Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy

I recently finished playing Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy. Writing a review of such a game feels a bit unnecessary: the series has been a staple in Nintendo's handheld consoles' canon for all of the puzzle game aficionados along with Phoenix Wright and the likes. And yet, it seems necessary to eviscerate some of the details which make this entry in the seven part series a almost insufficient game.
First, the meat: the puzzles are sometimes compelling, but most of the time they feel like a re-hashed version of other ones which had appeared in previous chapters of the series with slightly improved visual aids. It doesn't help that at times it feels like the game is giving you too much of an aid with what I started to call "non-failing puzzles": differently from other enigmas where a wrong answer influences your final score, these ones really don't allow you to lose unless you actively decide to abandon them and replay them later. I get that this classification is used especially with the more trial-and-error puzzles, but I couldn't help to think about how little I was engaging myself with those ones instead of rapidly swiping the touch screen with my pen.
Which brings us to my second point: the controls. I get that the 3DS gimmick still includes the "DS" part in it, but it's impossible not to notice how a good 95% of the game relies exclusively on that. You can basically use the buttons of the console in a single minigame. I guess that's what makes these games so easily portable to mobiles. But still, it feels like a waste.
Now, for the good parts: the visual style is as magnificient as always (the 3D models slightly less so, but the tech isn't easy on my eyes so I might be wrong here), and the short animated interludes are very smooth and well-thought. The voice acting is on point (at least for the regional version I played) and the music is pleasant, so I guess the audio department gets some points too.
What really doesn't hold the whole thing together is the plot of the game: I can get behind some of the extravagant plot devices being used here (it wouldn't be a novelty in the series, after all) but the low points here are absolutely dreadful, especially during the epilogue, where the same twist drags on and on and on with virtually no explanation why those twists happened in the first place. It feels like most of the characters involved in these shocking revelations kept their motivations hidden because...? Nothing is given to us, at least nothing we can chew on. I guess the vaguely anti-tech message of the finale works.
Oh, and there's also no replay value whatsoever. You can basically finish the game in a single run unlocking every secret.
So here it is: a Layton game that feels like Level 5 is finally starting to have nothing left to say, compensating (arguable) form over content. I can only hope that the company will manage to pump out a decent new entry for the Switch: the scenario doesn't seem very optimistic, though.