Until X-Men First Class, I had declared all prequels officially rubbish. So what about a Layton prequel? Well, it's much the same as the other Laytons so if you've played any of them you know what to expect. Charming story, lovely music and atmosphere and plenty of puzzles. This Layton shows the meeting of the Professor and his young assistant, Luke, and involves a big dark spectre thing terrorising a town. It's not a special hook and certainly doesn't stand out among the other games but it gets things moving.
The important part is that the puzzles, four games in, still seem to be really varied and mostly excellent. Some are familiar, of course, but each one offers a challenge even if you know the type (like move the pieces to get an object from A to B). Hint coins are everywhere and there's quite an interesting mini game involving setting up train routes.
So it's Layton as usual and all works. If I was to strain for a negative it would be that the character designs for townsfolk don't seem to be as charming as in previous games. That's about all I've got.
Then there is London Life. This is a whole separate RPG type thing that comes as an extra with the game everywhere except Europe. The decision to remove this is total pox. Okay so if you love Layton and don't know about it, you won't feel like you're missing anything but, actually, you are. So I got imported it, which also means having Luke's US voice rather than the better UK voice. Why Luke has a different voice is a mystery to me - anyone know? It's not like he speaks with a US accent in the US one. It's a very similar accent and voice, just a bit deeper and less fun in the US one. Why bother having a different accent for one character across territories?
So London Life looks like an old school RPG where you create a character and they go to this Little London place, where you get a place to live and meet a whole bunch of townsfolk and seemingly collect outfits and stuff. I haven't played much of it so not sure yet where it goes but I've played enough to know they put quite a bit of effort into it. It's an odd extra in that sense. Expanded, it could be its own game. It may not even need to be expanded, I'm only imagining it's got to be small because it is an extra - I don't actually know that yet. It's definitely interesting and I'll continue to delve into it.
Apparently translation issues were the reason it was removed from the UK version. I have actually got the Canadian version, which seems to have the French version intact so we know they got English and French out on time. How many more languages were they planning? Could they not have released it with a limited amount of languages? Seems wrong to cut it out for those who could play it because there would be some who couldn't. Anyway, if you want London Life, you'll have to import.
The important part is that the puzzles, four games in, still seem to be really varied and mostly excellent. Some are familiar, of course, but each one offers a challenge even if you know the type (like move the pieces to get an object from A to B). Hint coins are everywhere and there's quite an interesting mini game involving setting up train routes.
So it's Layton as usual and all works. If I was to strain for a negative it would be that the character designs for townsfolk don't seem to be as charming as in previous games. That's about all I've got.
Then there is London Life. This is a whole separate RPG type thing that comes as an extra with the game everywhere except Europe. The decision to remove this is total pox. Okay so if you love Layton and don't know about it, you won't feel like you're missing anything but, actually, you are. So I got imported it, which also means having Luke's US voice rather than the better UK voice. Why Luke has a different voice is a mystery to me - anyone know? It's not like he speaks with a US accent in the US one. It's a very similar accent and voice, just a bit deeper and less fun in the US one. Why bother having a different accent for one character across territories?
So London Life looks like an old school RPG where you create a character and they go to this Little London place, where you get a place to live and meet a whole bunch of townsfolk and seemingly collect outfits and stuff. I haven't played much of it so not sure yet where it goes but I've played enough to know they put quite a bit of effort into it. It's an odd extra in that sense. Expanded, it could be its own game. It may not even need to be expanded, I'm only imagining it's got to be small because it is an extra - I don't actually know that yet. It's definitely interesting and I'll continue to delve into it.
Apparently translation issues were the reason it was removed from the UK version. I have actually got the Canadian version, which seems to have the French version intact so we know they got English and French out on time. How many more languages were they planning? Could they not have released it with a limited amount of languages? Seems wrong to cut it out for those who could play it because there would be some who couldn't. Anyway, if you want London Life, you'll have to import.
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