
The animation style of Professor Layton has always been top-notch, and the drawings that make up each map are colorful and rich with detail. That being said, traversing the urban environments can seem flat at times. Each area is represented by a simple splash screen. To interact with people, you simply tap the stylus on their person. The same action is used when searching for hint coins hidden in the environment - stashed away in a lamp post here, a flower pot over there, etc. Each time you tap a part of the screen, a small yellow circle expands, indicating the place you touched. When scanning an area for hint coins, you can get caught in the habit of tapping all over the screen randomly, poking and prodding at the environment for a coin. Yet all these actions are repetitious, and the little, flat, unchanging circle expresses the two-dimensionality of the world. Looking for hint coins is akin to tapping at a paper print out of a city.
I think Level-5 was aware of how such actions could be boring and detrimental to the feel of the game. To make up for this, they added dialogue boxes that pop-up when the stylus touches certain objects in the environment. Prof. Layton or Luke, when touching a street light, might comment on the lighting in the area, for example. These bits of optional conversation not only flesh out the relationship between the Prof. and his apprentice - they do share banter after all - they also convey a sense of physical space within the two-dimensional portrait.

None of this is to say the game is immune to the tedium of poking a bland environment. For some, the little measures taken by Level-5 to enliven the experience are not enough. I, however, just fall more enthralled by the simple artistic style of Professor Layton and its ability to maintain my curiosity without crowding the experience with needless complexity.