A Good Buy for Beginners and Puzzle Lovers

The Professor is back and so are the beautiful storyline and characters. To make things easier, Professor Layton and the Last Specter is the 2nd set of up coming Professor Layton series. It's a prequel from the 1st game of the Professor Layton (Curious Village) series. You will meet your new assistant (sidekick) Emmy as well as your future apprentice Luke. The game starts off with wonderful video clip and a letter from a dear friend Clark Triton (Luke's father) who has sent his distress about a mysterious specter destroying the little city of Misthallery.The story has some twists and turns as well as the understanding of the dear Professor Layton himself and background on how Luke and the Professor met. Also why Emmy wanted to be the Professor's assistant so badly. You will walk, talk, collect items, and solve problems to unlock the mystery of the specter. The graphics are typical to Professor Layton series where it is colorful, and crisp. The characters are unique and charming. You'll see brand new characters such as Emmy, Inspector Grosky and many others as well as old familiar characters Luke, Inspector Chelmey and Dean Delmona. There is also a new villain for the 2 set however I will not be spoiling too many details because it will unravel the story. A small negative is it is a lot of text and sometimes it does get boring however they do balance it out with the wonderful voices. The voice acting is spot on and makes you wish they would do the voice acting more often. The world is pretty big since in one point of the game you will be able to travel from Misthallery to London. Of course you need to travel to previous locations to get more puzzles. All puzzles have points or picarats. Solving the puzzles without many mistakes will enable you to unlock bonus content after you beat the game or when you are at the title screen. Of course all puzzles can be challenging and you need some help. There will be hint coins. These little coins will give you clues on to solving the difficult puzzles. There is hint 1-3 and super hint to give a boost. In the game there's a few side quests such as toy train, a fish (which helps locate hint coins) and puppet show. Completing these mini-quests will also unlock Professor Layton's Challenge on bonus at the title screen. There is another mini-game called the Mouse Alley which is unlocked after you gain 10 mouse badges and are at a certain point of the game. On the title screen you're probably wondering what London Life is. London Life is where you can create your own little character and can interact with familiar Professor Layton series characters. The character can have unique traits, expressions and personality fit to you. The graphic here are pixal-like but very detailed and colorful. Your objective is to help the little people in London Life and overall to be happy. You can chose the outfit and decorate your room (you can expand/move to bigger rooms when you talk to Ingrid the landlady) and livelihood. Livelihood is basically jobs, which can range from trash picker to juggler to bus driver. You are paid by wealth on livelihood and happy on successful quests. New quests are given to you each morning in the Newspaper after the initial meeting. The game doesn't use your Nintendo DS/DS lite/DSi/DSi XL/3DS (you get the point) clock and day, so in London life you could be in December but in real life be in October. London Life has about 100 hours of game play by itself and the main story for days.

Professor Layton and the Last Specter (Nintendo DS, 2011)

Professor Layton has become one of my all time favorite video games characters and franchises. The combination of addictive puzzle solving, finely crafted stories and gorgeous hand drawn, fully voiced cutscenes has set this series apart from it's competitors. The puzzles in this game really fit the plot even more than before. They've even added little problems to solve right in the middle of the story without taking you to a seperate puzzle screen. A great game to play.

Plenty of Puzzles

I admit it, I am a puzzle fiend. This is a good game for anyone like me, who enjoys working on a good puzzle. There is no fast paced action, no real violence, This is NOT a kill everyone and cut them up in little pieces video game. There is a lot of reading and the person playing this game must understand how to work the puzzles. Some of these puzzles are difficult. I personally love this game, it is perfect for me. However, I would NEVER recommend this game for young children or teens. I DO recommend this game for all gamers who enjoy a good puzzle.

Perrfectly perplezing puzzles and pure fun.

This game outdoes them all (So far). This game in the series goes back before the curious village to the professor's first adventure. I would recommend this to any puzzle-lover.

Don't hesitate-- Buy this game. One for the ages!

With the great games in the first trilogy, this game was a must-buy. With the story explaining of the story of Professor Layton, one is tranced into solving the mystery. This game has nothing to dislike, due to its greatness! If you want to know if it is a good idea to buy this game, buy it!-- it includes an amazing plot, well organized puzzles, and a moving story....And London Life!