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Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy Game Review

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy is a 2013 puzzle adventure video game developed by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. It was a terrific conclusion to the Layton saga.

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“You can’t let a puzzle intimidate you!“

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This is the third and final installment in the prequel trilogy after ‘The Last Specter’ and ‘The Miracle Mask’. It is also the very last entry overall starring Layton, Luke and friends. Thus, it was super emotional for me personally. It ranks among the best installments in the series due to excellent storytelling and some interesting gameplay additions.

In order to unlock the titular legacy, Layton along with Luke, Emmy and the mysterious girl Aurora must travel to five different locations to find the five Azran eggs, which are scattered around the world. This grander scope opened up the gameplay significantly, but more on that later. In terms of the plot itself, it was very much epic, grandiose and highly adventurous.

Trekking around the world made for such an entertaining ride, but the highlight once again came toward the end. Everything surrounding Azran itself was rather interesting and well crafted, but the best part of the story is what happened to the characters. The twist about the villain in the game was actually quite powerful. The piling of twists toward the end was somewhat soapy, but all of them nonetheless worked and were highly unexpected even for me.

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But simply saying goodbye to the characters in the very last stretch was heartbreaking. I almost teared up at the final scene that connected the game so deftly to the first entry, ‘The Curious Village’. Thus, the series went gloriously full circle with this prequel trilogy and it delivered the goods in terms of the narrative. The characters saying goodbye to one another also meant that we as gamers were saying goodbye to them, and it was just such a touching experience, which just goes to show how wonderfully written this franchise has been from the start.

Luke is a bit sidelined in this entry, but he still got some great moments to shine. Emmy betraying them toward the end was somewhat implausible, but her eventual arc of proving herself once again to the professor was emotionally powerful. Bronev as Layton’s biological father was quite memorable and as the villain of the series. The highlight of this entry is not just Layton, who got a very moving arc, but also Descole, who turned out to be Layton’s very own brother. The backstory of their biological family was quite interesting and their dynamic was intriguing. The fact that they still depicted Layton’s adoptive parents as his real parents was the best and most wonderful choice that they’ve made here.

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy opened up its gameplay for the first time by going global instead of being confined to just one location. This was done for better and for worse. On the one hand, gone was the charm and meticulous detailing of one-location storytelling, but on the other hand, this made the game much more ambitious and spectacular. Each location was beautifully realized and quite memorable.

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The London sections were excellent, though rather small in comparison to the others. Froenborg is absolutely gorgeous with its Alps-inspired snowy landscapes. It was so charming. Kodh wasn’t as memorable, but Phong Gi was unforgettable in its mushroom-inspired architecture. San Grio had a wonderful summer vacation vibe. Torrido is a nice western-like place, Hoogland is a cozy mountainous area while Mosinnia is the darkest and eeriest of the bunch.

There are still 150 puzzles to be found while additional puzzles are unlocked after completing the aforementioned ones. The puzzle difficulty here is actually not as demanding as in the previous entries, which was a plus in my book. By far my favorite puzzles this time around were those where you had to put the exact number of tiles on each column and row as stated. Those were the most interesting puzzles here, but others were also a lot of fun for the most part. There are still those puzzles that are frustratingly difficult to solve and some that feature annoying twists, but I also got some of those little twists, so overall I was fine with the batch that we got here.

Where this game seriously floundered is in the mini-games. The opposite was the case here – the puzzles were better than the mini-games. Dress Up is very frustrating as it’s almost impossible to guess what these women want to wear with so many possible combinations. Nutty Roller is the best of the bunch, but even this game was incredibly difficult, though the ball rolling and physics mechanics were interesting. Bloom Burst has a definite pattern that you need to figure out with so many different options, so again it was way too hard for me personally.

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The score in Azran Legacy is fine and so is the sound while the visuals are as mesmerizing as always. Unlike the last entry, this one went back to the basics by mostly getting rid of those 3D sequences, which was a terrific choice as the 2D elements were always more fitting for this charming, retro series. All the locations were beautifully drawn, lovely in their backgrounds and quite colorful.