Ruby Recommends: Voyan Explains The Downfall Of Professor Layton

Hello again gamers, goblins, and ghouls. I’m back again this week to give you another Ruby Recommends!

As you know, I’m an absolute fiend for a good deep dive, investigation, rabbit hole or goofy video. YouTube is the perfect environment for that, allowing the average smart fella (or fart smella) to whip up a video essay, gameplay video or descent into madness around a specific niche.

While we here at Kotaku Australia have hopes to do something of our own on the video-sharing website at some point, I thought in the meantime it would be neat to sit down once a week and share a gaming-adjacent video from YouTube and discuss a little about why I like it.

This week, we’re looking at just what the hell happened to the Professor Layton series.

R.I.P Professor Layton (and Level-5 in the West)

Voyan is a YouTuber that covers a wide range of video games and video game topics, with two game series in particular having multiple videos on them, those being Animal Crossing and Persona. They’ve actually got some more recent videos than the Professor Layton one, which you can check out here.

However, we’re talking about the Professor Layton video, as while it is short it actually covers a fair bit of ground. Voyan looks at the history of the series, which games came out on top, and details just how successful the series was. In doing so, they also reflect on how the success of Professor Layton put Level-5 as a developer into the spotlight.

Level-5 released one of my favourite games of all time on the Nintendo 3DS, Fantasy Life, so the news of Level-5 backing out of the Western market hit me hard.

Considering the video that I recommended last week was a whopping three hours long, I thought it would be good to cleanse your palette with a shorter video. I would say sweeter, but it’s a little sad! Bittersweet if anything, as while it is a bummer that the once-extraordinary Professor Layton series fell so far, it was definitely a reminder to go back to the games considering they’re available on mobile now.

This weekly post is also an opportunity for creators to feature their work. If you’re in the business of making YouTube videos diving into niche gaming content, investigating lost game media, or just doing any cool shit with games, OR you have a favourite creator that you’d like us to spotlight, let us know!