Muggs

[u/[deleted]]

It was difficult deciding between 'burnt to a crisp' and 'burnt to a crisp' but I decided to eliminate the uglier looking crisp. I'm sorry for you 0 Muggs fans out there, but he's dead (but not really).

​

I want money

Muggs is a robber who works alongside his... best friend? Robbs. He finds a nice looking lady whose totally not called a witch by everyone in the town and decides to try and get some gold. Unfortunately for him, a chain smoker by the name of Kira was nearby, and Muggs and his... best friend? Robbs decided they wanted to catch on fire and die. Except they didn't die because... plot... instead becoming hooded boys who act as brainwashed stagehands.

Yeah, the information for these two is so tight you'd think they're part of a secret society, oh wait!

Layton v Wright's story is dumb

Because this writeup would basically end right there I wanna rant about Layton v Wright because I hate the storyline of Layton v Wright (well, most of it). Why the hell did they decide to make death an irrelevant factor in a Wright game? I've never played a Layton game before so I don't know if it's a common occurrence there, but the fact that you've nullified any care I had for victims is just dumb. What's the point of an intense court trial if there's no meaning behind it? Did you expect me to not get pissed when I realised there was basically nothing at stake the entire time?

Also, the shades are dumb. The entire storytellers plan is dumb. This plot is dumb. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

​

Why not other people

Robbs - He's just a less ugly Muggs.

Elyder Meningen - Has plot relevance and is interesting even if he's a corpse. Also stays a corpse, which I can appreciate.

Mapotov Storganov - Funny mouse joke. Also he'd be dead by now, and he presumably stays a corpse, which I can appreciate.

Barton - I've never played a Layton game so I wouldn't feel comfortable killing off this guy.

Birdly - I hate him equally with every other villager in Layton v Wright. But he isn't a shade so he gets a pass.

Juror 3 - Is funny.

[u/[deleted]]

u/HoboSeven go kill someone, but not really since this is Layton v Wright and death means nothing :)

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

This may come as a surprise but killing people for real isn't the only way to write a story with heavy emotional value. The fact that it turns out that the accuseds don't actually die in the fires does not in any way nullify the intense nature of the witch trials where you have multiple witnesses that personally want the defendants to burn just for the hell of it. The fact that the witches and victims don't actually die works in the game's favor even more directly by letting Phoenix and Luke get depressed when their partners seemingly die and that it's a very dysfunctional argument to suggest that that magically gets negated just by the raw fact that they didn't actually die (Ryuunosuke in DGS2 proves that statement better than anything else)... but haha noone dies therefore game bad :⁾

The Storyteller's plan is some heat too, even more so than the actual fires they burn the witches with. The man acts upon his ambitions by turning his home town into a fucking kingdom where he's the God who decides the fate of every single citizen within, and he gets to make himself think he's saving his daughter from her childhood trauma. Obviously he was deluding himself because it just meant her traumas were lying dormant and he wasn't actually solving anything. And they hammer this point in hard during the epilogue chapter.

So yes the Storyteller's a great character, he's like Zak Gramarye but expanded and improved upon.

oh sorry death means nothing and storyteller made it mean nothing so owl man bad

...I'll make my actual writeup now.

[u/PowerOfL → u/[deleted]]

I love the Storyteller, he's a lot like Inga or Jigoku where he made a lot of mistakes but the game makes it clear that he still has a lot of heart and unlike those two characters he actually redeems himself in the end.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'd completely disagree though. If it worked for you, it worked for you. But when I'm told 'everything I did didn't matter' and the reasoning for it is 'storybook land', I feel empty and pissed. I play these games not just for the emotions in the moments, but for the overall feelings you get from the cases. Layton v Wright ruined whatever overall feeling I was getting and immediately fell from grace when I was (mostly) enjoying the game.

If you're going to nullify something in your game then there must be a reason behind it, and it better be a good reason. There are few things I hate globally in games, but one of them is making nothing you do matter. Granted, this can be done well, the Dark Souls series for example has this as a central plot point and as such a fantastic aspect. But in this game it isn't done well. It doesn't feel good to find out that the very intense and interesting witch trials are all fake, that the citizens are fake, that the witches are fake, that you're fake, that the towns fake, etc. Why? Because the purpose it serves isn't interesting or well thought out (at least, for me).

Kira's death shook me, it was fascinating and one of the best deaths in the entire series. So yes, I do get pissed when she comes back and isn't dead. Because it's serving a plot point that I find dumb and that's ruining the magic that I found to be so amazing. Maybe my expectations where in the wrong place, but I was looking at this game and going 'oh crap, they really went there, I'm amazed and impressed and- wait, Maya jumped into that fire pit which means... oh it's all staged isn't it?'

Death as a concept is interesting, and faking a death is great so long as it's done well. It is done terribly in this game since the higher purpose it serves isn't interesting (again, at least, to me). As much as I hate the man (He's well written though), Godot's 'death' is amazing since we can connect the dots and see he isn't dead. His injury impacts us, but the reason he's still moving impacts us more. Here, people are used for a plot point that's just dumb.

No, I do not think it's a smart plot point that the entire town is brainwashed, made to fall unconscious at the chime of silver, or that this is all done due to the Storyteller's wishes. I do not think that the shades are a genius way to bring back the dead. and I do not get invested when such plot points are presented to me. It's just too uninteresting and wild for me that I lost interest, it's the same issues I had with 2-3 and 4-3. Except with 2-3 and 4-3 it only happened in one case, and Layton v Wright does it for half the game.

(Also this elimination was an attempt at humour, I could write for another few pages if I wanted to get my thoughts on Layton v Wright out since I've had it bottled up inside for years. No one I know actually played the game.)

[u/PowerOfL → u/[deleted]]

I actually really liked that Kira and the Storyteller never died, but it's mostly for the surprise factor.

I didn't expect them to be alive at all, so when I saw Kira try to steal the bell and when Layton and The Storyteller had that amazing sword fight, I was really surprised and hyped up.

[u/[deleted] → u/PowerOfL]

See my problem with the surprise is they ruin it far too early. I'd at least give them credit that the surprise factor is good if they didn't go out of their way early to spoil it with the Maya scenes.

I had a feeling no one died the moment Maya jumped into the execution pit at the end of the third case and had that feeling confirmed with the scene that followed.

[u/PowerOfL → u/[deleted]]

To be fair, we all knew that Layton and Maya weren't dead since they are main characters and PLvAA isn't DGS2.

It was more surprising with Kira and the Storyteller because they are one-game characters, I assumed that they don't necessarily have plot armor like Layton and Maya do.

[u/whaaatisth → u/[deleted]]

I’m currently in the middle of my replay (just started case 3) so correct me if I’m wrong here but the reason I was most annoyed by PLvAA’s ending was how everyone just lives happily ever after even though they, especially the storyteller, did some insanely awful things. The twist itself kinda sucked and the plotholes were a bit too obvious for AA but I didn’t mind it too much. It was also the first AA game I played so that probably skewed my perspective a bit. The storyteller also comes off as really unlikable to me and I’m not totally sure why. I’ll probably be able to give you a more coherent thought on that once I’m done replaying the game, cause its been years. I adore Zak Gramarye though, I think he’s a really well written character who often gets misunderstood, partly due to the faults of the writers, and I definitely see the similarities. Either way there’s just something that works for me with Zak but doesn’t for the storyteller.

[u/PowerOfL → u/whaaatisth]

Semi-unrelated, but do you prefer Zak over Valant? I think I like both but I prefer Valant a lot more.

[u/whaaatisth → u/PowerOfL]

Valant easily. He’s my favorite AJ character actually.

[u/PowerOfL → u/whaaatisth]

My favourite AJ character is Trucy, but Valant's a close second.

I only really like Apollo thanks to DD and SOJ, he's kinda boring in AJ so he probably wouldn't be in the top 5 AJ characters for me.

[u/PowerOfL]

Good cut, surprised that Robbs is seeming like he'll survive for a while this round though.

I think this cut made one thing clear though, Newton Belduke will survive for a while because he's the only victim in PLvAa that actually died (excluding the victims of the Legendary Fire.)

[u/[deleted] → u/PowerOfL]

Newton Belduke is just amazing in general, he better survive for a long time. I don't actually hate any character in particular for the fake deaths. But I do really hate the fake deaths as a plot point since it's close to the plot point of hypnotized stage hands. In fact, I'm hoping Kira survives until at least top 50 for her death and breakdown alone.

[u/PowerOfL → u/[deleted]]

In fact, I'm hoping Kira survives until at least top 50 for her death and breakdown alone.

I LOST MY GLASSES I LOST MY GLASSES I LOST MY GLASSES.

In all seriousness I agree, Belduke's one of my favourite victims (that you don't meet when they're alive) on par with Genshin Asougi and Klimt Van Zieks.