Konami announces Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights for 3DS

@(Unverified)
I'm not a huge fan of Digimon, but let me educate you. Pokemon and Digimon were in development almost against each other, and thier overall concept may be similar in the "use monster against monster" fashion, but that's as far as it goes. Digimon was originally more a knock off of Tamagoshi's than Pokemon. With the explosion of Pokemon, the format changed more to that style of gameplay, but it still kept itself different enough to not be a flagrant copy.

Not that it stopped anyone from being ignorant.

@Jennacide
the pokemon games existed a few years before digimon...

@darkfocus

the only concept it borrowed is that the world is inhabited by monsters and they battled against each other... which isn't all that original to start with.

@Aerothorn Maybe their next game they could do Doctor Lautrec vs Puzzle Agent?

@F1 Basu Gasu Bakuhatsu It looks like Data from Megaman Legends... D:

Professor Layton is looking disappoint in the 10th pic.

Hes got a full grown beard and his hair turnt white...
Wow, this coping thing really hit him hard.

@Naru now in 3D
Oh wow, I see the bridge guy from the first game in the first picture over to the left!

@Naru now in 3D

Hayao Miyazaki sometimes has that European-influenced art-style. Some beautiful art, that is.

@Naru now in 3D
French animated movies often 'stole' the art style from French (/Belgian/etc) graphic novels (think Tintin, Asterix - but in France there are zillions more).

I'm sure these are translated into Japan too, so that's probably where they got it from originally. In the Layton games, the literal animation style [in the anime clips] seems pretty Japanese to me (Miyazaki-style) but there is a definite French influence too; Layton's car is basically a 2CV right? And those characters mentioned, and some of the background art.

Which is all a bit odd given that it's actually set in London.

That said I'm glad it isn't based on British comics because then it'd probably have to look like either Judge Dredd or Viz. Which, no offence to either, would not really make for a charming video game.

@xxxsam
oh and I forgot to say - Konami's ripoff continues to be a terrible idea. Even the art/animation screens don't look as good. They're using a lower-budget anime studio?

@SublimeNerd

Not for North America.

I wouldn't say knockoff, since Tamagotchi and Digimon are both from Bandai.

@Integral I bet it turns out a lot more different than you are expecting. Especially the gameplay.

Who plays Layton for gameplay variety, frankly? Without counting side mini-games, you solve puzzles. You draw lines and circles, tap static objects and input words and numbers.