Refreshing after Miracle Mask left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Azran Legacy refines everything that Miracle Mask did extremely poorly. It has more interesting locations, a better overall mystery, better puzzles and the performance is significantly smoother. It's a bit more of a MacGuffin quest than most Professor Layton games, but I found myself having a good time with it. I might even say it's a little underrated.

Edit: I'll echo the sentiment that the mess of plot twists at the end is pretty bad. But outside of that I don't think the plot is too bad.

It almost feels inevitable that the Professor Layton series would reach this point. Unfortunately, there's a pretty finite number of ways you can spin logic to create inventive puzzles. Miracle Mask runs thin on creative puzzles and feels like it's mostly recycling old formats. However, I can't really blame the game too much for that. For the most part, I still enjoyed solving the puzzles the game offers. The solutions are different even if the format is familiar. I also think that I enjoyed Miracle Mask's cast of characters more than The Last Specter. The game gets more personal with Layton's friendships and the sequences that take place in Layton's past lead to some pretty good character building moments. New characters like Dalston, Randall, Angela and Henry were pretty good additions. However, whilst the puzzle side remains intact I think the mystery element of Miracle Mask is particularly weak. I'll keep this spoiler free but the eventual big reveal is very predictable. The most climactic moment of the narrative has very little impact as a result. My final note is that the performance is very choppy. The transition to 3D models instead of sprites is definitely a rocky one. There were several moments where I experienced slowdown, which I feel took away from the gameplay experience. Overall, Professor Layton & The Miracle Mask does function as a puzzle game, but is far from the best the series has to offer.