The biggest Nintendo 3DS game of the Japanese launch won't be available in America for a long time.
[bug id="nintendo-3ds"]Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle, the latest in the popular line of puzzle-solving adventure games set in old London, has so far sold over 220,000 copies, far more than any of Nintendo's own 3DS games. With sales of the hardware at just shy of 750,000, that means roughly one in every three 3DS buyers has picked up Layton.
Those are strong numbers, and well-deserved; Layton's blend of logic puzzles and richly detailed animation has been one of the best things to come out of the Nintendo DS. And unlike many of the 3DS launch games, which only take a few hours to plow through, Layton is a lengthy adventure game that will soak up a lot of your free time.
Sadly, it'll be a long time before American gamers get to enjoy Mask of Miracle. The localization process takes quite a while, and the previous game in the series, Professor Layton and the Demon Flute, hasn't even been announced for an overseas release yet. (I'd wager it'll show up this year, leaving the 3DS debut for 2012.)
Young Layton
The plot of Mask of Miracle jumps back and forth between two time periods. Things kick off as usual with the dapper puzzle-solving professor, his sidekick Luke and assistant Remi showing up in a new town that's plagued by some strange happenings. In this case, a masked man calling himself The Miracle Gentleman is appearing randomly in the town square and causing some rather disturbing "miracles" to take place – he's turning people into horses and stone statues.
Layton and team start investigating the occurrences, and it quickly transpires that they are related to Layton's past – in the past, he and his high school friends sought out the very Mask of Miracle that the suspect wears during his escapades. So we jump back to Layton's teenage years, back when his hair was wild and long and he had not yet discovered the appeal of silken top hats.
Things progress much as you'd expect. Layton and the gang talk to people, get to the bottom of the mystery and solve puzzles. Everyone in town has some logic puzzle or another that needs solving, and the professor is just the man for the job.
The main thrust of the action doesn't deviate much from the last four games. It's the little details that make the 3DS version stand apart. In previous games, you saw the world on the DS' lower touch screen from a first-person perspective, clicking arrows to walk down streets. In this case, so the environments can be shown in stereoscopic 3-D, you simply click icons on a map on the lower screen to move the Professor from area to area.
Layton players might have guessed that this affects the way you search the environments, too. Instead of clicking directly on the place you want to search, you use the stylus like a mouse, dragging it around to move a magnifying glass on the upper screen. When the glass changes color, it lets you know that you can investigate that area. Sometimes it'll reveal a bit of dialogue, a hint coin or a puzzle; sometimes it'll zoom in on that area to show you what's behind an object or around a corner.
The specific puzzles, too, are all built around 3-D. There's nothing in the logic puzzles that is different because of the stereoscopic effect, and certainly nothing that requires you to use 3-D to solve them. What is changed is that each puzzle has some sort of 3-D graphic display on the top screen. Sometimes this is interactive, as in one puzzle where you have to move a ladybug through a maze that's been chewed into a rotating ear of corn. But mostly it's for decoration.
You can put the text of the puzzle on either the top or the bottom screen, depending on whether you want to cover up the 3-D display or the bottom screen. This will differ depending on the puzzle you're currently solving, and what bits of information you want to look at.
The only thing that concerns me about Layton's move to 3-D is that there doesn't seem to be as much content as in previous releases. This might be because the game had to be rushed to make the console's launch, or it could be because creating all of the art assets in 3-D was a bigger strain on Level-5. Or both.
Either way, and bearing in mind that I'm not through the entire game yet, there seem to be noticeably fewer locales to explore, fewer people to talk to and fewer puzzles to solve in this first 3DS outing.
The Sold-Out Shop
Level-5 knows how to add value to its games, as illustrated by the way it fills up Layton adventures with all sorts of bonus modes. This is one of the reasons that Mask of Miracle stands apart from other 3DS launch games, many of which only have the barest minimum features.
You can build a "profile" to share with other players via StreetPass. This gives you some information about the person you passed by: How many puzzles they solved without hints, how long they've spent on puzzles, etc. As you progress through the game, you unlock different words that you can use to describe yourself (I am now "Chris, the Love Shark"). And by using the Play Coins that you earn by carrying your 3DS around with you, you can buy icons and themes to dress up your profile.
There are also quite a few daily "downloadable" puzzles. I put this in scare quotes because the puzzles are clearly already on the game cartridge; it just logs into the internet and checks what day it is, then unlocks the puzzles accordingly.
You can also sign up to get messages via SpotPass, although I didn't turn that on until today and thus haven't gotten anything yet. It's clear that Level-5 is trying to use all of the 3DS' new communications features.
As with other games, there are also more involved puzzles that you unlock as you progress through the story. My favorite is the "Sold-Out Shop," in which you get a handful of items that you have to stack on a store shelf in such a way that a customer will buy them one after another to get a matching set. For example, you'd put down a red apple, then a green apple, then a green banana, and because those things each have one feature in common the customer would buy each of them in turn.
There's also a puzzle in which you try to move a robot who can only move three spaces at a time into a goal square that is only reachable if you take a certain path. Finally, there's a mini-game starring a circus rabbit who can do all kinds of tricks, and you have to match the trick to the situation at hand.
The one thing about Layton's feature set that I don't like is that there's only one saved-game slot. This isn't that big a deal for me, but it sucks if you and a friend or family member like to play the games at the same time.
Small issues aside, I like playing Layton in 3-D. Since it's not an action game, you don't have to follow any quick-moving characters on the top screen or keep switching your focus. It's quite enjoyable to have that sense of depth and solidity when you're watching the characters talk to one another or exploring the city, and I found I could play it for hours at a stretch without feeling like I wanted to shut the 3-D off.
Hopefully Nintendo and Level-5 will get on the ball and get the last game out in the U.S. so this one can come here, too. Not to mention Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney.
Images courtesy Nintendo
See Also:- Level-5, Capcom Announce Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney
