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Professor Layton series
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| レイトン教授 | ||||||
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Professor Layton (Japanese: レイトン教授 Layton-kyōju, literally Professor Layton) is a series of puzzle games developed by Level-5 in Japan, and published by Nintendo outside of Japan. The series debuted on the Nintendo DS with the release of Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Since then, the series expanded to include an animated film, a manga series, and several novels.
The series revolve on solving puzzles and the mysteries of areas that the main characters visit during the game.
History
Professor Layton is a series of puzzle games, designed by Level Five and published by Nintendo. An original three games were released for the Nintendo DS. A second, prequel trilogy was created, the first made for the DS and the remaining two for the Nintendo 3DS. A spin-off game was later released for the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch.
The original intention was to create accessible, simple puzzle games, akin to Brain Training. Adding in a story and characters, the first game was created, taking large inspiration from the Phoenix Wright series. The first game was released in 2007; the latest Professor Layton game was released in 2019, with a new, seventh game to be released in 2025.
Games
Note other Professor Layton games exist, however this page only lists ones published by Nintendo.
Atmosphere
The Professor Layton series has a particularly striking atmosphere, especially in the earlier games in the series. The first two games have a gradual unnerving sense that something is wrong, that a puzzle may lead to a terrible truth. The theme of the Curious Village is in minor, somewhat dissonant. This game, in particular, has a continual sense of dread and unease. Additionally, Pandora's Box has an effective sense of having to move on. The main protagonists visit Doctor Shrader at the start, before boarding the Molentary Express, unable to ever return to London in-game. They arrive at Dropstone, a village centred around its time from the anniversary, but eventually have to leave here, too, unable to look back. Once the pair reach Folsense, they are unable to ever get on the train, but are stuck at the end of the line. Moving around the village, there is a slowly rising sense that something about this place is untrue, a false sense, and that they are going to end up travelling towards Herzen Castle. This gradual inclination of tension rises until the pair open the box and do head to the castle, following a rickety carriage. This game achieves such an effect marvellously, more than any other in the series. The third game retained some of this dramatic suspense, with Future Layton and the Brotherhood, though it was a little more overt. The fourth game was the last to keep this effect in any power, with a Spectre that attacked a village only at night, keeping an obvious sense of tension towards the nights. A disquieting atmosphere hovers about the misty village, with a house on a distant hill inspiring curiosity and the mysterious garden a beautiful rendition of the last truth.
The fifth and sixth games lost this effect almost universally. Losing the effective minor music, they garnered 3D models, which could not keep such an arty, gripping effect. The fifth game had no real sense of gradual unease, particularly through its ongoing length (the series becoming longer overall with each game) and several chapters filling the time with puzzles that didn't progress the story too much. The sixth game decimated the old atmospheric sense beyond all recognition, with the Live London theme from the third game's soundtrack playing in London, despite not fitting the scene at all. The old idea of a forlorn, puzzling place was completely abolished in favour of a more positive, overtly-welcoming experience - the series had changed direction from its initial idea. The next game in the series, Katrielle Layton and the Millionaire's Conspiracy, also decimated the atmosphere, totally and utterly scrapping the uneasy acceptance in favour of a light-hearted romp. The olden times of being immersed in a village, far away, were over. The Professor Layton series had changed. It is likely that the next game in the series will also lack the old atmosphere, disappointingly.
| Game | JP release | NA release | EU release | AUS release | KOR release | Platform | |||
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Main games
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| Professor Layton and the Curious Village | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2009 | 2008 | Nintendo DS | |||
| Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box | 2007 | 2009 | 2009 | 2009 | 2011 | Nintendo DS | |||
| Professor Layton and the Unwound Future | 2008 | 2010 | 2010 | 2010 | N/A | Nintendo DS | |||
| Professor Layton and the Last Specter | 2009 | 2011 | 2011 | 2011 | N/A | Nintendo DS | |||
| Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask | 2011 | 2012 | 2012 | 2012 | N/A | Nintendo 3DS | |||
| Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy | 2013 | 2014 | 2013 | 2013 | N/A | Nintendo 3DS | |||
| Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and The Millionaires' Conspiracy - Deluxe Edition | 2018 | 2019 | 2019 | 2019 | N/A | Nintendo Switch | |||
Spin-off games
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| Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney | 2012 | 2014 | 2014 | 2014 | N/A | Nintendo 3DS | |||
Further series analysis
An analysis of the first five games, based on their word count.
CV: 36,144 words 9 chapters + prologue = 9.5 36,144 / 9.5 = 3,805 words per chapter on average
PB: 47,004 words 7 chapters + prologue = 7.5 47,004 / 7.5 = 6,267 words per chapter
LF: 73,070 words 13 chapters + prologue + epilogue = 14 chapters 73,070 / 14 = 5,219 words per chapter
SC: 68,871 words 10 chapters + prologue + epilogue = 11 chapters 68,871 / 11 = 6,261 words per chapter
MM: 90,059 words 8 chapters + prologue + epilogue = 9 chapters 90,059 / 9 = 10,007 words per chapter
Clearly MM is *way* slower paced. This is one reason among many (its tone, losing the subtle unnerving atmosphere and general theme of the past games) that it’s not as good. LF goes to the most places around the world in a way (of the first FIVE games) and yet is faster paced. CV is very quick as it should be; PB is a bit slower, nearly half as fast (bit too long walking around Folsense) but still does the job and is overall paced excellently - starts slow-ish, speeds up, then slows down and speeds up again at the end. LF is incredibly well paced, perhaps the best of all, considering how many chapters it has, splitting the game up neatly. Playing the game three times over, I’ve probably multiple times taken about the same number of times to play the game through different sessions (e.g. turning it on 16 times over 13 chapters + prologue + epilogue)
SC begins the trend of slowing things down but it isn’t too bad, just marred somewhat, considering it has nearly as many words as LF yet moves around much less - cut it down to about 60,000 instead and it would’ve been a lot better. It takes too long to get on with things, then the factory part is actually rather quick, the final boss stuff is, too, underwhelming in the end’s length. MM is ridiculous. WAY longer than all the rest for no real reason, and also a reduced chapter length. No wonder I took years to beat it the second time, it’s just tedious, chapter three is the longest chapter in Layton history at the time, probably ever. Then chapters 4 and some others are also really long. Thankfully the ending is short but it takes so long to get there, it’s absurd. Should’ve been about 80,000 at the absolute most, or less still.
Since I like the second game the most and the third handles the plot and themes overall the best, we may conclude, based on the first five Layton games, that having about 60,000 - 75,000 words is about right (including all dialogue that isn’t in puzzles, such as descriptions to tap on things, but not including the dialogue when one does that) - sourced from https://professorlaytontranscripts.wordpress.com/. It’s a true pleasure to play through the games, ESPECIALLY the first three, and looking at these numbers today I really appreciate how short and sweet they are. The series grew and grew, bloating itself with more and more characters and pointless exercises that take too long, take away from the premise, distract from the story, moving to other premises (areas, characters, too many puzzles even). Layton 3 gets away with a longer story since it’s the finale to the first trilogy, and really the finale to all six games. Considering that, it’s great that it doesn’t get carried away.
Imagine if they’d made the Layton games in chronological order. It wouldn’t work, for all kinds of reasons - diminishing stakes, character development building up then falling away, Descole and Emmy just vanishing. Simplicity is appreciated, and simply having Layton and Luke walking around, solving puzzles, in Layton 1, is a hugely refreshing change of pace after the horror of the second trilogy. Over the years I’ve gone from thinking they’re all great games to gaining more of an extremist fan view, loving the first three, always conflicted on 4 (it’s better than 1 in some ways certainly, but loses its advantage - a mysterious mist-bound village with a haunted house on a hill - SIGN ME UP! Then it just loses its way in the fog and takes too long). Layton 5 abolished any sense of real mystery, subtext, underlying fear and just got ridiculous, and did I mention way too long? It became more of a factory, churning these games out. Then Layton 6, I expected it to have none of that old mysterious atmosphere and indeed it doesn’t, but knowing that already, I appreciated it for other reasons. Obviously the story was put on hold in the middle during the Easter egg hunt, since one can complete that in any order, nothing was going to happen while that went on, but there are some nice moments. Except the point, the famous Layton finger-pointing moment - worst in the series, by far. A small room, a few people and only one option as to who he was going to point at. Terrible. The games became more and more just going through the motions, being made in the standard way, oh, we have to put a Layton point in - but not at the end, no no, halfway, no, a few hours in when it’s completely unjustified, and nothing results from it. Dreadful. The series was better when it was invented, having to invent characters and story out of necessity to have something linking the puzzles together. They didn’t mean to make it as good as it was, in a way, just put something in so the puzzles have a meaning beyond just random thought challenges. Brain Training with a plot, pretty much. Then that took over, so much, plus very slow minigames, and other stuff, and it all went wrong.
To conclude, then, the Professor Layton series started off more interested in telling a short story, linking together puzzles, the key selling point. It then became more about the story, with the puzzles becoming less focused (even if more related to the story itself), particularly as the classic riddle-type puzzles were used up early on, and became easier and more repetitive later in the series. By adding more and more puzzles, and yet slowing the games down immensely, adding swathes of dialogue despite not opening the series up to new ideas hugely, the series forgot its original plan and diverted too far, unable to ever again regain its charming mysteries, its forlorn sentimentalities, its thematic drive, in favour of simpler, more broadly appealing, less analytically motivated, lacklustre establishments.
References
External links
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