Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call

Or the Last Spectre

The last Layton game for the DS and, as of writing, the last Layton game I own. This is a prequel set some years before the first game and we start in London. The professor is assigned a new assistant Emmy Altava. At the same time he gets a letter from Triton, an old classmate that ask for his help in Mysthallery (the name of these places are ridicules I have to say). We set of and quickly find the town under attack from the Spectre, a legendary guardian that now wrecks havoc on the city. Triton have for some reason become the mayor and is so preoccupied with town business that Layton quickly finds the real writer, Triton's son, Luke. Yes, the kid from the other games. So the origin of Luke and Layton's friendship.

He picks up a buss and throws it right back

Luke warns everyone through the family butler where the Spectre shall strike due to observances of lowered water levels in the canals. There's also talk about a witch, a black market of artefacts and for some reason the best police district where every case is closed. Obviously the police is corrupt so Emmy is sent back to London to get some information, and here we have a cameo of Chelmey and Barton since they can't meet the professor, but Emmy is fine since she isn't in the other games. She also picks up one of London's best inspectors that runs... yes, runs to Mysthallery after grappling with a criminal all around London. You uncover the plot that it's all about finding the Golden Garden... what it does I've never got. The Spectre is actually a struggle between a digging machine and a overgrown seal that lives in the lake and plays with the kid Arianna who is accused of being a witch.

Great, we went from Agatha Christie to a Saturday-morning cartoon

After escaping the corrupt cops and infiltrating an "abandoned" factory where they produce the diggers, you confront the citizens in the plaza and reveal the mastermind behind this whole ordeal... THE BUTLER! Of course! Well, it's really not the butler, but someone disguised as him. The villain locked up the butler and Triton's wife to blackmail Triton to help with the search for the garden. He  then gathers the diggers and form a mechanical monsters you have to defeat by disarm each leg and build a catapult. All while the best track of the whole series so far plays.

Great, another f***ing spider!

After the battle the seal slams what's left of the dam that creates the lake and lead Layton and the kids to the Golden Garden, a place so pristine that it is possible to cure whatever disease the "witch"-girl had. And then the seal die. Great, last game they killed Layton's girlfriend who actually already was dead, and now they kill the most adorable animal ever that I actually feel for. *Sob*. This series is beginning to get real serious .*Sob*. Ahem! Now, the "butler" is someone named Descale and is set up as this trilogy of games reoccurring villain. Thing is, he got the same voice actor as the scientist from the last game, and they played around with it since they had him also voice Triton as well, which would point suspicion to him and during the plaza scene it almost looks like it before we pan over to the butler. Nice done game, nice done.