Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights

Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights is a surprisingly well crafted clone of the Professor Layton series which tries to offer something new to the fans of the genre. However, it lacks the depth and freshness of Layton's puzzles and its three-layered structure gets repetitive too fast.

Whilst not the superb Professor Layton competitor that people were expecting, Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights is a pleasant surprise, proving to be an intriguing prospect on its own merits.

Though padded somewhat by a repetitive combination of puzzles, strategy and RPG elements, Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights finally gives gamers an adventure of substance on the Nintendo 3DS.

A high quality game that makes a strong start then descends into repetition, sadly.

A stunning-looking 3DS game but one that gets boring after countless similar missions. [Christmas 2011, p.80]

The turn-based battle system--in which you pit your collection of possessed treasures against enemy spirits--is sort of interesting, but not enough to make up for the title's shortcomings. [Oct 2011, p.84]

Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights fails to counter the popularity of professor's Layton adventures, presenting a poor charachter design and puzzles.

A dull and uninspired Layton clone, with a couple of good ideas ad a lot of repetitive puzzles. Sorry Doctor, but we prefer our Professor!

Does an awful lot, but it fails to do any of it well. [Dec 2011, p.52]

Professor Layton this is not, but imitation it tries. Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights fails to capture the magic that it is trying to emulate. Repetitive puzzles and a lack of player interaction during gameplay will leave you wanting much more.

In the end Doctor Lautrec is really enjoyable when you play it and boring when you're sitting through long cutscenes and dialog exchanges between its bland cast of chracters. It's just too bad the gameplay is spread too far and too thin

A collection of missed opportunities. It's a game that wants to be like a Layton game and not be like one, and suffers in the comparison because of all the ways it falls short. The incredible amount of French history, clever story elements and extensive dialogue filling the game establish this wasn't a title that was thrown on shelves with minimal investment.

Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights is interesting only in how miserably it misses the Layton mark. While its presentation is wondrous, the actual game part is terrible. No part of the game succeeds enough to make the other parts worth slogging through. Unless you're hard up for a game that slightly resembles much better games, you are best off avoiding Doctor Lautrec's debut journey at all costs.

If this is edutainment, it could do with a lot more of the latter part. [Issue#117, p.118]

What little Lautrec does, it does competently but not compellingly.

We were expecting a serious competitor against Layton. Lautrec is aiming for more than a succession of riddles, with added exploration, stealth, and a hint of RPG-styled combat. But it doesn't really seduce in any aspect of the lot. The only real success is the atmosphere, and the bits and pieces of knowledge you can get on the city of Paris.

Quotation forthcoming.