For those of you who don’t know Professor Layton and his series of Nintendo games… educate yourselves! Which rock have you been living under? He’s been front-and-centre of some of the most ridiculously-entertaining puzzle video games for years now, and now his daughter, Katrielle Layton, is taking charge.
Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy first dropped a couple of years back as a mobile game, which many wrote off without even playing a second, simply because of the platform it dropped on. It later got a re-released on Nintendo’s 3DS handheld console, but now Nintendo Switch owners have got the chance to check out Katrielle’s first big outing, with the Deluxe Edition of the game adding 40 new puzzles, as well as gameplay improvements. That brings the amount of in-game puzzles to over 500, and for the first year of release, there’s also a daily puzzle dropping each and every day.
Developed by LEVEL-5, Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy is from its opening moments, a Professor Layton game from top to bottom. Katrielle is a wonderful lead character; a true badass who sticks her nose up when a talking dog comes to her, hoping to hire her and become her very first client. She has an attitude of wanting the weirdest and most wonderful cases to come knocking at her door and, due to her family history, a talking dog just isn’t as interesting as what she had in mind! Still, she takes on the overarching mystery of just who this canine was before he was turned into Sherl, but is quickly distracted by a series of other cases that pique her interest.
As a casual player of this game when it first dropped, it’s easy to see the improvements that have been made as far as graphics being remastered in HD, and certain clues and information for each puzzle now all viewable on a single screen. Playing in handheld delivers that DS experience, but having a Layton adventure up on your television is something new and exciting altogether.
There’s something magical about the Layton series. It’s fantastical and whimsical, and utterly ridiculous at times, with twists you would never be able to guess before they smack you right in the face, but that’s all part of their charm. This isn’t the best entry to-date, but it’s certainly in the top three. Let’s hope that Katrielle has many more adventures coming our way in the near future…
Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy – Deluxe Edition is available now on Nintendo Switch. A code was given to Female First in exchange for a fair and honest review.
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