The real puzzle is why it took so long.
Staring down a heap of puzzles is a new experience for me—the last matchstick puzzle I bested was a barside distraction in Hotel Dusk.
So it's with some hesitance that I enter the Professor Layton series with the latest entry (and the first on 3DS), Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask.
I've meant to jump into the steady stream of Layton games since the beginning (2008's Professor Layton and the Curious Village). I don't know what went wrong, but here we are, over four years later, with me not having touched a single one.
I actually thought last year's Last Specter would break the streak: in addition to the standard Layton package, it included Layton's London Life, a simple, Animal Crossing-esque RPG with a Mother 3 aesthetic, co-developed by Brownie Brown. It seemed like a whole lot of a good thing. Perhaps too much, as it turned out—I never found the time for it, and so the Layton train rumbled by for yet another year. But now I'm making amends, and jumping on with Miracle Mask.
I'm excited, but do I have reason to worry as I finally break into the series? In all likelihood, no. I think I'm shrewd enough to unwind even the hottest riddle the game will throw at me.
But suppose it's the most aggressive Layton yet—maybe they've rounded the corner from innocent cleverness into pure bastardry? Let's look at the progression. It began, innocently enough, with just "curious," and a village, but accelerated into "diabolical," started unwinding the future, dealt with ghosts, and now messes with miracles. How will I fare? Only time—and maybe some hint coins—will tell.
Lend me your wisdom, Professor.
