Why would the amiable Professor Layton be interested in squaring off against the uncomfortably awkward Phoenix Wright? Answer: He's not. The first thing to understand about the awkwardly named Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is that the two title characters are allies, not adversaries. Pure and simple, what you've got here is a bromance between two of the DS and 3DS's most captivating stars.

And it works. The problem of how to combine two franchises that operate in fundamentally different ways has been deftly overcome by transplanting this entire 30-hour-plus (yes, 30 hours...plus!) adventure to a new time and place. Proceedings begin in London but quickly move to Labyrinthia, a medieval town of a fantastical disposition featuring witches, knights, magic, and a storyteller capable of changing the future by rewriting it.

On the flip side, Layton's puzzles, while generally well crafted and boasting diversity, come off as a little underdeveloped in comparison to the trials. The new setting and the multiple witness angle means playing as Phoenix feels fresh and exciting, while puzzle solving is the same as it ever was.

Identifying the odd one out, navigating a maze, solving faux-mathematical number puzzles and besting diluted variations of popular games (chess, for instance) feel very much like brain teasers that we've seen and done before in more than one other Layton game. Those included do a good job of mimicking the magical tone of Labyrinthia, but at their core the format is familiar enough to trigger déjà vu and for you to wonder if you've solved this same puzzle somewhere else previously. This is going to be a greater or lesser problem depending on how many Professor Layton games you've already played--if you've played them all, then fatigue is going to set in before the finale.

That said, both sides of the game are undoubtedly of high quality; it's just a shame that one side feels fresh and new while the other remains exactly as we've always known it. If you've never played a Layton game, however, or haven't played one in recent history, you'll find nothing to complain about.

Phoenix's courtroom cases are grandiose, exaggerated, and some of the most charming and wacky he has ever been involved with.

There can certainly be no complaints, however, regarding the quality of the production values. Fully animated video cutscenes and voiced dialogue appear often, while the design and implementation of the touch-screen controls and in-game menus exude the kind of quality you'd expect from two franchises that have been doing the rounds for so long.

Layton vs. Phoenix Wright is a long game--at least as long as a Professor Layton game and a Phoenix Wright game combined--and relatively little of it is genuine crossover. But that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. What is here is big, it's often silly, and it's sometimes unwieldy, but it's rarely anything less than engaging thanks to some great execution on tried-and-tested ideas. It's Phoenix, however, in his element in this magical world, that well and truly steals the show.