Review: Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is an adventure and puzzle game for the 3DS. It is a crossover between the Professor Layton and Ace Attorney series. It was co-developed by Level-5 and Capcom.

Professor Layton and his apprentice Luke are approached one night by a girl named Espella, who claims to be from a town called Labyrinthia, but escaped with the help of a friend of Layton’s, and is being hunted by witches. Espella is recaptured by a witch, and in trying to help her Layton and Luke get sucked into a book that takes them to Labyrinthia. The next day Phoenix Wright and his assistant Maya Fey are also sucked into Labyrinthia too after defending Espella in court.

Once in Labyrinthia, a medieval town in the throes of perpetual witch hunt, where everyone’s fate is decided by the mysterious Storyteller, Espella is accused of being the Great Witch Bezella. Layton, Phoenix, and their assistants decide to team up and prove Espella’s innocence and figure out the secret behind Labyrinthia and the supposed witches.

This game is a combination of its two parent series’ gameplay. In Layton sections, you walk around Labyrinthia talking to people and gathering information. When you talk to someone or when you need to progress you have to solve a logic puzzle. Doing so advances the plot.

In the Phoenix sections, which take place in court, you listen to witness testimony and try to find contradictions in what they say compared to what evidence Phoenix and the gang have collected. If there is no contradiction Phoenix can press the witness on parts of their statements which might reveal new testimony. This game also has an additional feature not found in other Ace Attorney games, where multiple witnesses give testimony at once, and pressing one person’s testimony might make someone else reveal something new or give up a piece of evidence. Or you might press one person, which will make someone speak up, and then you press the first person again or a completely new person to reveal the contradiction.

Meet Inquisitor Barnham. The game tries to paint him as a noble figure, even though it sounds like up until Phoenix's arrival he had sentenced several women to their deaths on unbelievably flimsy evidence and testimony. 

The Layton sections are the better of the two. The puzzles are far more rewarding to complete than the trials, and the investigation moves along at a much faster pace. And given the story, anything that moves it along faster is a good thing. The one problem is, I do not know if I got smarter or lucky, but these puzzles felt very easy for a Professor Layton game. I only had trouble with a handful, which is unusual for me.

Most of the puzzles make really good use of the 3DS technology.

The Phoenix sections are a huge drag. In theory finding contradictions in testimonies should be fun. I know from past games that it can be fun. But the game ruins it by frequently pointing out which parts of the testimony you should contradict with evidence, taking all the challenge out. It might be better if there were a lot of “contradict with evidence” sections, but the trials have so much padding that they go on forever and the contradictions pars get drowned out. The multiple witness testimonies and the way they slowly reveal more testimony only exacerbate this issue, as does the general unpleasantness and stupidity of the witnesses. I just want to solve the mystery, but Phoenix keeps getting sidetracked by defending women in court from accusations of witchcraft. Winning the trials does help solve the mystery, but they take too long.

You won't believe how annoying the citizens of Labyrinthia are.

The mystery could have been handled better too. The story does not get interesting until near the end when the group has their first big revelation; it is easy to guess that the witch magic in Labyrinthia is not all that it appears, but “killing” an important character is pretty much admitting it; and the final revelation of Labyrinthia is such an unbelievable and convoluted mess, with parts that are not properly foreshadowed and just seem made up at the last second, that “medieval town with witch problems” comes off as only slightly less plausible.

The biggest issue with the story though, is how little Phoenix’s gang interacts with Layton’s gang. They are aware of each other, but mostly the two group do their own things. Phoenix and Layton only work together in one part of two trials, and walk around together for two parts of two chapters. Layton and Phoenix spend more time with each other’s assistants than they with each other.

You can tell who is important because they are drawn in the Ace Attorney style, which is rather insulting to Layton.

I should mention Espella, the fifth main character. She is central to the plot which means she has to be important in the eyes of the cast to some degree, but it is aggravating how much the cast talks about her, always sticking up for her at a moment’s notice, going on and on about how much they want to protect her. She is too perfect a character, nice and everyone, and unbelievably selfless and humble.

In combining the two series, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney creates a weaker to entry both series. It is a letdown to fans who wanted to see the two main characters interact, and boring overall.