Professor Layton and the Last Spectre / Professor Layton and the Spectre’s Call

Despite a friend’s name being on the credits (woo!), I have to say that Spectre is the one and only title in the Professor Layton series that I have refused to buy (or, y’know, get someone to get for my birthday present!). I refused to spend money on it, instead waiting until I could borrow it because Nintendo of Europe put me off completely by hacking out a huge minigame included in the title called London Life. So I needed to get the US version in order to play this minigame – which was simple and rather lame, but worth playing – and the UK version in order not to hear that grating voice actor they have for Luke over there. And was I going to buy both? Nope.

So now, having finally revealed the, ahem, epic conclusion of London Life behind some magic wall of happiness in the London sewers in order to stop a meteorite hitting the Earth (and not a tentacle in sight), it’s time to write my thoughts.

Admittedly, we get a slight problem with Luke’s UK voice’s cheeky cockney inflection with this prequel about how he first meets Professor Layton – in his lovely home counties mansion where his father is the very well-spoken and well-respected mayor – which was there in a lesser form when we met his older self in the last game, but at least could be explained away by pointing to elocution lessons. It may seem like a point for the US version that Luke’s working-class London accent has been shown to be inappropriate, but at least it’s still a hundred times more appropriate than that appalling swing-and-miss attempt at a generic British accent that it replaces.

Anyway, in this game, a letter summons Layton and his assistant Emmy to the town of Misthallery, which despite looking like a nice little Cotswolds village (with an odd rope-bridge or two) has a rich history of excavation sites and mines, a huge dam and an abandoned factory. Quite impressive, really. Even more impressive is the town’s problem – it is being terrorised by a mysterious ‘spectre’, rampaging about the town when a thick mist falls and rending great gashes in the walls. Of course, there’s quite another explanation for the mystery, and though when it’s revealed it’s not exactly convincing, it is at least inventive and makes for some classic Layton finger-pointing. And the little animated portions are beyond doubt highlights. Layton thrives more than anything on charm – and there’s never any doubting that it has that by the bucketload.