Layton Brothers: Mystery Room

Layton Brothers: Mystery Room
English logotype
Developer(s) Matrix Software
Publisher(s) Level-5
Director(s) Tatsuya Shinkai
Producer(s) Akihiro Hino
Composer(s) Yuzo Koshiro[1]
Takeshi Yanagawa[2]
Series Professor Layton
Platform(s) iOS,[3] Android[4]
Release iOS
  • JP: September 21, 2012[5]
  • NA: June 27, 2013
  • EU: June 27, 2013
Android
  • WW: September 9, 2013
Genre(s) Adventure, Puzzles
Mode(s) Single-player

Layton Brothers: Mystery Room[lower-alpha 1][6][7] is a puzzle adventure video game for iOS and Android,[4] published by Level-5.[3] It is a spin-off of the Professor Layton series, starring rookie investigator Lucy Baker, who works with genius investigator Alfendi Layton, son of Hershel Layton, in the Scotland Yard's top investigation unit, the "Mystery Room".[3] The game was released in Japan on September 21, 2012,[8] and in English on June 27, 2013. An Android version was released on September 5, 2013.[4]

Premise

The game is told from the perspective of detective constable Lucy Baker who just recently passed the entrance exam. She arrives at her new job at New Scotland Yard's "Mystery Room", a department of the Serious Crime Division that solves the cases no one else can, where she begins working with Alfendi Layton, a brilliant, yet reportedly "unstable", investigator. There the two of them begin to solve multiple cases together. It is shown throughout the cases that Alfendi has dissociative identity disorder. His alternative personality, which Lucy nicknames "Potty Prof", is a psychopath who admires skilful criminals and sees murder as "beautiful", and he has no control over when this personality appears, nor when his "normal" personality returns.

Plot

Rookie detective constable Lucy Baker arrives at Scotland Yard on her first day. She begins working in a department of the Serious Crime Division nicknamed the "Mystery Room", as the assistant to Alfendi Layton, an apparent genius investigator. To test her, Alfendi has Lucy work alongside him to solve the murder of a young woman at a seaside resort. Managing to prove herself, the pair go on to solve a few other cases, including the public shooting of a popular stage actress. During these cases, Lucy discovers that Alfendi has a split personality, and first encounters his "deranged persona" who often comes out during suspect interrogations. As their fourth case, the pair investigate the alleged "supernatural" locked room murder of an archaeologist in South America, who was rumored to been the target of a curse due to the now stolen stone idol he had uncovered. They find out that the killer is actually Chico Careta, a local guide, and that he was manipulated into the crime, and used as a scapgoat, by his fiancee, Mariana Etista. When she discovered Scotland Yard were reopening the case, she sent Chico to England to take the fall, and is currently on the run.

After solving another unrelated incident, the Chief Commissioner personally requests Alfendi and Lucy to investigate the deaths of a group of mafia members. Their deaths all seem to be copycat murders from the "Jigsaw Puzzle Killings", a 26 victim serial killing from four years ago that was never made public knowledge. Alfendi and Lucy ultimately deduce that one of the mafia members killed the others alongside an unknown female accomplice ,before being back stabbed and killed by her himself. Afterwards Alfendi is alerted by Hilda Pertinax, an Interpol investigator he has history with, that Mariana Etista's location has been tracked down to a safe house in England. Upon finding Mariana, it is revealed that her true identity is Diane Makepeace, the daughter of the Jigsaw Puzzle serial killer, Keelan Makepeace, who has acquired her father's taste for killing and become a brutal murderer herself. She reveals herself as the one who killed the mafia members, and she display a deep hatred for Aflendi, due to him "murdering" her father during a confrontation four years ago.

Diane manages to escape, and calls upon Alfendi and Lucy to go to Forbodium Castle, where her father was killed four ago. While there and looking for Aflendi, Lucy is separated from Hilda, becoming locked in a room, and Diane forces her solve a reenactment of one the murders from her father's serial killing to escape. Upon solving it, Diane mentions that her father once claimed he had help inside the police, who destroyed evidence in that particular case. Afterwards Diane is fatally shot, and it appears that Alfendi, who was being held captive by her, is the only possible culprit. Despite this, his "Potty Prof" personality asserts that the one who killed Diane is the same person that killed her father four years ago, believing himself to be innocent. He asserts that Hilda, Lawson, and the Commissioner are all suspects, as they were the only people involved in the Forbodium Castle incident four years ago. Upon investigating into the two incidents, the impossibility of a culprit other the Alfendi keeps returning despite what facts are otherwise proven, and it is revealed to Lucy by Hilda that "Potty Prof" is actually Alfendi's original personality, and that his gentle, "normal" personality is the so-called "fake one" that formed four years ago. Still believing in Alfendi, Lucy conducts a final investigation, upon which she reveals Lawson as the mastermind the murders of Keelan and Diana Makepeace. He had found out about Keelan being the Jigsaw Puzzle Killer four years ago, and made a deal to keep him on the streets if he killed certain people he wanted dead. Lawson killed Keelan to silence him, and killed Diane out of paranoia due to signs that the incident was resurfacing, including "Potty Prof's" more frequent appearances. He also took advantage of the Jigsaw Puzzle Killings to disguise other unrelated murders, by placing jigsaw pieces at those crime scenes. However, he refused to elaborate on his motives after confessing, simply stating that some bad people had become too powerful.

Some time later, Alfendi visits Justin, who claims that the reason for Alfendi's "placid personality" is because Justin had brainwashed him while he was in his coma after the Forbodium incident to ensure he kept his mouth shut. Both Alfendi's personalities plus Lucy are unconvinced that such a cheap trick could work, and vow that between the "three of them" they'll solve the "mystery of Placid Prof". In the final scene, the Commissioner, named as "Commissioner Barton", is seen talking to on the phone about recent events with an old friend named Hershel.

Gameplay

The game is split between two distinct portions: investigation sections, and interrogations. Most of the cases follow the same routine, in which the player is given the basic facts of the case by Alfendi Layton, then must investigate the crime scene using the Mystery Room's crime scene recreation device. At the start of the case, the player is typically given a set amount of time to do a cursory sweep of the crime scene, and then must say who they think the murderer is based on their first impressions. Following this, the investigation proper commences, with further time spent examining the circumstances surrounding the crime (such as the means, motive, or certain puzzling aspects of the murder itself), finding evidence to back up points, and answering certain multiple choice questions. Once all the points of the investigation have been cleared up, the player then is able to interrogate the main suspect. During interrogations, a suspect's defense against accusations is represented by a casing around a beating heart. As the player presents the correct evidence to back up their accusations and prove the suspect's guilt, the casing slowly breaks apart. When the suspect's exposed heart turns to stone and breaks in two, the player has beaten the suspect, although on some occasions the casing reforms (entirely or partially) after it has broken when the suspect has something to say that (seemingly) contradicts or refutes the given evidence, only to break again when they have been proven wrong.

Development

The main protagonists of Layton Brothers: Mystery Room. Lucy Baker is on the left, Alfendi Layton on the right.

Layton Brothers: Mystery Room was announced at Level-5 Vision 2009 as Mystery Room, the first entirely original title in Level-5's Atamania series.[9] In Mystery Room, the players would team up with detectives Poccho and Sly to solve crimes.[9] A player could select which crime they would like to investigate from a list of crime reports. The game was originally designed for the Nintendo DS and was planned to be released in 2010.[9] Level-5 had originally scheduled to show the game at the 2010 Tokyo Game Show but removed it from their schedule soon before the conference, throwing the game's fate into question.[1] In May 2010, the developer published an update on the game's progress and announced that the game would be delayed until Spring 2011.[1] Finally on October 15, 2011, the title resurfaced at Level-5 World 2011 as an iOS game titled Layton Brothers: Mystery Room. Though the game has been rebranded as a Professor Layton title, many of its original elements have remained intact, including the focus on solving mysteries.[3]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
Metacritic75/100[10]
Review scores
PublicationScore
Adventure Gamers[11]
Destructoid8.5/10[12]
Edge7/10[13]
Game Informer7/10[14]
GamesMaster88%[15]
VideoGamer.com7/10[16]
Digital Spy[17]

The iOS version received "generally favorable reviews" according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.[10]

Notes

  1. ↑ Japanese: Reiton Burazāzu Misuterī Rūmu (レイトンブラザーズ・ミステリールーム)

References

  1. 1 2 3 Gantayat, Anoop (October 20, 2010). "Level-5's Mystery Room Resurfaces". Andriasang. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Works of Takeshi". Ancient Inc. Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Gantayat, Anoop (October 15, 2011). "Level-5's Mystery Room Reborn as a Layton Title for iPhone". Andriasang. Archived from the original on October 17, 2011. Retrieved October 15, 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 LEVEL5_IA (September 5, 2013). "Level5_IA: Layton Brothers: Mystery Room ..." Twitter. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  5. ↑ "Tokyo Game Show 2012". Level-5. Archived from the original on 2012-09-01.
  6. ↑ "Level-5 Vision 2011 Recap". Level-5 America. October 15, 2011. Archived from the original on October 17, 2011. Retrieved October 15, 2011.
  7. ↑ "Layton Brothers Mystery Room" (in Japanese). Level-5. Archived from the original on October 18, 2011. Retrieved October 15, 2011.
  8. ↑ Ishaan (October 15, 2011). "Professor Layton Has A Son Starring In His Own New Game". Siliconera. Archived from the original on October 18, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
  9. 1 2 3 Gantayat, Anoop (August 26, 2009). "Level-5 Continues with Brain Teasing Atamania Games". Andriasang. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
  10. 1 2 "Layton Brothers: Mystery Room for iOS Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on April 10, 2016. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
  11. ↑ Medina, Claudio (August 19, 2013). "Layton Brothers: Mystery Room review". Adventure Gamers. Archived from the original on March 25, 2016. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  12. ↑ Ponce, Tony (August 19, 2013). "Review: Layton Brothers: Mystery Room". Destructoid. Archived from the original on April 12, 2016. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  13. ↑ Edge staff (July 2, 2013). "Layton Brothers: Mystery Room". Edge.
  14. ↑ Juba, Joe (July 11, 2013). "Layton Brothers Mystery Room: Not Following In Daddy's Footsteps". Game Informer. Archived from the original on March 13, 2014. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
  15. ↑ "Layton Brothers: Mystery Room". GamesMaster: 79. October 2013.
  16. ↑ Miller, Simon (July 2, 2013). "Layton Brothers: Mystery Room Review". VideoGamer.com. Archived from the original on March 16, 2016. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  17. ↑ Nichols, Scott (July 2, 2013). "Mobile reviews: 'Layton Brothers', 'Colin McRae Rally', more". Digital Spy. Archived from the original on August 6, 2014. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.