Review: Professor Layton and the Last Specter

Developer: Level-5
Publisher: Nintendo

The Professor Layton series has been very successful, and with good reason. The Layton games usually wrap an unusual and intelligent narrative around a series of mind-bending puzzles. They're fun games, and easy to get into.

Professor Layton and the Last Specter is the fourth game in the series and the last to be released for the DS while also being a prequel to the previous trilogy. If you've played a previous game in the series, will you like this one? If you haven't played the Layton games, is this a good one to start with?

In Last Specter, Professor Layton receives a letter from his friend Clark, the mayor of the small town of Misthallery, saying that a strange specter is destroying their town. Layton and his new assistant Emmy venture to the town of Misthallery, where they meet Luke Triton, the boy who becomes Layton's apprentice.

Professor Layton games are a combination of point-and-click adventure games and those "101 Puzzle" books you may have seen when you were a kid. The formula is this: Talk to person, answer a puzzle. Touch an object, answer a puzzle. Move the narrative forward, answer a puzzle. That's been the formula since the first game, and the Layton universe's bizarre obsession with puzzles hasn't abated in Last Specter. If you don't like the formula, tough. If you're looking for any major curveballs or changes to the formula, there aren't any changes here.

After four games, you would expect the formula to start looking a little long in the tooth, but it's still OK. You're not playing a Professor Layton game for platforming, after all. I still believe that the Layton series works excellently as a gateway game for people who are otherwise disinclined toward narrative games.

My problem isn't with the puzzles, although a few of them could be a little clearer to understand. My problem, instead, lies with the narrative. I'm not going to give too much away, but Last Specter aims for a really emotional ending, much like the other entries in the series. It comes so close to packing a punch, except for the fact that the characters that are involved in the ending are cursory characters for most of the story, and one character isn't even introduced until the last hour of the game.

Plus, there is definitely a villain problem in Last Specter. The villain of Last Specter is a completely out-of-left-field character who, once again, isn't revealed until the last half-hour of the game. That makes it difficult to care about any of the proceedings, and an otherwise interesting story falls flat at the end.

The inclusion of the RPG London Life is neat, though. It's fun and deep, although if it were sold as a standalone project I suspect it wouldn't be quite so well-liked. In some ways, it feels like "Sidequest Quest," as you're mostly doing favors for people and just noodling around in the Professor Layton universe, but I've had a good amount of fun with it.

Last Specter is a decent game. It's funny and smart and all the other things you would expect from a Professor Layton game. Still, I'm glad this is the last outing for the DS. Maybe moving to the 3DS will help refresh the series a bit.

Final Grade: B-

AM2R Demo Out Now

Remember AM2R, the Metroid 2 remake I talked about a long, long time ago? I even interviewed the guy who made it. Seriously, you don't remember that?

Well, anyway, they released a demo. I'm excited about it, and I'll see if I have some time to look it over.

6,000 Pageviews!

I don't view post count as a very reliable metric. Some of my posts are small and unsubstantial, and I've also removed some posts I didn't like or that didn't really match up with the way I wanted to write anymore, like an embarrassing post about No One Lives Forever I would rather forget.

However, pageviews is indeed more reliable because it tells me how many people actually read what I write. Since this blog started keep records about a year ago, I'm up to 6,000 pageviews! I know that doesn't sound like much, but it's exciting for me.

Just thought I'd share. Some day, I might look back on this "milestone" and laugh, but for now, just let me enjoy the moment, OK?

Ranking Nintendo's Systems: Part 2

We continue our ranking of Nintendo's systems. Part One is right here.


8. Gamecube

History: The Nintendo 64 limped to the finish line toward the end of the last millennium, and Nintendo needed a jolt in order to remain viable in the home market. To that end, Nintendo announced the Gamecube and promised improved third-party support and lots more games. Instead of using cartridges, they got with the program and started making games on discs. For the Gamecube, Nintendo thought they were going to give everyone exactly what they were clamoring for.

Results: The Gamecube only sold 20 million units during its lifespan. To put that in perspective, we're in the worst recession in 30 years right now. People have less money than ever before. And yet, all three major consoles have managed to sell more units than the Gamecube ever did. The widely-maligned 3DS, in less than a year, has managed to sell six million units, about a third of the entire amount that the Gamecube sold over their entire six-year lifespan.

What Went Right: Some of the games were absolutely amazing. Metroid Prime is one of the best games of their generation. Zelda: Wind Waker is fantastic. Super Smash Bros. Melee is still a multiplayer standby. Plus, for all of the Gamecube's problems, it was a profitable system for Nintendo. That has to count for something.

What Went Wrong: The problem was that the Gamecube did a lot of things OK without excelling at anything in particular. For example, the graphics on the Gamecube were great, even better than the dominant Playstation 2. The XBox had better graphics, though. The multiplayer was well supported, with Mario Kart Double Dash and Super Smash Bros. Melee leading the charge. However, the XBox introduced unified online multiplayer with XBox Live and negated that advantage.

Nintendo still hadn’t figured out modern controllers. After the bizarre three-handed controller of the Nintendo 64, the Gamecube controller further convinced people that Nintendo had lost their minds. The controller was a byzantine mess of buttons that befuddled newcomers, although, in all fairness, it made perfect sense once you started using it.

Since the Gamecube never gained traction in the marketplace, third-party developers started moving their business elsewhere. That meant that earth-shattering games like Grand Theft Auto III never made it to Nintendo's console, which rendered Nintendo's claims of third-party support moot. The type of third-party support they received was a steady diet of sports games and licensed games, which probably wasn’t what Nintendo had in mind.

Plus, the other systems of the time had DVD capability, which Nintendo refused to offer. That doesn't sound like much now, but at the time it was huge advantage for both Microsoft and Sony. DVD players by themselves were $300, so buying a video game system that could handle both DVDs and games gave those other companies an advantage that Nintendo couldn’t claim.

Even Nintendo's vaunted stable of characters wasn't enough to eke out a lead. While there were a few amazing games, the Playstation 2 had a far deeper stable of quality hits and was developing mascots of its own. Their old standby Mario wasn't even pulling his weight, as Super Mario Sunshine was a subpar outing.

In other words, Nintendo tried fighting an arms race with other console manufacturers while skimping on the things that consumers cared about. They ended up alienating people who were casual console buyers, chasing away people who were in to Nintendo games, and pleasing no one.

Lessons Learned: Clearly, Nintendo had to make some major adjustments. They started by changing everything they knew about consoles. They realized they could either compete on graphics or compete on originality, but not both at the same time. Since competing on graphics was expensive and a losing battle, it made sense to compete on originality.

Their crazy controller with 12 buttons and two control sticks was replaced with the Wii-mote, which had exactly 6 buttons and a D-pad. If you added a Nunchuk, you had just two more buttons and an extra control stick. It was much more manageable for newcomers, who enjoyed the low barrier for entry.

They also learned that their strength lies not with how powerful their hardware is, but the strength of their tentpole franchises. No longer would franchises such as Mario lie in mothballs, waiting interminably for a release that never came.

Whether or not you think these are good lessons is entirely up to you.

VGA Game of the Year Nominees: This Is Stupid

Here's the nominees for Game Of The Year in the upcoming Video Game Awards. Tell me how this works:

Zelda: Skyward Sword, a game that's not released yet and hasn't been played by the majority of players is up for Game of the Year. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is also there.

Since an award show processes the ballots before the announcements are made, that means that the ballots probably went out about a month ago to give everyone time to fill it out.

One month ago, only one of those games (Portal 2) was currently released.

The other four games weren't released yet. Since many times a game is not released until it is complete, some of these games were "reviewed" in an incomplete state, where they were christened nominees for Game of the Year in that state.

Here's the kicker: Is anyone surprised by the list? Is there any game on this list that surprises you? Or, is it correct to say that the games you thought would be on the list are there, more or less?

And we wonder why people have problems with video game criticism.

Ranking Nintendo's Systems: Part 1

Nintendo has a longer history than any of the major players in the industry right now. They've released five console systems and four handheld systems, have sold millions of games and have the most recognizable mascots is all of gaming. Recent struggles aside, they're gaming's most consistent company, with high marks for quality across the board.

For as long as they’ve been in the video game business, there have been really, really highs and some tremendous lows. We're going to count down all of their systems from worst to first and see what lessons they learned from each system. We'll exclude the 3DS, since there's not enough data on it yet to be able to rank it properly. Here are the systems we'll cover:

Portables:
Game Boy/Game Boy Color, Virtual Boy, Game Boy Advance, DS

Consoles:
Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Wii

Let us begin!

9. Virtual Boy

History: Nintendo struck gold in 1989 with the Game Boy, but six years later it was time to put it out to pasture and usher in a new portable system. It's hard to remember now, but in the 90's, people were obsessed with virtual reality. It was going to be the next big thing, and Nintendo wanted to be there first.

So, after carefully considering all of their options and ingesting large quantities of peyote, Nintendo created the Virtual Boy. They figured that gamers will gladly pay upwards of $150 to play a system that has to sit on a stand with a separate controller and play monochromatic 3D games that gave gamers headaches after extended play sessions.

Results: Needless to say, gamers did not bite, and only 800,000 units were shipped. The creator of the system, the venerable Gunpei Yokoi, was fired from Nintendo even though it wasn't entirely his fault. I mean, inventors make wacky stuff all the time. That's what they do. Unless Yokoi physically forced Hiroshi Yamauchi to sign off on this project by holding the president's daughter hostage, this one should have been stopped before it got out the door.

What Went Right: Not much. I mean, Wario Land was a cool game, I guess. The 3D effect, contrary to popular belief, actually looked pretty good. I can say this with authority since I actually played a Virtual Boy several times when it launched and thought it looked promising, aside from the weird red tint for everything.

What Went Wrong: Oh geez, where do we begin? The high price? The monochromatic blazing red display? The way the system was too big to actually wear without propping it up on a headstand, making it too big for a handheld and too useless for a console?

Here's what I don't get. How can this system even get out of product-testing? How can you put a system like this through QA, have people complain of headaches and neck pain, and then rubber-stamp this for shipping? Who looked at this and said, "Yes, this is exactly what the public is clamoring for"?

Lessons Learned: Some might say that Nintendo didn't learn their lesson from the Virtual Boy when releasing the 3DS, but that's not true. The Virtual Boy's problem was never the 3D. The 3D effect was the best thing about the Virtual Boy.

No, the problem is that the system wasn't mainstream enough. If you didn't want to stick your head in a visor, you weren't going to play the Virtual Boy. Since most people didn't want to stick their heads in a visor, that left out a huge chunk of Nintendo's potential audience.

Also, while the idea of a system that could do 3D was good, the technology simply wasn't there yet to make it work right. Nintendo learned that just because something is a cool idea doesn't mean it's a good idea for mass production.

These lessons revealed themselves in the Wii and the DS. The Wii and DS had multiple ways to play and mostly gave the gamer the option of playing the way they want to play. They also didn't cram those systems full of the latest technology, but stayed just a step or two behind. That kept the cost down for the consumer and manufacturer while still providing the consumer with something "new."

For part 2 of this series, click here.

NYANNYAN :3

Nyan Cat the Movie by blakerobinson