Professor Layton/YMMV

• And the Fandom Rejoiced: Professor Layton is one half of a crossover with the Ace Attorney franchise. Crazy Awesome doesn't begin to describe this scenario. It must be seen to be believed.
  • One Layton release per month in North America for the last 3 months of 2011!
• Crazy Awesome: There's a bit of an ongoing tradition that the ending portion of the game tends to become absolutely insane further in. It becomes especially funny after Layton determines that the "secrets" of wherever they happen to be exploring at the time turn out to be relatively mundane and then he proceeds to build a hang glider out of curtains and a giant globe to escape a tower under assault from a rudimentary helicopter equipped with a wrecking ball, swordfight with an old man in a decomposing mansion while high on illusion fumes, or drive up the side of a twenty-story walking robot tank in the Laytonmobile.
  • Then starting with Last Specter, things already seem crazy enough with a potential rogue specter and a witch, but both of those don't hold a candle to an actual dinosaur appearing out of a lake, which the so-called witch and her little brother have kept as a pet for their whole lives.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Professor Layton gets at least one per game. See the Video Games page for a folder of examples.
  • Luke gets one near the end of Eternal Diva, and a minor one in Unwound Future.
• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Likewise, the series has its own folder on the Video Games page.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Particularly Layton's theme, the theme to Diabolical Box and its end theme, "Iris Shiawase no Hako" (Iris The Box of Happiness).
  • The Eternal Diva: The third key is the Song of the Sun!
  • The main themes for each of the games count. It seems to be getting even better actually, with this live version of the Unwound Future main theme.
  • Descole's theme.
  • Puzzle Battle in Unwound Future.
  • Luke's theme, Future British Gentleman, from Eternal Diva.
  • Don't forget Mysterious Flower, from the upcoming Mask of Miracle!
  • And Folsense, especially the live version.
• Die for Our Ship: Flora's unfortunately subjected to this treatment by a sizeable chunk of the fandom.
  • Which doesn't even make sense, considering that she's Layton's adopted daughter!
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Grosky, for being so damned Mantastic.
• Evil Is Cool: Descole.
• Fridge Brilliance: In Diabolical Box, there's a minigame which involves a hamster. The hamster speaks throughout the minigame, and also afterward, when he becomes the coin- and hidden puzzle-finding companion. This is a little jarring...then you remember that Luke is the one who is supposed to be interacting with the hamster, and Luke has the ability to communicate with animals. The hamster "talks" because Luke can understand him!
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series is huge in Europe, selling as much as in the rest of the world combined. That makes the Bad Export for You only Europe got with Specter's Flute all the more jarring.
• Ho Yay: Luke and the Professor seem a little too chummy the vast majority of the time, although it can easily just be read as a Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson arrangement. Then again, that one has similar problems...
  • Somewhat Lampshaded by Chelmey in Diabolical Box, who decides not to probe too deeply into the relationship.
  • Keep in mind, though, that Luke is prepubescent.
    • Legal got a very noticeable reaction from the fangirls when he debuted. In fact, it's the reason he was nicknamed Legal.
  • The ridiculous amount of chemistry between Descole and Layton, as well. The former bends the latter back over a control panel in the movie.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Professor Layton. Layton and Luke, Layton and Flora, Layton and Future Luke, Layton and Claire, Layton and Emmy, Layton and Descole. You name it, it's out there. There is also now the possibility for Layton and Phoenix Wright.
• Memetic Badass: Layton.
• Memetic Mutation: "Luke, my boy, this reminds me of a smashing puzzle."
• Moe: Flora
• Nightmare Fuel: Don't let the cute and quirky character designs and whimsical settings fool you; all of the games have several examples.
• Scrappy Level: You'd have to be genius to have enjoyed the peg solitaire puzzles, or sliding block puzzles, among others.
  • Also the chess puzzles. "Here, this is a 10x10 chess board. Jump on every single space, and you can only move as a knight. Also, there is only one known way to solve this puzzle, and only one correct direction to jump for every single jump. To top it off, we've replaced your hints with random chess trivia that is no help whatsoever. Oh, quit crying, you wuss."
    • Unwound Future actually taunts the player like this in its Old Save Bonus Block Puzzle:

Anthony: Oh, and if you get stuck, don't bother asking me for any hints. I'll provide nothing of the sort! I want you to solve this puzzle in its... purest form.

• • The Chocolate Code in the English version of Curious Village. This one wouldn't be so bad if the translators hadn't changed the hints so that they didn't reference the most significant part of the clue's illustration.
  • One of the bonus puzzles in Diabolical Box asks you to multiply a three-digit number by a two-digit number to get a four-digit number... and you can only use each of the numbers 1-9 once. There are only two possible answers. Solving this puzzle without using hints is virtually impossible without random guesswork (even consciously avoiding multiplications that would make the last digit 0 doesn't help much; it only eliminates a handful of the over 387 million possible combinations).
• Scenery Porn: Folsense in Diabolical Box has this. Montdol in Mask Of Miracle has even more, but in 3D.
  • A hint of Scenery Gorn in Lost/Unwound Future, with the Mobile Fortress.
  • Misthallery in Last Specter, but special mention goes to the Golden Garden.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Flora and Clive. The ship potential is there, but they don't interact much unless you count Clive kidnapping Flora.
• Spoiled by the Format: If several mysteries are not yet solved, you likely have a way to go, and you certainly do if not all of the mysteries have been found. Additionally, the number of puzzles for each game gives you some idea of how far you are when the number of a given puzzle appears.
• Video Game Movies Suck: In a rare twist of events, Professor Layton and The Eternal Diva was actually well-received and one of the first video game movies to be successful. Level 5 even expects to release more of them.
• The Woobie:
  • Flora.
  • The conversation Barton has with Luke in Unwound Future paints him as one.
  • Anton.
  • Layton himself manages to become one in Unwound Future.
  • Clive. Good God, Clive.
  • We can now add Arianna in Last Specter.
• Your Mileage May Vary: Some puzzles may be a breeze for you; the same puzzles might make someone else tear their hair out. This depends on, among other things, whether the player has done a similar puzzle before, their knowledge, and their critical thinking.

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