As an Ace Attorney fan, I’m always interested in games inspired by the series.
Nostalgia: Two Worlds | One Soul is an upcoming visual novel with gameplay similar to that in the Ace Attorney and the Zero Escape series, with RPG elements. Its developer, MagnaStudios, also names Mother, Snatcher, Blade Runner, and Brave New World as inspirations.
It is set in a cyperpunk world. The main character is 22-year-old Alice. She was one of 15 children captured for Project Nostalgia, an experiment designed to see if children could contact their alter-egos in other worlds. Project Nostalgia failed, and Alice was released along with the other test subjects.
The story is meant to be dark and mature, with genuine twists and choices that affect the outcome. MagnaStudios also aims to avoid cliches. Gameplay includes visual novel segments, puzzle rooms to escape, and RPG-style battles at key points in the game.
On the website, you can find details about the game, character profiles, and a sample of music. Updates are also posted on the developer’s blog.
Nostalgia is planned for the PC and Wii U. Seems like one to keep an eye on. Share your thoughts and impressions in the comments below.
I enjoyed Broken Age. Let me get that out of the way in case my later complaints give the wrong impression. Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure game from Double Fine, the developer behind such amazing creations as Psychonauts. I like both adventure games and Double Fine’s humor, so even though I didn’t participate in the Kickstarter (and consequently never took much note of the delays or anything), I was quite interested in Broken Age.
Due to financial woes, the game was split into two parts. Act 1 was released last January (January 2014), which is when I first played it. It was short, only 3-4 hours long, but I really enjoyed it. Broken Age: Act 1 had simple puzzles but a strong sense of humor.
Its story was where it excelled. Players could swap between two different characters whose stories seemed to have no connection: a headstrong girl named Vella who doesn’t think it’s such an “honor” to be sacrificed to a monster and decides to fight the system her society is based around, and a boy named Shay who is tired of his monotonous, danger-free life aboard a spaceship. Exploring the worlds of these two very different characters and trying to figure out how their stories intersected was fantastic, and Act 1 ended with a brilliant twist and cliffhanger.
We had to wait until this April to finally see the rest of the game, but Broken Age: Act 2 didn’t satisfy me as much as I’d hoped.
Go on, what does the knot look like?
Mechanically, it may be the better of the two. It’s longer, its puzzles are trickier, and some parts require you to swap between characters in a way that makes no sense from a narrative perspective but is clever from a game perspective. I got stuck on puzzles a few times, but usually it was just because I missed something I could interact with.
Then there was the knot puzzle. That was just mean.
Some players criticize Act 2 for its trickier puzzles, but I don’t think it’s a gameplay flaw. Some parts may have been a little tedious, but overall they felt in line for an adventure game. The story, however, disappointed me a little.
Maybe it’s because of how good Act 1’s twist was, but the revelations and conclusions in Act 2 fell short of my expectations. Even though the story remained interesting, the explanation of what’s going on didn’t live up to the first half. Some oddities are handwaved, while others just raise too many questions.
Click for spoilers
The behavior of Shay’s “Mom” made sense for a computer programmed to protect him. For an actual human who really is his mother, though… ehhh…
And if you pay attention to Shay’s dialogue in the first act and his shock at seeing his father in the second act, he really believed they were computers. Great parenting, there.
Some fans think that in the long gap between the release of Act 1 and Act 2, the story was changed. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that would go a long way toward explaining the discrepancies. Either that, or it was a PLvPW-style incident of writing a wild story without guarding against plot holes.
Do I recommend Broken Age? Yes… just be aware that the second half of the story doesn’t deliver on the potential promised by the first half.
I almost titled this blog post “What IS Layton 7?” because really, why is a card game about fortune-telling and vampires being stamped with the Layton name? When Level-5 said Azran Legacy would be the last to star Hershel Layton, I thought any future games would at least keep a similar gameplay style.
The original Layton 7 announcement sounded bizarre and out of place in the series. This sounds nothing like that… but it still doesn’t feel like a Layton game, especially with the “7” in its title implying it’s the next main-series entry. (Note: if it is, I fully expect the fortune-telling to be an elaborate deception, the vampire to be a normal human, and the explanation for how and why this was accomplished to be so convoluted it makes fortune-telling and vampirism believable in comparison.) Why?
If Level-5 really doesn’t want the next game to have classic Layton gameplay, fine. But why Layton 7? Why not a sequel to Layton Brothers: Mystery Room?
Layton Brothers: Mystery Room came out in 2013. Like Layton 7, it came out only for iOS and Android devices. Like Layton 7, it doesn’t play anything like a Professor Layton game. Like Layton 7, it is often maligned and ignored by fans.
Mystery Room’s gameplay isn’t fantastic. It plays like an ultra-streamlined Ace Attorney game, with no penalties or other consequences. Yet I still named it an Honorable Mention when I listed the best games I played in 2013, even though I acknowledged it as “mediocre.” Despite its flaws, it won a place in my heart–mainly because of its characters.
Mystery Room puts you in the shoes of Lucy Baker, a rookie detective constable at Scotland Yard assigned to work in the “Mystery Room,” where the strangest and most serious crimes are sent to be solved. This makes her the assistant of Alfendi, Professor Layton’s estranged son.
(No, it’s never even hinted at who Alfendi’s mother might be. Some fans even believe he might be adopted, although personally…
Spoilers for Mystery Room AND Azran Legacy
I can absolutely see Alfendi “Potty Prof” Layton as a blood relative of Descole and Bronev.
It makes so much sense!)
While Lucy is a fun protagonist, Alfendi Layton is the story’s shining glory. The mild-mannered, socially awkward inspector is considered brilliant for his crime-solving skills, but put him in the presence of an evil criminal and another side of him will emerge…
Warning: this video contains spoilers for an early case in the game.
Alfendi’s split personality is one of the most interesting parts of the game and contributes to the overarching plot, which gets stronger in later cases. It seems a shame to consign Alfendi and Lucy to a single game many fans probably haven’t even tried–especially since it ends with a clear sequel hook!
There is so much a sequel could explore: the mystery introduced at the end of the first game, Alfendi’s relationship with his father, his brother (if he even has one), and of course, more delightful interactions between Alfendi, Lucy, and the wacky cast of witnesses and suspects. A sequel could also expand upon the gameplay mechanics to add more depth so it wouldn’t rely so much on the strength of its story.
Ideally, I’d love to see a Layton Brothers: Mystery Room 2 released for the 3DS, maybe with the first game included Bayonetta-style.If it’s mobile-exclusive like its predecessor, I’d still buy it. I just want a sequel–much more than I want Layton 7.
But hey, maybe Layton 7 is a brilliant gem waiting to be uncovered. Maybe the vampire-revealing card game is only the start of a larger mystery. I won’t give up hope just yet.
As an Ace Attorney fan, I’m always interested in games inspired by the series.
