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Saturday, July 13, 2013

The 'Layton' is latent in Layton Brothers: Mystery Room

This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go.

At first, Layton Brothers: Mystery Room comes across like a decaffeinated, oddly flavored cup of Professor Layton, shaken and stirred into something familiar, but not in an encouraging way. Gone are the prof and his boyish sidekick, in their place Layton's inspector son Alfendi and his tomboyish sidekick Lucy Baker. Framed as a murder mystery whodunnit, each of the game's cases is introduced with possible suspects, and Alfendi tells the player which suspects he thinks is the culprit - often with near absolute certainty, genius that he is. It's then up to players to scan the crime scene, question suspects, remove any remaining doubt and close the case.

Gone is the odd mix of brainteaser puzzles and rustic exploration, now an odd mix of 3D crime scene investigation and more familiar 2D choice-based questioning. Beyond the characters' narrative ties and charming art, it's hard at first to suss out the "Layton" in this iOS adaptation.

It doesn't help that the first two episodes - the only free episodes - are clumsy, and struggle to unearth a rhythm that comes easily to the DS and 3DS games. One minute I'm thoroughly checking out the crime scene, zooming in and out of the 3D environment à la Ace Attorney, the next I'm asking questions. Then suddenly it's back to the crime scene to re-click on clues I've already found. It's as jarring and unconvincing as Luke's accent but, unlike the whippersnapper's vocals, it does get better eventually.

Gallery: Layton Brothers Mystery Room