The game starts strong, with an intriguing mystery and good interactions between our lead characters (and somehow better models for Phoenix and Maya than the ones in the mainline 3D games?). But the story falls apart the longer it goes on, complete with poorly executed depictions of trauma and suicide, which gives the latter part of the game a bad taste.

The crux of all the game’s problems is Espella, who’s a wholly uninteresting character despite the game’s entire mystery surrounding her. It makes it very difficult to get invested and by the end of the game, I was just waiting for it to be over.

I will say: this game gave us Maya bashing you over the head with a pipe and Luke being absent from the last act because he was busy getting forklift certified is extremely funny.

(Note: since this review was written, I have actually played some Professor Layton, as I was previously only familiar with Ace Attorney. My rating of the game has decreased since, realizing how subpar and derivative the Layton elements of the game are. I was also too generous in general originally.)