Stats time!
Play Time 18h 15m
Score 3188 Picarats
Cases Solved 99/135
Hint Coins 80/143
Robot Levels 2/10
Shop Displays 3/10
Rabbit 7/10
Collection 22/40
The famous Professor Layton has finally found himself on the 3DS. While the last game may have not been quite as good as the others the series has never disappointed with its puzzles. This game is no exception and is a fine way to continue the story. At long last we are even introduced to the tragic past of Layton and 5 games in you could say that we were about due for it. This is the first Layton game to have fun switching up the gameplay style as well as we get a 3D racing level and also some overhead Mummy fights. I think Level 5 definitely has the right idea here as throwing in an occasional level like this is pretty fun.
This Layton game starts out with the hero receiving a letter from his old friend Angela. She wants him to hurry over because a villain known as the Masked Gentleman has popped up and is performing dark miracles on the town like turning people into horses and warping people away. Layton heads over but the place brings bad memories. The past that he had hoped to forget had finally caught up to him and he will have to face his fears head on!
The game plays out like some of the recent superhero shows as we jump from the present to the past a lot. For example one chapter will be in the present while another is in the past. In that sense, you could say that Layton solved the present mystery a bit quicker than usual. I suppose the number of viable suspects wasn’t too large so that helped his case. There were really 3 Big suspects here. First is the childhood friend Angela who seems obsessed with the Mask of Order and seems eager to give it to the gentleman. Next is Randall, the kid from Layton’s past who seemingly died, but his body was never found. Then there is Randall’s butler Henry who snagged his treasure and best friend after he died. With the whole town at stake Layton can’t afford to just sit around.
It’s a pretty solid story for sure. Layton’s backstory is definitely rather tragic. He did give up hope even while the other two friends kept looking for Randall, but I guess from a scientific point of view his odds weren’t great. He has been gone for a while after all. Layton chose to forget about the place for around 18 years until now. Layton did do everything that he could though. He would have been able to save Randall had the kid only let go of his treasure. Instead we saw that it was worth his life. It’s just hard to feel bad for him especially since he never had his priorities straight in life. Even if it made everyone worried he wanted to be rich so he would lie to everyone and take huge risks. It was only a matter of time before this caught up with him.
As with the last game we get a teaser for the next one. It’s the biggest teaser yet and that makes sense since the next game ends the trilogy. One last Aztec adventure for the heroes. In the clip we see the main villain of the prequel trilogy be defeated by a new villain. The new villain now has all of the locations needed to destroy the world. This next installment is definitely going to be a blast! The series has mostly been realistic with you just having to suspend disbelief for a bit at times. It’ll be interesting to see if the villain defies that in the next movie. After all, the villain that he defeated was able to contend with rapid bullet fire and that’s no easy feat.
The game has a great cast as you would expect. Layton is just as solid as ever and always reminds us that he can fight as well as he can think. Taking down the Mummy swordsmen was pretty impressive. Luke is a good sidekick as well and I do like the rivalry between him and Emmy even if it is rather one sided. Luke just never really stands a chance when it comes time to start trading burns. Emmy is the main reason why the team dynamic is better in the prequels than in the main game so I’m definitely happy to have her around as a main character. Her role is rather small here, but she still does get some puzzles of her own.
As for the new characters, Randall is annoying as you can guess. He isn’t reasonable at all but I already talked about him so we can move on. There is also Henry who may be rather loyal but quick to take everything the wrong way. He gets upset rather easily and makes himself look very suspicious this way. I guess he isn’t a bad character, but he could have been better. I actually preferred the Dalston character. He wanted to be rich while everyone was having fun adventuring and he accomplished his goals. He is now one of the richest men on the planet, you just can’t beat that. He also talks tough to the coppers and in general felt on the ball.
Angela is a good character if you view her more as a subtle antagonist. She definitely isn’t hear to make Layton feel any better as she spends the majority of her time making him feel even worse. It’s not always intentional, but at the same time in the past it seems as if it was. It’s hard to really understand her character at times, but she will always keep you guessing. Agent Bloom is a fun detective. He is very intelligent and the only police officer who is able to keep up with Layton step for step. He doesn’t appear very much, but it does seem like he will be in the sequel so that’s good. Layton doesn’t really have a rival so having this guy fit that bill would be fun. There are a slew of other supporting characters in the game that are all very solid as well. In particular look for the guy with the big, curved chin. His scenes are always amusing and his rigged puzzles are a blast.
As always the graphics are pretty solid here. It’s great to see fully animated cutscenes as always and we get some CG ones as well. The levels are all pretty clear and the puzzles aren’t too misleading. I still think it’s slightly cheating when the puzzle gives you 5 possible answers and they’re all wrong so the only way to beat the puzzle is to tap on part of it to make the whole thing break. I mean, technically I guess that works, but the false answers is barely legit. If the graphics were a little darker or more unclear then it would be tough to see the tiny cracks that serve as a hint. The controls are on point as well and basically this game does nothing wrong on a technical level. The soundtrack may not have any real new tunes in it, but that’s fine as the usual ones are pretty good.
The actual story is reasonably long as it’s over 10 hours and then we’ve also got a bunch of extra puzzles to try and conquer after the game is over. After all, it’s not like you have to complete all of them to clear the game. As with the previous titles in the series you can tackle any quest that you have not completed yet in the little house at the hotel. There are also a bunch of minigames that you can try to complete all of the levels in. By the time you have done all of this the game will likely be at 20 hours or maybe even longer. There’s definitely no shortage of content here.
Overall, This was a pretty exciting Layton game with a fun story that will keep you engaged the whole time. It starts out quite fast and never really loses steam. The only way you may not enjoy the game is if you don’t care for Layton’s past and I think the game handled it rather well. It’s the best of the prequel trilogy so far, but we’ll see how it holds up to the next game. As that is the final main Layton game I expect it to end with a bang. It certainly got a considerable amount of foreshadowing in this game. In case it’s not obvious, I would definitely recommend picking this game up.
Overall 8/10
It’s time to look at another beach-esque adventure. This one is at a local pool for most of it and there is a Pajama Party at the end, but it’s still fairly similar to the last two films. By now you know if you either like the genre or don’t. It certainly didn’t switch my mind as it is more of the same from the last film even down to the same premise. Throwing in the aliens was a decent move I guess, but I can’t say that it was a very interesting plot point so maybe it was just fluff in the end.
The film revolves around an alien named Gogo. He is sent to Earth as an advance scout for Mars as they plan to take over the planet. They selected him to be the first scout because Gogo isn’t very smart and will confuse the Earthlings. Gogo is oblivious to this so his self esteem is surprisingly intact for the duration of the movie. The Earthlings decide to call him George since it’s a much more traditional name and he approves of this. Plans change though as he falls for Connie. Thing is, Connie is taken by Big Lunk, but wants to make him jealous so she decides to play along and pretend to be into Gogo. Meanwhile some corporate villains want to steal Big Lunk’s aunt’s treasure so they send in their special operative Helga to get the information out of him. Naturally she figures the best way to do this is to get together and Lunk has no problem two timing Connie. With this love rectangle can there even be a winner?
Right off the bat you see the problems that are just inherent to the genre. For starters we have the constant rebounds between the characters that make you wonder how genuine any of them are. If they are willing to ditch their partners so quickly you can’t help but wonder if they will leave the new ones as soon as they see a better option. It’s hard to feel bad for any of the characters since this is the case. For example, Connie is frustrated that Lunk is always ignoring her so I suppose we are led to believe that this was not always the case. Nothing in the film suggests that he changed in any way though so it means that she didn’t mind his behavior at first and it is only now an issue. Meanwhile, you have to assume that maybe Lunk just never liked her all that much since he is very quick to get enthusiastic about Helga. The romance here is just all wrong.
Naturally the film takes the low road and adds in a ton of fanservice now. We get poorly timed camera zoom ins and a lot of dancing that is more about damaging the film than proper form and poise. It’s nothing to be even remotely surprised about, but it hurts the film all the same. The villains’ plan to use romance to get to the heroes is always iffy at best as well and didn’t help their case either. It was interesting that we got 3 different villain groups though. Even for this series that is a little crazy. There was Eric Zipper and his gang, the Martians, and the people from Corporate. Naturally the corporate villains were the best ones as they brought in some fresh air to the series.
The leader was actually pretty competent and always got a lot of good one liners in. He had a habit of beating up his 2nd in command quite a lot to show that he wasn’t to be trifled with. Unfortunately he is surrounded by incompetent henchmen so ultimately he was always doomed. Then there is the “Cowabunga” Indian who can’t speak too well. Naturally he doesn’t look very good and there is actually a big plot twist about him. He still looks better than the other henchmen though as that guy is the one who gets beat up a lot. I think his best scene was his debut appearance as the boss keeps talking to him about the plan and the henchmen manages to say the wrong thing each time and keeps getting punished. You’ll feel bad for the guy there since he was trying to be careful with his phrasing.
Eric Zipperman and his gang are about the same as always so you’ll either like them or not. They get beat up a lot, but always have the coolest outfits in the film. These guys look like they play for keeps and surprisingly they actually knew how to fight pretty well this time. While they lost in the end that was mainly because GoGo stepped up and used his magic wand to stop them. Otherwise they were actually overpowering the teens at one point which I was not expecting.
As for the Martians themselves, they didn’t have much of a plan for conquering Earth. I didn’t see much of an army at the base. Considering that the teleporter worked both ways, you’d suspect that we’d have seen soldiers on Mars when corporate went there. Instead the place was empty so I’m assuming that the army soldiers just deserted the Martian cause. Likely the right move to be honest since they probably wouldn’t have been able to defeat the teenagers if we’re being honest.
This film definitely struck out and it’s unfortunate since for the most part it does have some reasonably humorous moments. It throws out so many jokes that some have to land after all right? I do like that Big Lunk was fine with the friend zone for a while, but it’s too bad that he relented in the end. If you cut out all of the pool shenanigans, romance, and fanservice then this is a quality film. The problem is that we’re talking about a totally different movie at that point. The film has to live or die by the mistakes it made and unfortunately this one just couldn’t cut the mustard.
Overall, Pajama Party is one of those films that won’t be remembered all that well. It will just fade into place next to the other Beach movies where the heroine tries to get the hero jealous. Of course in this film the plan didn’t even remotely work and she actually just gave in to the rebound. That’s a bit of a twist compared to the other films, but it’s not exactly one that would help the score of the film. It was doomed fairly early on anyway so I guess it’s not like the film had much of a chance. They just need to do something a little more classy like a sweater party movie. I’m sure the film would find some way to mess that up though. If you want a good party movie then I suggest you look elsewhere.
Overall 2/10
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