During the holiday season, we will republish selected features from the last 12 months. Combining talking points, interviews, opinions, and more from NL staff and contributors, you’ll find a blend of thoughtfulness, expertise, flirtatiousness, retro nostalgia, and of course, enthusiasm for all things Nintendo.
My gaming experience from the late 2000s to the mid-2010s was all about learning to be a gentleman. This was the central topic of the Professor Layton series. If Professor Herschel Leighton wore his trench coat, I wore his trench coat. When he drank fruity tea, I drank fruity tea. If he recalls the puzzle at the most inappropriate time…well, you get the idea. So why is my view of the series so often tainted today?
The answer lies in the final title of the series, Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy. This is a game that never worked for me, regardless of its merits. There was no Herschel, no Luke, no aggressive, brilliant jazz score. It wasn’t a Professor Layton game—at least not in my mind.
This week marks the 5th anniversary of Layton’s Mystery Journey’s US and European 3DS release. It also means that it’s been five years since the last original Professor Layton title came out on consoles.
Is it fair to say all hope for Layton’s next entry is gone? If so, is it fair to blame Mystery Journey? , a true gentleman can’t help but solve the puzzle…
Level 1 of Level 5
To solve the mystery of the lost franchise, we have to go back to the beginning. The year was 1998 and Akihiro Hino, a former Riversilsoft employee, had formed a partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment to work on a PlayStation 2 project under his company’s brand. LEVEL-5 Co., Ltd. was born by choosing a company name associated with dark clouds, Dragon Quest VIII When rogue galaxy In collaboration with Sony, the studio began self-publishing games by the mid-2000s.
Eager to benefit the adult audience that Dr. Kawashima’s giant floating head brought to the DS, Level-5 began working on titles that would benefit both children and adults.The kind of game your grandma would buy you for Christmas When Crack yourself after polishing a glass of sherry.
It was during this development process that one of the greatest duos of all time was formed. Like Mario and Luigi, Mario and Sonic, or Mario and the Hmmm Rabbids (?), Akihiro Hino had help from puzzle book authors and real life. quiz Akira Tago helped create a fun and (in the broadest sense of the word) educational franchise.
build a true gentleman
The finished product wasn’t just one, it was six games (a crossover, a feature film, a cartoon series, a mobile app, and enough stovepipe hat merchandise to send shares off the roof). Professor Layton and the Curious Village was released in 2007 to well-deserved critical acclaim. The puzzles are so baffling, the central mystery is truly mysterious, the top-tapping jazz score by Tomohiro Nishiura delivers his one of the best video game soundtracks of all time, and PA Works has put together feature-film-level animation. provided his cutscene. Features. movie. level.
The original trilogy was so enthusiastically received that three prequel games were quickly released over the next three years (Professor Layton and Specter’s Cole for DS, Professor Layton and Miracle Mask for 3DS, Layton The Professor and Azran’s Legacy). Admittedly, each entry gets a little more wacky than the previous one (this is a series that truly transitions from Game 1’s inheritance dispute — Spoiler! — Literally resurrecting the dead Until Game 6), that was part of the series’ charm. Professor Layton is a household name, and this silly little franchise could go on forever, right?
error. With the exception of Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, after its release in Japan in 2012, Western localization has landed tremendously in late 2014. 8 years.
And, unfortunately, we are unlikely to see him again.
level 5 ebb and flow
As you know, following the success of several strong franchises in the Layton series and Inazuma Eleven and Yo-Kai Watch, Level 5 has fallen into chaos. Taking a break from Layton after not one but two trilogy endings mental damage, Level-5 was a huge hit with Yo-kai Watch in Japan, selling over 1 million units in its first year and launching a cultural following that rivaled the likes of Pokémon. yeah that was a big deal.
The problem is that this Japanese folklore-heavy series didn’t have the same effect on Western audiences. Who would have thought that?While the first game sold a respectable 400,000 units in the US, interest in the franchise waned steadily with sequels. This didn’t help Level-5 as it took a long time to localize them. It took him over three years for the first game to reach Europe, and he nearly gave up hope that Yo-Kai Watch 4 would make it outside of Japan.
Subsequent financial difficulties and a number of canceled projects meant Level Five’s hiatus from the Layton series didn’t come at the worst possible time. That made things look even darker.
What would another Layton game be without Tago’s iconic puzzles?
Layton’s Mystery Journey
Well, it would be a lot like 2017’s Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy, which first released on 3DS and mobile before receiving a “Deluxe” Switchport a few years later.
This game is a hollow shell of everything that made the Layton series great. The puzzles currently designed by Kuniaki Iwanami are not enigmatic and have no mystical mysteries.
Playing Layton’s Mystery Journey, I tried to convince myself that maybe the Layton franchise has always been like this and I was just growing up – Hmm, these puzzles are not easy.I’m the one who got betterThis is simply not true. Granted, putting Layton’s name in the title is enough to tangentially link the release to what came before it, but the game has as much to do with Pokemon Dash as it does to Pokemon Red and Blue. share the DNA of the original.
The loss of Tago’s talent has resulted in such a noticeable downgrade that the entire game suffers because of it. Even Hino’s writing misses the point here. Dividing the central mystery into several smaller cases means no build-up to the finale, and who on earth approved the addition of a talking dog to the game? I believe in the city, come.
It may be unfair to attribute all responsibility for Layton’s death in Mystery Journey. What is clear, however, is that for most Layton enthusiasts, the inexplicable passion of its predecessor has failed to reignite.
What should I do then?
In 2020, GamesIndustry.biz report Level-5 has stated that it will cease all activities outside of Japan, making future western localization very unlikely. Waiwai Gakuen Seikatsu, Megaton Musashi, and Megaton Musashi Cross will continue to be released on Switch, and Inazuma Eleven: Heroes’ Path of Victory is expected to be released next year. The last level 5 game released in the West was Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl – Gold in 2020. This wasn’t the end of the fireworks from the studio that developed some of Nintendo’s most popular franchises on previous generation handhelds.
So where does this leave Leighton? A messy studio and previous entries to leave a bitter taste in your mouth aren’t the ideal places to find the franchise today, but this doesn’t necessarily mean Leighton is dead. Level-5 is one of those studios whose loyal fans have repeatedly asked Nintendo to buy it. big-N has published individual Layton localizations in the past, each with considerable success. Chance – but unlikely — Yes, but even if it miraculously happened and Nintendo financed the comeback, there would still be cases of Akira Tago’s absence.
A sign of a great mystery depends on how you wrap it up, and in Layton’s Mystery Journey, Agatha Christie never revealed. will release another Layton game is as slim as Luke changing out of that little blue jumper. —but seeing the gentlemanly professor return and wash away the sour taste of Layton’s Mystery Journey would be most enlightening and would bring his case to a proper end.
