Overall I must say I quite enjoyed the game. I have never played a Professor Layton game before, but there were very few puzzles that were a tedious, and only two I found downright bad (the one with the mice and the one with the goddess harp) while the rest were very creative and satisfying to solve. The comedy in this game was as good as I expected it to be, with Phoenix's sarcastic comments being the highlight. The four protagonists complement each other very well, and were working well together in the courtroom during the great trials, although I will say Professor Layton took up a bit too much of Phoenix's space. The mob examination kept things fresh and was surprisingly fun to work through. Also, the soundtrack, animations and locales are fabulous.

However, even though this game was great and left far more of an impression on me than Dual Destinies, I had a lot of issues with the game, some being more serious than others.

First of all, the support characters are forgettable at best, and you're never given any reason at all to care for them, other than their occasional fun line. The biggest offenders for this are Espella and Barnham, who never develop as characters even though they're essential to the story (although Barnham is more or less completely forgotten about towards the end). Espella is just a generic nice girl who's in need of saving, and our heroes are going to incredible lengths to ensure her safety. I'm not saying they should let her die or anything, but come now.

My second complaint is a bit hard to put into words, but I'll do my best. It sometimes felt like the protagonists' priorities were misplaced, for the lack of a better word. They practically immediately accept the fact that they've seemingly being sucked into a book, and don't work on getting out, opting instead to reveal the "mystery of the village". The lack of urgency is most apparent in Phoenix and Maya, who don't seem to care that they thought they had been working as bakers in the town for five years (also, we never really get to see how Maya recovers her memories). The whole baker thing, while fun, is just a confusing plot element that doesn't lead anywhere.

Thirdly, Phoenix and Maya don't contribute nearly as much as Layton does. The latter is always the one with the solutions to their problems, and the center of things that are relevant. While I get that it's very much his character to be the intelligent, collected gentleman, it makes Phoenix look useless by comparison, something that's painfully apparent during the last trial, where Layton dominates Phoenix in a bloody court of law. Also, Maya doesn't really DO anything other than saving Espella in a cutscene, whereas Luke at least appeared as a witness. Some may argue that Maya doesn't add much more to the Ace Attorney franchise than comic relief, but I'd beg to differ.

Lastly, and this is the most important problem of all I had with the game, is that the ending was awful, unfeasible, impossible, cheesy, boring, ridiculous and creates so many plot holes that it's not even funny. It's something M. Night Shamalan would've come up with. While I suspected that there may be a plot twist like magic not being real, the explanation for all that happened was beyond ludicrous. I'm sure some of you must be of the same opinion as me.

Oh well, at least the Edgeworth cameo was glorious.

Barnham is supposed to be the game's main prosecutor, but he isn't even that threatening, and is completely uninvolved with the last case of the game, which is pretty rare considering most end cases revolve around the main prosecutor of the game; the exception being 2-4 having nothing to do with Franziska, I guess, except at least she was a much fiercer opponent than Barnham. And he doesn't do much of anything either; I guess he saves Nick's ass and sniffs around the witch town (... place thing) a bit, but then gets thrown in jail and completely disappears for the rest of the game.
I guess the fact that he doesn't have a "quirk" like the other prosecutors did (Franziska's whip, Godot's coffee, Klavier's rockstar-ness) doesn't quite help. I guess Edgeworth didn't, either, but Edgeworth was deeply involved in Phoenix's life, was the first main prosecutor in the series, and got quite a lot of development.

In a way, Barnham is like the polar opposite of Blackquill. Blackquill is way too frigging over the top with his samurai theme (to the point where I just don't want to hear about it anymore, gosh!), while Barnham is way too subdued and, I guess, "normal". Which is a lot to say about a guy who is a medieval knight whose job is to prosecute witches, I guess. There were a few little tidbits that showed a little bit of what his personality could be like beyond "knight prosecutor", like his (adorable :3) dog, or his drawings (seriously, what a dork), but those by themselves aren't nearly enough to make him a rounded character.

Darklaw, on the other hand, does shit all for the whole game, then has the final case pretty much revolve around her. Which is perfectly fine, except I wonder why she got so little screen time beforehand. I mean, all she did for the first ~15 hours of the game is briefly show up in a cutscene and curse the Narrator under her breath. Then suddenly she's the prosecutor for the last game and turns out the whole plot even revolves around her, and she's the cause of the fire that destroyed the town 12 years earlier. I don't mind the game focusing on her for that last part, but if they were going to go that route I wonder why they didn't give her more screentime before the last case, especially since she's a pretty cool character who deserved it, IMO. It just comes a bit out of nowhere and it's a shame, I wish they would have included her a bit more in the story and built it up until the last case.

None of them have much in the way of a personality, which is a damn shame, considering they both look so cool and are instantly likeable IMO. I hope the weekly episode thingies flesh them out a bit more, because I'd love to know more about them.

Espella is just a crap character. I don't dislike her, and she's pretty inoffensive, she's just... completely uninteresting.

Both the plot and the ending are pretty standard Layton stuff, and if you've played a Layton game before you'll know the ending even before you start playing the game, because that's how every Layton game ends. I was dreading it since the start (and I say "dreading" because I hate how every single Layton game has the same "plot twist" at the end), but I hoped that they wouldn't fully go that route since, after all, this game was only "half" Layton, but alas.

The art and music were great, yadda yadda yadda. Everyone knows that. The framerate drops were a pain in the ass, but they only happened three or four times so they weren't too bad.

... I just realized all I've done so far is complain about the game, but honestly, I loved it. Especially after Dual Destinies, which was a huge disappointment to me. I was a bit skeptical about the mob trials but they were lots of fun. The game was a bit on the easy side (both on the Layton parts and the AA parts), but I've seen people say the opposite, so maybe I'm just used to both games' mechanics at this point. Of course, the art and music are gorgeous, but that was to be expected. The Spanish dub was surprisingly amazing, way better than the English dub for Dual Destinies.

The minor characters (especially Olivia and the townspeople who participated in the trials) were all charismatic and full of life, which makes up a bit for the major characters not being as good as they should have.

This game ranks high for me, both for the Layton series and the Ace Attorney series. If I had to change anything, I'd just add a couple more hours to flesh out the main characters a bit more, but that's honestly my only peeve with the game. Maybe I'd even add another trial, though not because I feel the game needs it, but because I had so much fun with them (except for the second witch trial; I was too busing having my heart ripped to shreds to be having fun with it). Everything else I'm okay with.

magic doesn't exist, so those suits of armor were probably machines controlled by pen and paper. That's some technology right there.

And since magic doesn't exist, it makes me wonder what the hell happened to Layton's office and how, among a LOT of other things.

Edgeworth cameo?

Greyerl being a girl is so similar in concept to Robin Newman also being a girl... Although here it actually made sense to the story.

One of the special episodes lampshade on that point. Chelmey even suggests that a certain "accident" really was just an accident. (Or maybe it was all an act made to look as realistic as possible. Darklaw did mention that her drawing Layton into the Story was intentional. *gasp* 'Tis a conspiracy! The pigeon was in on it too, that sneaky little birdy.)

Yet, it still doesn't explain how she and the Yoma could fly around, or how they managed to hypnotize Espella during the first trial. I got nothin' for them.

It's a good thing Edgey stopped by in one special episode, but we never got to see that contest...

He shows up in a short scene near just before the credits.

Of course the whole mystery was ROBOTS

I'll have more thoughts on it later I guess. I wasn't totally gripped by the whole entire town being for Espella's sake, and especially not by Espella's hurling herself off the tower. Espella isn't really likeable enough for me to be strongly emotionally invested in the core story - I don't really like her tendency to keep on sacrificing herself - unlike Aurora in PL6 who didn't have much of a personality but somehow I still liked her very much. I think if Espella were a bit more involved with helping you out I would like it more.

There were many moments in this game which I really enjoyed, but I don't think that I really liked the ending. Wait, wasn't it the plot of PL1? :P
I mean, if I play through this game again I'm sure that I'll feel... was all this really necessary for Espella's sake? Like Jean Greyerl's story, being taken away from her parents and made to thought that she was dangerous. And why was the Storyteller so busy writing a story for every single person... was that really necessary? He didn't even get to hang out with Espella and enjoy her not-being-traumatized-and-catatonic state.

I did like Eve's character in the end and I felt bad for hating her violently throughout the rest of the game. But I guess, in the end, she really was Bezella... :P

The ending really makes less sense the more you think about it. The sad part is that it could've worked if it they had hinted more at it, or if it hadn't been, you know, straight up impossible. If we disregard real life logic such as the fact that village would've been found immediately (the entire village burned down ten years ago, the location is hardly unknown to anyone), then we are still left with plot holes and, like you pointed out, characters' actions not making any sense.

The problem for me with Eve, just like with most of the support characters, was that I felt nothing towards her. Why would I hate her when she was hardly in the game? Because she could temporarily remove Espella's only character trait? Espella trying to kill herself is another example; I don't know you, so why should I care (of course this line of thinking only applies to video games)? Also, why would everything magically work out if we saved her? Wouldn't she just try again? She was highly mentally unstable!

And what's the point of the Storyteller being sick if he gets cured in the end anyway?! Argh! There's just so much unnecessary crap thrown at us in the second half of the final case that it feels like it was written by M. Night Shamalan!

A lot of the reviewers are saying that it was easy to guess the ending, but I'm not sure. Are they referring to the Shades, and that they were able to guess from that segment of the game that the magic fake? I was taken completely by surprise when I reached chapter 9 and Darklaw was testifying about it.

But I did think it was very odd in the epilogue when the Storyteller revealed right off-the-bat that the whole place is fake. They could have carried on the suspense a bit longer.

Also, it seemed strange how the witches seemed to have more magical ability in London than in Labyrinthia - the town where all of the contraptions are located to make the magic actually work. How are they flying around? How did they get the statues to move? Why do they have a secret passageway in a major landmark in London?

"Layton gets a letter from a friend asking him to go investigate a mysterious town, goes to visit the town, turns out the town and everything in it is fake" is pretty much the whole plot for the first three games, so it was kind of a given that it would be the plot for this game. In fact, the ending to PL vs AA seems to be a homage of sorts to the big twist from each Layton game:
- Artificial town created by a girl's father for her sake (curious village)
- A mind-altering drug was used to make the inhabitants of the town believe that the town was real (diabolical box)
- Layton and Luke travel in time, except not quite (unwound future)

- Robots everywhere (curious village, unwound future, last specter, azran legacies)

- A young child is suspected of having committed a horrible crime and an adult, knowing this, takes the fall / pins the crime on somebody else, but in the end it wasn't the child who did it. (AA1-4, AA1-5, AA5-5)
Also bonus points because Phoenix works hard only to uncover the truth that the child did it, and then the child testifies and confesses to the crime and everybody accepts it but for Phoenix who digs deeper and finds who really did it.

Young apprentice accuses female friend of murdering other friend only to realize he was mistaken and apologize, female friend immediately forgives him.

Girl pretending to be a boy, although it actually felt relevant here.

Shitty ending

Well, I don't really see that as "many things". The first one, yes, it did remind me of Polly, but I saw it as a very understandable reaction for Luke. He's about 10 - 13 yo (?). Also Luke didn't know Maya that well and didn't have much reason to trust her. What's Polly's excuse? :P

And I wouldn't fault the "girl pretending to be a boy" because it wasn't a major point of the case, Jean just out and admitted it. And it was also completely obvious. And generally executed much better than in DD.

The ending takes many elements from the endings of various Layton games. I don't feel that the game's plot particularly resembles DD more than any of the other AA or PL games.

Anyway, uh, Takumi wrote much of PL vs PW (I don't think Yamazaki had anything to do with it) and Takumi didn't appear to be involved in the production of DD. So it can only be coincidence.

Also, when did Eve become Darklaw? Surely she would have been at a ridiculously young age to take on the role of High Inquisitor.

But the main thing that still really baffles me is how there can be witches in London.

Oh come on. It's always the prosecutors/inquisitors that are instated earlier. What's the issue here? :P

Well, I can't say much without spoiling you guys, but one Special Episode suggests that them "witches" was all planned out beforehand, even in London.

You say that like there's any credibility in the position of High Inquisitor :P
Being one of three people in on the whole conceit, and having to play assistant to the Storyteller, I imagined something like the position of High Inquisitor was created specially for Eve once she was old enough, so she could oversee the smooth running of the Witch Trials and stop people from asking inconvenient questions.
When I was playing through the game I did imagine Eve to be ~26, the default age for any character who is not a teenager, but I guess she's only 20?

Alright can someone tell me, in the last case/few chapters of the game who does most of the work? Layton or Wright? I would like to assume they gave Wright his time to shine here since from my understanding a large portion of this takes place in court. Do the writers do Wright justice? Or do they have Layton hog the spotlight from him and make it feel like you should be playing as Layton instead of Wright.

In my opinion, Phoenix contributes far less to the game than Layton, who magically comes up with all the answers without ever looking bad. I won't go into details in case you haven't played the game, but Phoenix is occasionally treated a bit too poorly.

The game is still great and hilarious though, don't get me wrong, but this is an annoying, and unnecessary, element.

Actually, Nick still does a lot more work than Layton does over the course of the game, but Layton solves his side of the mysteries much more efficiently. So, I'd still say the workload is on Nick, but Layton gets all the glory.

Okay, I kid; Nick still gets some moments of his own, especially after the Professor finally shows up to the trial late and we hit the climax of the trial.

For the majority of the final trial, where our client is high in denial, it's stupidity in all sorts of ways... but I find it worth several replays.~♪ ;)

There's one minor thing that isn't explained (unless it is in the Special Episodes) and it's really bugging me... who attacked Olivia Aldente if it wasn't Espella? The fact that Olivia gets voiced text about it makes it sound like a major plot point, but it's never mentioned again.

It's implied to have been either Darklaw herself or one of the other Shades helping her in London.

Not only it came out of nowhere and it doesn't make sense at all.

There's almost nothing that hints to this revelation and it honestly feels like it was written last minute just to not mess with the canon of the series.

I'd much preferred if magic was actually real and that Layton and co's memories were erased at the end of the game than the mess we got for an ending instead. At least it wouldn't contradict its own premise and beginning!

The plot twist being justified as a "Layton staple" doesn't make it better! Sheesh, we're talking about a series that has supernatural happenings along the logical things and Ace Attorney has Spirit Mediums so magic being real wouldn't feel weird at all!