Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights Review

"Forgotten Knights"? More like "Forgotten Game", amirite? XD

But seriously though. Doctor Lautrec is one of those games that seems to have faded into obscurity. And why is that? Most likely because of its reputation as a "Layton knock-off", belonging into the crowd of games where they intended to imitate the Layton formula. And like a lot of people, I was turned off by this. But recently, nattherat gave their thoughts as to why my opinion was unfair, providing facts of other puzzle games and how the genre that Layton belongs to is widely successful, with Layton being the most prominent because of the series monopolising the American/European market. And to be honest, they are kinda right. But I saw their opinion in a different way. Just because a game is ripping off another doesn't mean it's going to be a bad game. And with the facts they stated about Doctor Lautrec about its elements of other genres like the RPG and stealth, and full analogue control movement, on top of its original characters and setting, that was reason enough to finally convince me to buy this game. Unfortunately, my opinion of it being a "Layton knock-off" still hasn't subsided (because c'mon, look at the front cover!), but I had an open mind that it would be a great game regardless. So, is it good, or does it wallow in Layton's footsteps alongside its Sega cousin, Rhythm Thief?

GOOD PARTS
- Fantastic visual style. What I really like about this style is that it mixes the bizarre shaped style of Takuso Nagano (character designer of Professor Layton), with the bold and sharply outlined style of Tetsuya Nomura (character designer of Kingdom Hearts). And funnily enough, both those people are my overall favourite character designers! So seeing them mixed into one style was really a treat to look at. I guess this means Doctor Lautrec has the best visual presentation I've ever seen in a game. And seeing the character's expressions, poses and movement in anime cutscenes only sweetened the deal.
- Great voice acting. It seems they knew their priorities in this regard since the whole game is 90% voice acting. I really do believe I'm listening to character's talking during cutscenes and not actors rehearsing their lines (with one or two exceptions).
- Excellent soundtrack. Yes, I'm a sucker for music. But I don't usually mention this unless the music is worth listening to. And sure enough, the audio presentation here is fantastic. From the catchy joy of exploring France, to the surreal nature of the underground caverns, the music gets everything right.
- Good characters. With the unfortunate exception of Lautrec himself because he's a bit of an unlikeable tosser, the other characters here are certainly memorable. Maybe it is their designs just speaking to me, but I do kinda like some of them. Especially Sophie. She's a cutie. :3

BAD PARTS
- "Puzzles" are a joke. I don't know where to start with this game, but I guess since it's advertising itself as a puzzle game first and foremost, I guess it's worth talking about how these "brainteasers" do very little to tease the brain. The game has 250 puzzles, which is a high number, but because of that, it needs to have a variable and creative selection, like all the Professor Layton games have. Instead, the game has five types of puzzles: Crosswords, Find the Patterns, Inserting Blocks, Block and Smash, and I swear to God I'm not joking; Find the Difference puzzles. The fact that this game is trying to stand up to the creative library of Layton's puzzles with these wishy-washy riddles is just pathetic. On top of that, most of them are incredibly easy (except Block and Smash 'cause I have no idea how they work). Sure, you may be able to scratch your brain over some of these puzzles, but the point I'm trying to make here is the severe lack of creativity. With how these puzzles are placed too, it makes you wonder why they even bothered making them (which will be a running question in this review).
- Stealth sections are tedious and unimaginative. I'll give the game credit for focusing on an aspect that not even the Layton games focus on that much; archaeology. I mean, Layton is an archaeologist, and quite frankly, he doesn't explore underground caves all that much throughout the franchise, does he? So the game did have something going here, but sadly they screwed this up too. Do you remember the half-assed stealth sections in Zelda: Ocarina of Time, around the Hyrule Castle part? Yeah, imagine a whole game made like that. But wait! This game also makes of block-pushing puzzles on top of these stealth sections, making them all the more BORING!
- Treasure Taming doesn't make sense and is tacked on. This is where the RPG elements come into play. When Lautrec comes across a treasure, it actually has a spirit guarding the treasure, which will curse whoever goes near it. So, in the style of Pokemon of all things, you use the treasure that you acquired through Treasure Taming to tame even more stronger treasure. This sounds like a neat concept, but once again, they f*ck it up. I can't even explain how it sucks because I can't explain this mechanic. I have no idea how it even works! Sure it sounds simple enough in practice; put treasure on pedestals, let friendly treasure spirits hit the bad guy, rinse and repeat. But I can't even make heads or tails to describe how you're supposed to bring strategy to this table. On top of that, this mechanic makes a lot of dumb mistakes. Like why do I get a Game Over if I use up all my treasure ONCE?! If that's the case, what's the point of them even having their own HP? In fact, why do they even have their own classifications, like humanoid, or avian; since rank has no significance in these fights, the strength of each one does? How am I supposed to know what pedestals do what when I place treasures on them? What is even the point of Synergy Effects if they do NOTHING?! And so on.
- Riddle solving requires no input from you. This is another thing that astounds me. I thought this game is supposed to test my brain, so why does it do all the guessing work for me?! Basically, there are sidequests in this game, and they all originate from being given a strange map that has a weird paragraph and imagery that require decoding. Now, in a Layton game, the Professor will have already figured out the answer, or will be quick to do so when you advance in the quest. But he won't tell you the answer, or will keep it very subtle so that you, as the player, can deduce it in your head as you play the game. This adds intrigue and mystery to the game. But here Lautrec and Sophie pretty much have conversations over what the solution to the riddle may be. Once they're done talking, you follow their directions by going to the pin on the map. Rinse and repeat until they find the place the map is referring to, all while having little to no input from you whatsoever. Just follow their directions, and you'll get to the dungeon. See my problem? There's no intrigue or mystery here, it's just listening to other people guessing the answer for you. Therefore, I am lead to believe that these sections are more akin to the visual novel genre. But even then I skim through them because...
- The constant information about France is unnecessary and too complex. I imagine they let Lautrec and Sophie figure out the answers for you, because in order to deduce these riddles, you would need a textbook knowledge about France's geography, history and culture. And while I admire the lengths the developers took to get this research, showing it in-game just feels unnecessary. I'm not playing this game to learn stuff about France I don't care about, I'm playing it to go on a creative adventure and solve puzzles. Neither of which seems to happen here. This pretty much answers why the settings used in Layton games are mostly fictional; so that the developers can write their own lore and background history into them while keeping it simple for the players to unravel the mystery behind it.

OVERALL
So yeah, with every element this game tries to implement, it does it half-assedly, and as a result, the whole game is a complete mess. It fails in the same way Ni no Kuni does; quantity over quality. It adds too many half-baked genre elements instead of just focusing on one or two. And also like Ni no Kuni, I couldn't bring myself to even finish it. So as it stands, this game should be completely f*cking worthless, because it fails in everything it's trying to do. But then I ask myself why people like it, and I'm quickly reminded of the characters. Because it's true, the characters are not bad at all, and the visual style really makes their designs all the more unique. Which is more than I can say for games like Rhythm Thief and Ni no Kuni, but that unfortunately doesn't distract it from being a complete chore to play through. It only helps it being that type of game where I don't like it, but I don't want to get rid of it. I may even consider replaying it someday. And while this game may prove to be a bad example of nattherat's counter-argument about the unfair "knock-off" reputation these games have, that doesn't make it any less valid. At this point, I actually would like to play a "knock-off" game like May's Mysteries, which focuses on being a puzzle game first, rather than being a completely half-assed hybrid like this game.

RATING: 4 / 10