I recently played through "Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" and am currently re-playing it in French, because, you know, French! Anyway, I thought I'd share my thoughts on it with you guys.
The premise of the game is that the professor, Luke, Wright, and Maya all end up in a mysterious middle- age town named Labryinthia, and end up helping a young girl named Espella, who keeps being falsely accused of being a witch. I wasn't too crazy about this concept, because I'm not a big fan of witches and dark magic and stuff like that, but I still wanted to see the most epic attorney in the universe meet my favorite English gentleman, so I bought it and played it.
I enjoyed it more than I thought I would! I really enjoyed the witch trial aspect, where more than one person is testifying at once. The story, aside from the witches aspect, was compelling. And, of course, it was great to see Wright and Layton work together, and all the combined drama that follows the both of them!
The way that the two titular characters met bugged me, though. Whenever Wright and Maya were brought to the town (I'm just going to call it the town, because Labyrinthia is hard to spell), they lost their memories of being an attorney and his assistant, and those memories were replaced with fake ones, as if they had always lived there. Because of this, they were completely out of character for a time, and it felt awkward when Layton and Wright met for the first time. When I imagined their first meeting, I imagined a battle of wits, or at least a pointing contest, but instead, we have Nick and Maya bumbling around a bakery.
Once they recovered their memories, though, I enjoyed how the story went on. Luke and Maya are soooo entertaining together, what with Maya's teasing, and Luke's sensitive and defensive nature. I LOVED the dual pointing confrontations by Layton and Wright at the witch trials. Much epic! So fangirling! Very wow!
That all said, I think this game was falsely advertised. In the initial teasers I saw, it seemed as if Layton and Wright were going to be at odds at first. I gathered this from a clip where it seemed like Layton was questioning Nick's scruples. It also seemed implied, from the title. This would have been very compelling! Two heroes, at odds, then finally working together towards the truth! I was looking forward to this and seeing how it played out! But, sadly, no. *spoiler* Our heroes aren't pitted against each other until close to the end, and even then, it's an act on Layton's part.
One thing I appreciated about this game: NO PUZZLE LOCKS!! Usually, in Professor Layton games, at certain points, you can't progress in the plot until you have solved a prerequisite number of puzzles. For someone who plays the games for the plot, and the puzzles are a fun added bonus, this is very annoying. This game, however, does not have any blocks like that! I was so happy!!! Ironically, I also found it odd that there were less than half the regular number of puzzles in this game. I suppose that's because of the added trials, which you get awarded picarats for based on the number of penalties you get, but still.
Overall, I enjoyed this game. It brought the charm and action and drama I love from both series together, but still could have done some things better, like the AA character's VA's. ARG, they sounded corny! Sorry, VA's, but it's true. Aw, now I feel bad and hope none of the VA's from the game actually end up reading this on the slim chance that exists... Oh, well. Until next time!