The folks behind the Professor Layton series have just announced their latest game, titled Layton Brothers: Mystery Room. Here’s the trailer.
I couldn’t help but notice a few problems here…
- Professor Layton is not one of the Layton Brothers.
- In fact, one of the Layton Brothers is a girl.
- There are no Professor Layton characters anywhere in this game, even though it’s supposed to be a Professor Layton spin-off.
So…Professor Layton has a brother and sister that we’ve never heard of before. OK. They haven’t gotten English names yet, so let’s call the scientist one “Englebert” and the green one “Luigi.” You can expect to play Englebert and Luigi’s murder mystery puzzle adventure game when it comes out, probably next year.
EDIT: Japanese readers have informed me that Englebert and Luigi are not Professor Layton’s siblings. Instead, they say that Englebert is supposed to be Professor Layton’s son. So…Layton has a son we’ve never heard about before. Ditto for Englebert’s unknown mother. Oh my. Layton’s family tree just got immensely more complicated.
[Article reprinted from Michael Gray’s blog.]
Apparently they’re pulling a bit of a Kirby’s Epic Yarn with this game–it wasn’t originally a Professor Layton game at all, until Level 5 decided it was: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/15/level-5-spins-off-layton-brothers-mystery-room-for-iphone/
I was wondering whether or not to mention that in the article itself. I think the joke about the game’s total lack of Layton characters is funnier when you don’t know it was designed as a non-Layton game.
I kinda wish they’d stop doing this. It makes the games feel so insincere; I don’t want to buy a Professor Layton game or a Kid Icarus game or a Kirby game just because it has their picture on the box.
To be honest, I was probably going to get this game anyway, because it got described as “trying to do the same thing as Ace Attorney Investigations, only doing it RIGHT”. Having Layton in the game is just a bonus for me. Or at least, it would be, if he was actually IN the game. Which he apparently isn’t.