came into this having only played mystery journey so this was a pleasant improvement lol. the story is simple but effective and the small world has so much charm. the puzzles are also generally decent, although the slide puzzles are all terrible and there was maybe a tad too much repetition more generally. i would also say the pacing is kinda weird, especially when all the buildup resolves to layton just exposition-ing the whole plot at the end instead of like getting you to piece things together yourself, but maybe i'm just too ace attorney brained
anyway, still a very solid 7/10 i think
anyway, still a very solid 7/10 i think
2023
absolutely incredible in every way. even as short as it is, the story it tells is enthralling and tear-wrenching and it takes no time at all to become completely entrenched in the world. the music is phenomenally beautiful and the art is out-of-this-world fantastic. i love that the "jrpg" gameplay is a story-driving element in itself, and that it doesn't need to be super challenging to be as effective as it is, especially with the constant shifts in the ways the battles play out; every individual battle feels special, and makes the amount of heart and soul that went into this game abundantly clear. i firmly believe that everybody should play this game. 10/10
honestlyyyyy this game is way better than people seem to give it credit for, it's probably now my second favorite of the main series games (after AA3 of course). i thought going in that i was going to dislike the change in environment but i really ended up liking khura'in and the change of pace it provided after the slog that was dual destinies, and I didn't dislike any of the cases (though case 2 was by far the weakest). honestly my only big problem with this game is that it still suffers a bit of the oversaturation syndrome that DD did - we have all of phoenix, apollo, and athena's gimmicks at play and it feels like none of them really get to shine (it's kind of wild to still be getting mechanic tutorials in the second-to-last case...). that being said, story-wise, i loved everything that happened with those three. phoenix felt more like phoenix again, especially toward the end of the game. athena was more of a side role but the whole 4th case made her inclusion worthwhile. and it goes without saying that apollo's arc conclusion was fantastic. this just hit all the notes that DD completely missed the mark on for me, and maybe comparing this to DD directly is biasing my thoughts on it, but i don't care, i really enjoyed myself and i'm very glad to have finished off the main series (as it is currently, anyway) on a high note. 9.5/10
I loved this game so much more than I expected to. It's relatively short, and the gameplay is fairly basic outside the novel part, but I'm perfectly fine with treating this as a regular VN with a few extra sprinkles. I loved pretty much every character from the start, and aside from the very first death each one really felt like a loss to me. The dialogue oozes with charm, and the development of the MC alongside best girl was really enticing, making it really hard to put this down sometimes. And, even though it all happened pretty quickly, the messaging throughout the final reveal definitely resonates. I would love to see a sequel that puts more emphasis on the gameplay, since I think there's plenty of potential there.. and I just want more of this world, honestly. 9.5/10
This review contains spoilers
very solid mystery game. enjoyed going through most of the story and watching the routes intertwine, and the various pieces for the most part came together in a natural and engaging way. also an immensely beautiful game audiovisually! i think it could have done entirely without the jumpscares, though, and the story kind of fumbled at the end - i appreciate the little mindfuck time warp idea but it was kinda disappointing to basically undo the whole rest of the story just for that, especially when the "false" ending was just starting to feel special. i really wish there was some other way they could have gone about it. but still, a very good game overall, 8/10
really want to like this more than eo1u but the bosses really fuck me up man. i love the labyrinth again and the story characters are solid and the party dynamic is great and the general game mechanics are still great but nearly every single boss in this game is a godforsaken trial and error disaster that made me dread every new boss fight instead of looking forward to what was to come. trial and error! in a game series where failure is designed to be a punishment! and for most bosses, the amount of trial and error you'd have to suffer through without consulting a guide is completely unforgivable. I used the wiki extensively because there is frankly no way I would have kept my sanity otherwise, and nobody should have to play this game without it. that all said, i still enjoyed the game a lot as a whole because thankfully there aren't that many bosses and many of them are technically optional. fuck ur-child 7.8/10
2023
as usual, another great ys game! i enjoyed it a lot, although it still is nowhere close to ys 8 (but really i doubt falcom will ever make a better ys game than 8, it set the bar so damn high).
story was great all the way through, basically no complaints there. gameplay was also great and engaging, though while I liked the new combat I don't think it was as fun as the previous combat system. It also felt like half the mechanics weren't explained at all so it took until pretty late in the game for me to fully grasp how everything worked. i also actually kinda liked the ship combat in the end which i wasn't expecting as i really didn't like it at first - the upgrades def made it much more enjoyable. really my biggest gripe with this game though is the simple lack of variety - and this was a problem with 9 to an extent as well - most of the islands blended together and only a small handful have any real identity. in ys 8 discovering a new area was always exciting, whereas discovering a new island in 10 was moreso just hoping for something new. the enemy variety definitely exacerbates the issue as well; it really feels like there are only 20 unique enemies in the game and so when most of the islands are not only visually similar but littered with a majority of the same enemies or basic reskins of them, it becomes really hard for them to stand out. that all said though, it was all still a lot of fun to play and explore, and i still came out of it having had a fantastic experience. hoping whatever's next is even greater! 9/10
story was great all the way through, basically no complaints there. gameplay was also great and engaging, though while I liked the new combat I don't think it was as fun as the previous combat system. It also felt like half the mechanics weren't explained at all so it took until pretty late in the game for me to fully grasp how everything worked. i also actually kinda liked the ship combat in the end which i wasn't expecting as i really didn't like it at first - the upgrades def made it much more enjoyable. really my biggest gripe with this game though is the simple lack of variety - and this was a problem with 9 to an extent as well - most of the islands blended together and only a small handful have any real identity. in ys 8 discovering a new area was always exciting, whereas discovering a new island in 10 was moreso just hoping for something new. the enemy variety definitely exacerbates the issue as well; it really feels like there are only 20 unique enemies in the game and so when most of the islands are not only visually similar but littered with a majority of the same enemies or basic reskins of them, it becomes really hard for them to stand out. that all said though, it was all still a lot of fun to play and explore, and i still came out of it having had a fantastic experience. hoping whatever's next is even greater! 9/10
This review contains spoilers
i wish this had just been packaged as a single game from the start, because that's what it really is - the first game is basically just a long winded intro to the second and neither works without the other. my impressions of the first game initially were lowered because it failed to match the pace I was expecting for a self contained game, but when treated as a preamble to the masterpiece that is TGAA2 it's all well worth it. so - treating this all as 1 game - the overarching story is easily one of the best in the series and the main cast is incredible - loved how many recurring characters were intertwined in the complex lattice of events, making for so many satisfying reveals toward the end. on the other hand though, particularly in TGAA1, i found the side characters wholly unsatisfactory; i found it difficult to care about many of the witnesses/etc as they were either boring or explicitly detestable (2 was definitely better in this regard). i also really am not a fan of the jury system in the trials. it didn't affect my enjoyment of the game too much, but i just found them a constant nuisance whenever they were at the forefront, especially when interrupting trials for no good reason other than to awkwardly force the plot forward. i also found the jurors to be the most blatant perpetrators of xenophobia/racism across the board. while surely period-accurate, it really doesn't make me want to listen to more of their dialogue when half the time it's some spin on "japanese bad". at least van zieks has some motivations about it (speaking of - awesome prosecutor, but it did take quite a while for me to think of him anywhere above average). it speaks volumes that my favorite trials from a gameplay perspective were the ones with no jurors! but in any case, still was all worth it in the end. (though they never did explain the deal with all the repeat jurors... I kinda expected that to be a major plot point somewhere, but nope?) I definitely do hope we get to see more of this cast in the future, whether it's in britain or japan or some wholly new location - honestly as characters i think ryunosuke and susato are way more interesting than phoenix and maya lol, not to mention sholmes, iris, gina and the like.
i don't know how i'd even begin to rate this as two separate games, but as a complete experience - minor gripes aside - truly fantastic. it's simply a long, slow burn, but with the greatest show of fireworks you've ever seen waiting at the end. 9.7/10
i don't know how i'd even begin to rate this as two separate games, but as a complete experience - minor gripes aside - truly fantastic. it's simply a long, slow burn, but with the greatest show of fireworks you've ever seen waiting at the end. 9.7/10
fewer terrible puzzles than the first game so that's nice! still too many sliding puzzles and the fuckin endless peg solitaire and chess shit can die forever.
also somehow the plot twist of this game is even harder to believe than the first game?? the layton universe really just does whatever it wants and rolls with it lol
still a fun game. also still pretty rough around the edges
also somehow the plot twist of this game is even harder to believe than the first game?? the layton universe really just does whatever it wants and rolls with it lol
still a fun game. also still pretty rough around the edges
really great game! I went into it a little worried that trying to cram a whole game of story into one night would make it unfulfilling, but once I got a little ways in it was clear that wasn't the case at all. this game oozes charm so hard and every ounce of it is engaging and exciting. the overall story was great, and it always felt like it was keeping me on my toes - leaving enough head room to draw my own connections while also constantly surprising me, yet never feeling cheap or forced. I got really attached to the main cast as well. the gameplay is also really unique and fun, and the variety of puzzles is outstanding; there are a couple I was less fond of (see: prison. lol) but I think all those really needed was an undo button or something since it was just the constant re-doing puzzle setups to get back to a point to try something different that was a bit of a pain. but that's barely a stain on this wonderful experience - would love to see more games like this!
this really is worlds above the first two games jeez. more consistently fun puzzles, much better story pacing and buildup, and the payoff and big twists were handled well too - still absolutely absurd but somehow way more believable than the first two games' twists combined. and don paolo's presence in this one makes up 100x for how lame he was in the other games too i love him. and layton actually gets a personality finally too!! hell yeah