[I will preface this by saying that the Layton games were my childhood, including this one. So I will be intensely biased and I will be overlooking obvious flaws that this game definitely does have.]

This is such a weird and charming lil' game. The story is really weirdly inconsistently inconsistent and really does not make any sense - which I absolutely love. It's an amalgamation of tropes and ideas and plot twists that do absolutely not result in a coherent, well-constructed storyline but which absolutely do result in it being fun as hell to follow. It's like the entire thing is told by an unreliable narrator that did one of those drug things. I love it! The storylines in PL games also always have that thing where their absurdness doesn't at all diminish their emotional impact. They're really charming! Also they finally gave Descole a time to shine, which is objectively good.

The game also looks absolutely beautiful. Like, I think this is the best-looking 3DS game that also really benefits from it being 3D as the landscapes you get to click through really get a sense of scale through that feature. And they're so richly detailed and charmingly crafted and fun to look at! There's also incredible variety, with the game being a journey around the world and all that. It's so fun to explore these places with my lil' magnifying glass and getting jumpscared by puzzles!? And those are still at the heart of the game and those are really fun and kinda charming again and I found only a small number of them really obnoxious.

So yea, it's a beautiful looking charmingly crafted weirdly written game - as all the Layton games are. This one has the benefits of 1) being dumb as hell about Laytons backstory and the greater mystery of the prequel trilogy 2) having a lot of variety in the places you visit 3) havin Descole do the puzzle pose thingy - It's fun! It's a place to relax! It doesn't scream for your attention, instead it just lets you chill!