Never in my life have I been both disappointed and pleased coming to the end of a game. Let’s start from the beginning.
I am sure when you first heard the title for this game, you thought you would get some type of epic battle between Phoenix and Layton in a weird puzzle courtroom setting. There would be OBJECTIONS! and hint coins abound as you choose your side of the argument and battle.
Yeah…that doesn’t happen here.
Maybe you had a different set of thoughts. Maybe you thought it would be Layton and Phoenix side by side battling another one of Layton’s intelligent and devious nemeses. Maybe Layton bumps into Phoenix and Maya during a puzzle and the turnabout begins.
Once again, you’re playing the wrong game.
What you actually get is a Professor Layton game with Phoenix accidentally thrown in. I am not kidding about that. The “villain” in the game even tells you that Phoenix wasn’t supposed to be in the story at all and I can see why.
The name of the game might be “Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright” but it might well be called “Who needs Phoenix Wright?”.
Let me answer that question easily; no one.
Only once is Phoenix’s skill as a defense attorney used to solve a puzzle; a “Turnabout Puzzle” and I don’t think that is even needed because Layton tells him that he can use his “power”; a “power” that you can tell Layton already has with his experience solving puzzles and he just wants to make Wright feel useful. What a gentleman! Good for him.
The graphics for the puzzles looked amazing, even if the puzzles were significantly easier than previous games. Following Mistress Sarah-Kun’s orders, I had to unlock all the puzzles and get all the hint coins. Doing that was nowhere near the burden it was in the previous Layton games. It was just too easy for me. There wasn’t a challenge. Even in the courtroom, everything, from the contradictions to the evidence, is spoon-fed to you. On top of that, you can use the hint coins during the trial for what I am going to call “Wearing a diaper” mode.
I have a standard for Professor Layton as high as my standard for Phoenix Wright. Wright is an amazing, if not amazingly lucky, defense attorney and a great fighter in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Professor Layton is the last name in gentlemen. He just has it all and can do it all – by himself. I am sure he probably just has Luke around because he gets bored and lonely; kind of like Sherlock.
A couple of nice touches added to the gameplay are the ability to interrogate multiple witnesses, and then point out contradictions in the compared testimony, but they make it ridiculously simple.
The characters were what you would expect from a game with Wright and Layton so that didn’t disappoint me. The play on names such as “Prosecutor Darklaw”; “Dark Claw” and “Dark Law” and girl name “Espella” and “Bezella” in a world of magic would always be something nice to look forward to. But the game as a whole just had me wanting more.
As much as I love the game and the character’s respective series, it just has no replay value. The puzzles were too simple. You are even given the option to use a super hint after the first three hints during the puzzles that costs two hints coins. If that is the case, why don’t they just give us the option to see the end of the game at the opening title? It might as well since the challenge is gone anyway.
Anybody want to tell me why was Phoenix even there anyway?
Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright – or “Professor Layton and the Bumbling Attorney”
This is a serious question and not a joke in response to this: if it came down to it, would you recommend this or Dual Destinies? I’ve heard on other sites that Dual Destinies is plagued by a lack of proofreading, even if it is a solid game otherwise, but that, partially, the lack of quality control sinks the experience. This sounds plenty irritating, too, though. Is one better than the other, or are they just both not worth getting?
I would say that Dual Destinies is a better game than PL vs. PW. Each game is good in its own light but, like I wrote in my piece, PL vs. PW isn’t a good enough game to buy, maybe rent. I would say that if the focus is on Professor Layton’s style of video game (i.e. puzzles), than PL vs. PW is perfect for you. If you want more the courtroom cases, than stick with Dual Destinies. I hope this answers your question. Thanks for the comment!