventual conclusion where we got to see the characters say goodbye to one another was emotionally rewarding and simply perfect. The twists and turns were a bit soapy here, but they mostly worked nonetheless. While the mini-puzzles were inferior here, the puzzles were among the best in the franchise. This was the game that opened up in terms of world building for better and for worse – while it made for a less charming and cozy experience, it made for a more epic game that featured numerous interesting, wonderfully realized locations.

2. Miracle Mask

The second entry in the prequel trilogy, Miracle Mask is even better than its predecessor thanks to its more sophisticated dual storyline – one set in the present and the other set in the past. The eventual twist I could see coming from a mile away, but it still led to such a touching final section. The sections set in the past stole the show here in both its heartbreaking storyline and its archeology-based puzzles that were such welcome additions. This was surely one of the most ambitious and most complex games in the franchise, one that was impressively lengthy and highly entertaining to play through.

1. Curious Village

Not just the one that started it all, but also the one that perfected the formula from the very beginning and setting the template for the rest to follow, Curious Village is, all things considered, by far the most successful Layton game. The puzzles are fun and eclectic while the characterization was on-point from the very beginning. Most importantly, it features the best storyline of the entire franchise and one of its finest and most intriguing settings. Deeply plotted and immensely cozy, Curious Village has it all and it’s crazy to me that most people do not put this one on top of the list, so I will most gladly do that here.