10 Video Game Franchises That Deserve Their Own Netflix Series
5. Professor Layton
As fun as it would be to see a gritty reboot of the lovably cartoonish Professor Layton games, a Netflix series featuring live-action portrayals of the good professor and gentleman-in-training Luke would actually do well to keep the feel of the original games.
The Professor Layton games walk a strange line between grounded realism and childlike fantasy that could translate into the live-action world with intriguing results. Translating these elements to live-action could prove difficult, yet delightfully entertaining if done right. To some extent, putting in the effort to translate them well could also drive the plot structure of the entire series.
Each of the game franchise's two trilogies follows a very similar structure. Each game presents a new mystery, yet shares an antagonist. We learn more about this strange villain as we drive toward the final game in each trilogy, at which point their backstory is explained and the seemingly distinct adventures are tied together. This structure works well in a television series, and Netflix could easily adapt it for their own purposes.
The only Professor Layton adaptations to date include an animated film set between the games and an anime series focusing on Layton's daughter. Worth noting is the fact that no adaptation has included Layton's son from the mobile games, an intriguing (if somewhat convoluted) character that could be worth exploring on-screen. This would be entirely optional, however, as the core characters of the Professor Layton series would give Netflix more than enough to work with.