Review: Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask

Game Reviews
Review: Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
By Sean Booker
November 20, 2012 - 10:30

Studios: Level-5
Rating: E10 (Everyone 10 and Up)
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Players: 1

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask marks the series’s debut on to the Nintendo 3DS and along with that a brand new art style. Though this style does make sense for the new 3D focus to the game, it lacks in comparison to the original look and feel of the franchise. But the core concept of any Professor Layton game stands strong throughout this installment despite an irritatingly heavy focus on advertising the game’s new third dimension.

Miracle Mask’s primary art style is now one of full polygons, a change from the usual hand drawn characters we’ve come to know in the previous games. This is mainly due to a focus on the 3D features that the 3DS allows. And though it does promote this new depth of field for the game, the characters seem to lose some charm and feel almost doll-like in their blocky polygonal forms compared to the older art style. However, the game does still feature it’s standard hand drawn look during its many cutscenes and I personally found that those looked just great in 3D.

You will also notice this high focus on displaying the new look when using the new user interface and in each of the game’s puzzles. In previous Professor Layton games your map was located on the bottom screen and you tapped on anything in the picture to observe objects and interact with the area. Miracle Mask has moved the map to the top (in order for it to be in 3D) and uses the lower screen simply as a way to track your stylus movements and relaying them to a magnifying glass icon up above. It feel like an awkward step in the middle of what was already a perfectly suitable control scheme just in order to show off more of the game in 3D.

This happens during the puzzles in Miracle Mask as well, which end up being about 50% of the game. Many of the puzzles involve you manipulating icons on the bottom screen, while the top is simply used to show off a more polygonal representation of information you already have. Along with this, puzzle information and goals are now hidden behind a menu since both screens are now being occupied by the same information. I ended up turning the 3D slider fully off since focusing on a puzzle in 3D for so long usually resulted in me seeing split images and a lot of ghosting issues - something I didn’t need while trying to concentrate. Overall, I found the strong emphasis on utilizing the 3DS’s added dimension to actually detract from the great formula already established in this series.

Though the art style has changed, the voice acting and choice of music remains the same and as strong as ever. Miracle Mask actually seems to feature the most moments of fully voiced dialogue in the series so far and, hopefully, is pointing to a completely voiced Professor Layton game in the future. The standard whimsical music also returns in spades and was definitely a delight throughout. I played the entire game with my 3DS’s volume on in order not to miss any of this great voice acting or wonderful music.

You’ll easily find a great deal of story and unique puzzles throughout the game and developers Level-5 are planning to release free downloadable puzzles as per the norm for this series. The new location you’ll find yourself in is also quite nice as it is a thriving, colorful, tourist-oriented town - so there’s plenty of fun characters and spectacles to explore. All of this will last a good deal of time as I clocked in around 20 hours to complete the game, and that was by exploring as much as I could and doing almost every puzzle available.

Along with that, the game jumps back and forth from the present day to eighteen years in Layton’s past. This is a nice narrative hook and detailing more of the game’s protagonist is always a welcomed feature. The only downside is that one of these flashback segments includes a very tedious cave exploring segment. It lasts only an hour or two but I quickly found myself almost wanting to just look up a FAQ in order to progress quicker. A good feature the game implements though is a Guide mode in this area. This will show you step by step how to traverse through each of the environmental puzzles if you find yourself stuck, or bored like myself.

A nice collection of mini games are also apparent throughout the game like we’ve come to expect. These range from navigating a toy robot around a room to organizing a store’s shelves in specific ways to teaching a pet rabbit new tricks and performances. You can access these any time within your trunk case (main menu) and additional levels will unlock as you clear more puzzles and sections of the story.

For the most part Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask is the same game you’d expect from this series. The move on to the 3DS does change the look of the game a good deal, and though I personally didn’t appreciate the change, it does allow for a bit of a spin on the standard formula to these games. And if you can get past the irritating focus on this new look, you’ll find that the story and feel of the game is just as good as it has been in the past. The game will last you a good length of time and the downloadable support is always nice. It’s nice to see Level-5 trying to mix up some elements of this strong series, I just personally didn’t enjoy the choice they made.
Rating: 8/10