Professor Layton 4 VS. Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights: PART TWO

 VS.

Welcome to the second part of our 'Versus' battle between the latest Professor Layton game - Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call/Last Specter, which was released for the Nintendo DS/DSi console(s), and the brand new Puzzler, Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights, which was developed by Konami exclusively for the 3DS.

In Part One, we examined Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call/Last Specter. This time we take a look at Doctor Lautrec and his assistant, Sophie, as they embark on their first-ever puzzle adventure.

We have split the game down into sections and will examine Plot, Gameplay, Characters, and Graphics in order to see which of the two handheld games is also the best new puzzle game on the market to date...

DOCTOR LAUTREC

AND THE

FORGOTTEN KNIGHTS

PLOT

The game has a very strong back-story, involving "Living Treasure", or Treasure Animatus as it is commonly referred to in the game. Doctor Lautrec hunts this type of treasure and wants to tame the so-called Guardian Spirits which live within such treasure. Only the Doctor's trusty assistant, Sophie can sense and see Guardian Spirits, and therefore it is her job to tell the Doctor where to find the Treasure Animatus.

Unlike the games in the Professor Layton series, this game takes place in real 19th-Century France and therefore contains many real-life landmarks and historical events, which does add a charming touch of realism to the overall game.

 The main storyline also involves a hunt for some treasure from the House of Bourbon and often contains historical facts about 19th-century Paris etc, which adds a subtle yet interesting educational aspect to the game as well.

GAMEPLAY

Although this game has been somewhat criticised for 'copying' the characters and graphic-style of the Professor Layton series, the gameplay is remarkably different from its puzzle counterpart.

For example, whereas Professor Layton is more concerned with traditional logic puzzles such as shape, number or letter codes and riddles, etc, Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights contains more accessible, familiar logic puzzles such as Spot-the-Difference, Crosswords, Sudoku and Minesweeper types of puzzles, which are still difficult, but perhaps less demanding than those in Professor Layton, meaning that the game seems to move smoothly onwards without too much frustration over puzzles that one cannot solve.

MINI GAMES

The game also includes four distinct forms of mini-game, which are Hidden Entrances, Quests, Taming of the Treasure Animatus and Escaping the Catacombs. With the exception of finding the Hidden Entrances to various catacombs (by locating a hidden Fleur de-lis symbol on the building), three of these mini-games are often played together.

For example, in Quests, Doctor Lautrec and Sophie must search for various Treasure Animatus around Paris. They must also Escape the Catacombs of each location by avoiding detection by the various guards on duty, and, they must also 'tame' any Treasure Animatus that they find.

The taming of the Treasure Animatus is the most challenging of the three mini-games. The goal is to reduce the Life Points down to a score below 100, so that it transforms into a relic which can later be used to tame other Guardian Spirits in the game. 

In order to tame a Guardian Spirit, players must place gemstones (collected throughout the game) and other relics containing Treasure Animatus Guardians upon a stone plinth in such a way that their attack power outnumbers the Guardian Spirit that players are trying to tame.

However, it is important to not completely reduce the Guardian's Life Points to zero, otherwise the Spirit will die and cannot be used in the final battle against a very powerful Guardian Spirit.



CHARACTERS

This game has a lot of different, humorous and quirky characters, who all have important roles to play in the unfolding storyline.

        
GRAPHICS

Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights uses many different types of animation, including 2D cartoon-style graphics and 3D block animation amongst others. All of the graphics are presented in full 3D, which adds greater depth perception to the various locations included in the game map.

SUMMARY

Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights will certainly appeal to fans of the Professor Layton games, but is also very interesting and challenging in its own right. We are sure this will be very popular at Christmas. Overall rating: 9/10.

FINAL VERDICT: LAUTREC VS. LAYTON:

Whether you opt for Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call/Last Specter or Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights this Christmas will largely depend on what type of puzzle-adventure you are looking for.

Professor Layton has now got a well-established fan base, and the puzzles tend to stretch the brain in more varied ways than we have seen in Doctor Lautrec, nevertheless, it is sometimes impossible to get the answer to the various riddles contained in the game, which can sometimes lead to frustration as we search for a good Walkthrough that can help us solve our current conundrum. Thus, Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call/Last Specter is likely to appeal to die-hard puzzle fanatics more than the brand new Konami offering.

In addition, the bonuses and mini games contained within Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call/Last Specter increase the game's replay value by around 1000%, which we cannot say about Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights, whose mini-games are only structured around the main storyline.

Nevertheless, Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights has a slightly more complex storyline to it than that contained in Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call/Last Specter, which might appeal more to a slightly more adult audience than Professor Layton, but the game contains familiar 'newspaper' style puzzles which makes it the perfect starter game for gamers who wish to try their first puzzle-adventure game.

To tell you the truth though, we here at Mini Gamers found good and bad points within both games, but still thoroughly enjoyed both games. If you are still undecided as to which game to spend your money on,  maybe the truly logical thing is to save up your cash and purchase BOTH titles as soon as you can. See, every puzzle [really does] has an answer...

Professor Layton 4 VS. Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights: PART ONE

VS.

If you are a puzzle-gamer but only have either a DS or 3DS console, then you should count yourself lucky that you have been spared the difficult decision of which brand new top puzzler to buy.

If, however, you happen to own both types of console (and are not currently swimming in cash), you might find yourself having to choose between Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call, and the new puzzler from Konami, called Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights, which both became available to buy this weekend...

Never fear though, as Mini Gamers has spent the last few days unravelling various mysteries and trying to discover what both games truly have to offer gaming fans.

Although the two games are considered to be quite similar to each other, the gameplay in each game is quite different. Therefore, we have reviewed the plots, gameplay, characters and graphics offered by each game in order to make it easier for other gamers to make their choice.

However, as both games are pretty action-packed, we have been forced to split this particular 'Versus' battle into two separate posts. Let us start with the newest game in the popular Professor Layton series.

If you would rather skip ahead and see what we think of the new Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights 3DS game, or if you would like to know our final verdict, please CLICK HERE.

PROFFESSOR LAYTON

AND THE SPECTRE'S CALL

(AKA PROFFESSOR LAYTON AND THE  LAST SPECTER)

PLOT

As you may already know, the fourth Professor Layton game is actually a prequel to the other three games (making it chronologically the first game in the series) and it tells the story of how the Professor actually met his young apprentice, Luke Triton.

Professor Layton and his new female assistant, Miss Emmy Altava, are summoned to the fictional town of Misshallery, by his good friend Clark Triton, to stop a mysterious Spectre that seems intent on wreaking havoc throughout the town.

The Professor soon learns that Clark's young son Luke, (also known as 'The Oracle' in this game,)  has the ability to sense the Spectre's attacks before they occur, and Professor Layton, Emmy and Luke team-up to try and save the town by solving a number of difficult mysteries and puzzles - but will they succeed?

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay in Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call/Last Specter follows the same format as featured in the previous Professor Layton games, which means many different types of logic puzzles including Peg Solitare puzzles, sliding puzzles, calculation, code-breaking and  many other types of  traditional logic puzzles that you can think of.

Luckily, both the Hint Coins and the Super Hint functions make a return in this game, otherwise  we doubt Mini Gamers would have got any further than the first chapter.

Nevertheless, the game also introduces a new way of finding Hint Coins and unlocking special Mouse Badge rewards, which involves something to do with scampering mice, but we are keeping schtum about exactly what this entails! Well, we don't want to ruin it for the rest of you now, do we?

As before, solving puzzles will earn you Picarats, which can be used to unlock several new bonuses at the end of the game. Each puzzle has a different number of Picarats attached to it, and the amount of Picarats that you earn also increases with the supposed difficulty of the puzzle that you must solve.

MINI GAMES

As with the other Professor Layton titles, this game has its own set of mini-games to complete. In this game, the three main mini-games are:

TOY TRAIN - (This is similar to the 'Car' mini-game in Professor Layton and the Lost Future). The Toy Train game is played by laying a railroad track down on the game board. The goal of this specific mini-game  is to get the toy train to pass through every train station on its way to the end destination.

To make things harder, the train must sometimes be timed correctly in order to avoid cars and/or other trains. The toy train also requires 'fuel' to move, which then limits the amount of track that can be placed by a player unless more fuel is collected before the track ends.
FISH TANK - Train the pet fish so that it can collect all the coins in the bottom of its tank. Place air bubbles at correct intervals to change the fish's direction so that it can intercept all of the required coins.

PUPPET THEATRE - complete the script of an on-going theatre play so that the story makes sense by choosing words to form specific sentences. If the chosen word is incorrect, the 'Play' ends and the player must try again. Once all the words are chosen correctly, the Play will end with an epilogue and an applauding audience.

MOUSE ALLEY - This is a bonus mini-game, which can only be unlocked once the player has collected a sufficient amount of Mouse Badges. The goal of this game is simple - Hit as many mice as possible within the time-limit, but avoid hitting Luke's pet mouse, Toppy.

CHARACTERS

This game introduces a lot of new fun and quirky characters, but still manages to keep the relationship between the characters in this game and those in past games, especially through Professor Layton and Emmy Altava's mysterious relationship which is resolved at the end of the game.

GRAPHICS

The quaint cartoon-style graphics return in this game. There are also more voice-acting and cutscenes in this game, which really help to move the story along.

SUMMARY

Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call is a fantastic game for people of all ages. The varied logic puzzles make it really interesting. The storyline is very engaging and well-thought out. A perfect Christmas present for puzzle fans. Overall rating: 10/10.


See Also :

THE SECOND PART OF THIS 'VERSUS' BATTLE: Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights

Doctor Lautrec Gets Playable Browser Demo Before Its November/December Release Date

Konami, the company responsible for creating the intriguing and long-awaited 3DS puzzle-adventure game Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights, have recently published a brand new website complete with a playable demo so that 3DS users can 'try before they buy'.

The game is still set for a November release date in the UK, but it has since been confirmed that the US version of the game has now been given a 13th of December 2011 release date, which replaces its earlier November one.

 

Thus, regardless of its release date the game should be out in the shops some time before Christmas 2011, and the new website and demo will no doubt help to tax gamers minds until the actual game hits the shelves... To view the demo for yourself, please CLICK HERE.

Mini Gamers was quite impressed by the cutscenes and puzzles on offer throughout the demo, which have all been adapted from portions of the actual game.

Although the game has been criticised in some gaming circles as resembling the Professor Layton characters and puzzles, we have to say that the puzzles which we have so far seen on the demo include everything from standard logic puzzles like Spot-the-difference and Sodoku, to more traditional logic tests to do with codes, numbers and shapes, all of which were incredibly challenging and brilliantly woven into the storyline. So, maybe this game will turn out to be more than a Layton-esque rip-off after all? Well, judging by what we've seen so far, we definitely think so! 

Remember to check in with the Mini Gamers blogsite for a full review after the game is released in the UK.