onsdag 22 mars 2017

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask

Couldn't help myself, I had to play more of this series

Lucky I watched the movie before this game since some plot points appears here. But we begin in Monte d'Or, the city of miracles during a night parade. Layton, Luke and Emmy is investigating the city due to a letter from Angela Ledore, the  wife of Henry Ledore who founded the city on an oasis in the middle of the desert. The city is under attack from the masked gentleman who performs his miracles, like turning people into horses, petrifies them and giving life to paintings. Causing chaos and somehow have stolen the Mask of Chaos, an artefact which Monte d'Ors fortune is built on. The police can't handle the situation and have called in Scotland Yard and got... Grosky. And another investigator named Blom. And that's pretty much the basic plot. Solve puzzles and wonder around the city like usual. But there is an instance where we have an arcade section of riding a horse through the streets of Monte d'Or and at one point it turns into a Zelda dungeon crawl. And from here it's gonna be spoilers galore.

The masked gentleman

So the investigation first points towards the two richest men in the city, Alphonse Dalstone and Henry Ledore. Henry, Alphonse and Angela are childhood friends with Layton from the town of Sansbury, which Layton left after an accident which killed Randall Ascot, the heir of the richest family in town and the one that introduced Layton to puzzles and archeology. Randall was a pair with Angela and Henry was his childhood friend and more or less the family butler. Randall and Layton is on an expedition to find the Azran treasure, but a trap right before the treasure room causes Randall to fall into a chasm and is presumed dead. Henry joined a search party and found the treasure and used it to establish Monte d'Or and married Angela and brought the Ascot family with them. Doesn't help that they arrest Alphonse as a suspect and Henry's fortunes goes through the roof. You are pushed to believe that it's Henry that is the mastermind behind it to get rid of the competition and ensure his hold on Monte d'Or. Doesn't help that he looks like a villain.

First introduction, and the beard and eyes is villainous

But after playing the flashback episodes you can pretty much guess the twist and that is that the villain is Randall... or maybe Angela seeking revenge, but it was Randall who wanted revenge on Henry for stealing his whole life. And it's framed like that, but there is certain things that doesn't add up, like that the reward for finding Randall is gonna be payed out by Henry, the Ascot mother lives together with Henry and Angela and he still keeps memorabilia from Randall around like the robot toy Randall gave him when he just wanted to play with it, but the maid scolded him from taking master Randall's toys. No, another twist is the man behind Randall's rampage is Descole who manipulated him to try to find the mask of order and use it to activate the legacy of the Azran civilisation that lies under Monte d'Or that Layton finds and activates as a mean to protect the city from being overrun by an avalanche of sand Randall caused. After unmasking Descole he runs of and we are left to explain to Randall who had amnesia and the blank filled out by Descole to make it easier to manipulate him. And I don't know if it's due the emotional writing or that I finished it around 2 AM, but I couldn't stop tears running down my face. It's a tale of everlasting friendship when Henry waited 18 years for his master to return. He searched the ruins, built the city as a beacon for Randall to find his way home, he entered a false marriage with Angela to ensure she wouldn't be pushed by her parent to marry Alphonse, everything is written in his name so Randall is the legal owner of every asset of the Ledore family and in this cruel twist of fate Randall is the one that almost destroys it all. I'm so weak for this kind of story. They also roll out his mother in a wheelchair to see her long lost son. Also a reason I had to end it at night so no one could see me crying.

Oh god, I can hardly keep the tears in

The game ends with reconciliation and forgiveness and the credits roll. And afterwards we are treated to a little scene with Descole in the  desert at a secret vault, part of the Azran legacy, when he suddenly is surrounded by tanks and helicopter and approached by "the commander", a figure that was only shown together with inspector Blom and apparently is gonna be the next games main villain as he try to arrest and unmask Descole that is saved by his... butler? Apparently this vault is connected with the garden in Spectre's call and the Ambrosian island in the movie. Great, now I gotta buy the last game in the series the first thing when I got back to work at the 2 January (I wrote this right before the new year). A really good game, the puzzle's felt easier though, but at least I didn't had the silver balls from the last game, instead it's the damn tile laying puzzle to create certain figures. Just three of them thank god. Beside this you have a rabbit theater where you have to train a rabbit in different poses so the rabbit can act in a couple short stories. You have the boutique mini-game where you have to lay out items in an aisle so that the customer goes on a shopping spree to buy everything and the final one being a robot maze mini-game. Fun distractions.

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