The latest Layton game from Level-5... that was released 2017 for the 3DS and that I played for 5 hours in 2018... and then didn't pick up again until 2022 when I finished after a couple of work days. I really should stop playing games for 5 hours and pick them up some years later. As mentioned, latest Layton game, but Hershel Layton isn't technically in the game. He is mentioned, but you instead follows his daughter Katrielle, her servant Ernest Greeves and the dog Sherl O.K. Holmes (aka Sherlock Holmes). It begins with Sherl asking Katrielle to find his owner (she can speak with animals, which is strange since that was Luke Tritons deal). But they get sidetracked with other cases that emerges for Katrielle and her detective agency.
So instead of a narrative that binds everything together it's instead divided into 12 different cases. There is some overlap with characters appearing in them and the events being referenced. The cases goes from find a pet, to solve a theft of a golden statue, find the vigilante Ratman that disappeared (a case filled with Batman references, awesome) to a case where Katrielle has to prove that she didn't commit the murder of a owner of a hat store (which you saw previously in the case where you tried to find a present to Inspector Hastings, this games bumbling police officer). The first eleven cases builds up a bit about the 7 dragons of London, a group of wealthy millionaires that contributed to London in different areas. One is the mayor, one is a shipbuilder, one owns the biggest bank, one is the owner of a newspaper and so on. And then there is a backstory time on how Ernest and Katrielle met as she cleared him from being accused of stealing some research papers on his first day at the University.
The last episode is pretty much the closest to the older Layton gamed high stake mysteries. Katrielle and the dragons are invited to the Richmond estate, the haunted home of lord Richmond that died ten years prior, but Lord Adamans have found the treasure there inviting the participants to solve the mysteries or lose their fortunes with Katrielle as the juror of the game. The dragons fails and then Katrielle solves the mystery and figures out who lord Adamans is. Turns out it was a fake name and that it really was the grandson Miles Richmond that have comeback to exact revenge on the seven dragons that got started by digging up diamonds on a mountain that was owned by lord Richmond. Miles in turn turns out to be... Ernest Greeves, Katrielle's servant. Didn't see that coming.
Like usual it's all a big misunderstanding and everyone ends on good terms. The Dragons had tried to find Miles during all this time since Richmond gave them permission to use the land since he himself was so indebted that any fortune would be going to pay his personal debt so he wanted them to use it for the betterment of London... so a really big scam to get away from his creditors then. Decent story, but I guess a clearly stated goal of the game was to bring the series down to reality since they felt it had grown out of hand with those world spanning conspiracies and such. Which is a bummer for someone like me who liked that. A bit of a problem though with the cases structure, I much prefer a mystery that follows you all through out. It also becomes a problem that we never find Sherls owner, or where Hershel is since Katrielle mentions looking for him near the last cases. I mean, there really wasn't a conspiracy to be found in the game.
The puzzles then? Fine, I've gotten wiser on the gotcha moments when the answer is thinking outside the box. Apparently the designer behind the puzzles for the first Layton games passed away in 2015 and the game is dedicated to him and there is a new person on that, but it's fine. Feels like the other games. You also got mini-games like before, prepare the ideal dinner for a couple of characters, get Sherl to the end of the stage by pressing buttons and such and the last game being put jewels on display in order to sell everything in different stores. Small distractions, you can also decorate the office or get new clothes for Katrielle by finding red coins to exchange it for the clothes.
Overall, works fine for what it is. There was a Switch release in 2019 of the game with something like 51 different puzzles, but not really enough to double dip in my opinion, especially when I can play all Layton games on my 3DS. Although, why it was released on the 3DS is a bit of mystery since it doesn't have any 3D-effects in it. Although I guess most games at the end of the 3DS era ditched the 3D. It's around 40 hours of total gameplay with the normal game and the daily puzzles which you earn points to unlock scenes and descriptions about the earlier games in the series. Well, time to get going on another game.
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