ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM 15-05-2021
The culmination of all Layton goodness is about as good as you'd expect it to be. I think I've gotten a sufficient Layton fix by playing this initial trilogy and it was a comfortable and fun ride throughout. I find it hard to find much of interest to comment on in this series of games because, well...the main point of them is to provide brain-teasers, and those are almost always good regardless of the connective tissue holding them together.
I would at least say that the puzzle selection this time feels more "focused" than that of previous games? There's arguably a lack of variety here, but in return you're given a lot of iterations upon the same, fun puzzles that grow gradually more challenging. Block sliding puzzles, puzzles about interpreting and dissecting statements, and the puzzles of moving character across a grid of sorts being the main stars of the show, as they remain fun throughout. The game runs less of a risk of becoming annoying when giving you this more consistent stream of content, but there is still of course an appeal to the absolute variety found in Pandora's Box. It's also worth noting that a lot of puzzles in the game go the extra mile to actually be connected to the clock/time theme of the game as a whole, which is a welcome surprise that helps make the experience feel more cohesive than prior games.
Regarding that connective tissue, story-wise, the game's a really fun romp just as always. The core mystery was one I found a lot easier to process and get to the bottom of on your own compared to the borderline asspull presented in Pandora's Box, and it struck the balance between unbelievable and solvable very well. Its a fun story, and all the new and old characters intermingling is just fun to behold.
I'd say I have two main issues with the narrative as-is, with the first being that I don't think the story is given enough build-up to feel properly climactic. To cram arguably three different villains into the same story to focus on, alongside presenting both a main plot and a subplot that tries to connect itself to the past games in the series, whilst using precious little of those past games as any form of springboard... So many plot elements are introduced just in this game, despite it having the same ~15 hour runtime as the prior two smaller entries. Past the first game the developers should have been keenly aware that they were creating an expanding franchise, and I believe there was ample opportunity to place narrative seeds in Pandora's Box that could then be built upon in this game. That feels like what they wanted to do with Flora, yet it amounts to nothing across all these games. There's a hint of this with Don Paolo too, which makes it all the more bizarre to me that they didn't commit to an interconnected narrative further if they were already dipping their toes into it.
The cramped feeling of the narrative plays into my second issue, which is that the ending feels quite rushed together given the actual consequences of what the villain accomplished. A lot of the ending is spent on sympathizing for the villain, understanding them, and providing forgiveness, yet...they were shown mercilessly killing hundreds of London civilians, and do not get reprimanded for it in any way. You couple that with how some plot aspects just feel full-on unexplained, and the ending left a kind of funky taste in my mouth in a way the prior entries never did.
I know it might be weird to read these paragraphs of complaints and see me still land on a 4-star review, but its as I said before - in my eyes, the story is effectively nothing but connective tissue to the core appeal of these games. On that level, the game succeeds in spades, with terrific music, visuals, cutscenes, voice acting, and above all else great puzzles. Lost Future on the whole feels like a game that really wanted to tie the series to a close with the best game in the series, and it certainly achieves that in terms of raw quality. Yet I end up wishing that its ambition in the story, and the narrative across all three games, could've felt more focused.
[Playtime: 20 Hours]
[Keyword: Overachiever]
The culmination of all Layton goodness is about as good as you'd expect it to be. I think I've gotten a sufficient Layton fix by playing this initial trilogy and it was a comfortable and fun ride throughout. I find it hard to find much of interest to comment on in this series of games because, well...the main point of them is to provide brain-teasers, and those are almost always good regardless of the connective tissue holding them together.
I would at least say that the puzzle selection this time feels more "focused" than that of previous games? There's arguably a lack of variety here, but in return you're given a lot of iterations upon the same, fun puzzles that grow gradually more challenging. Block sliding puzzles, puzzles about interpreting and dissecting statements, and the puzzles of moving character across a grid of sorts being the main stars of the show, as they remain fun throughout. The game runs less of a risk of becoming annoying when giving you this more consistent stream of content, but there is still of course an appeal to the absolute variety found in Pandora's Box. It's also worth noting that a lot of puzzles in the game go the extra mile to actually be connected to the clock/time theme of the game as a whole, which is a welcome surprise that helps make the experience feel more cohesive than prior games.
Regarding that connective tissue, story-wise, the game's a really fun romp just as always. The core mystery was one I found a lot easier to process and get to the bottom of on your own compared to the borderline asspull presented in Pandora's Box, and it struck the balance between unbelievable and solvable very well. Its a fun story, and all the new and old characters intermingling is just fun to behold.
I'd say I have two main issues with the narrative as-is, with the first being that I don't think the story is given enough build-up to feel properly climactic. To cram arguably three different villains into the same story to focus on, alongside presenting both a main plot and a subplot that tries to connect itself to the past games in the series, whilst using precious little of those past games as any form of springboard... So many plot elements are introduced just in this game, despite it having the same ~15 hour runtime as the prior two smaller entries. Past the first game the developers should have been keenly aware that they were creating an expanding franchise, and I believe there was ample opportunity to place narrative seeds in Pandora's Box that could then be built upon in this game. That feels like what they wanted to do with Flora, yet it amounts to nothing across all these games. There's a hint of this with Don Paolo too, which makes it all the more bizarre to me that they didn't commit to an interconnected narrative further if they were already dipping their toes into it.
The cramped feeling of the narrative plays into my second issue, which is that the ending feels quite rushed together given the actual consequences of what the villain accomplished. A lot of the ending is spent on sympathizing for the villain, understanding them, and providing forgiveness, yet...they were shown mercilessly killing hundreds of London civilians, and do not get reprimanded for it in any way. You couple that with how some plot aspects just feel full-on unexplained, and the ending left a kind of funky taste in my mouth in a way the prior entries never did.
I know it might be weird to read these paragraphs of complaints and see me still land on a 4-star review, but its as I said before - in my eyes, the story is effectively nothing but connective tissue to the core appeal of these games. On that level, the game succeeds in spades, with terrific music, visuals, cutscenes, voice acting, and above all else great puzzles. Lost Future on the whole feels like a game that really wanted to tie the series to a close with the best game in the series, and it certainly achieves that in terms of raw quality. Yet I end up wishing that its ambition in the story, and the narrative across all three games, could've felt more focused.
[Playtime: 20 Hours]
[Keyword: Overachiever]