PixlBit

The first Professor Layton title made its way onto North American shores over two years ago, delivering a puzzle experience unlike any other. The professor's first tale left its mark on western gamers and paved the way for more titles in the series to find their way over. Now, with the release of the third title in the series, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, comes a Professor Layton game that feels fresh and new, while only slightly tweaking the familiar formula.

The newest Professor Layton title has the top-hatted intellect traveling ten years into the future at the request of a much older version of his apprentice, Luke. Following the events of a time machine display gone awry, Luke and Professor Layton are summoned to a future London, which is supposedly under the fearful control of an older Professor Layton who has gone berserk. As the game progresses, players will jump back and forth between the past and present trying to solve the mystery.

Though the story behind the past two Professor Layton titles has certainly been an important part of the game as a whole, the tale present this time around is much more than just a means to drive players from one puzzle to another. Unlike the previous two Layton games, the puzzles players will encounter are very intertwined with the story. Though there are plenty of challenges waiting around every corner in the wonderful locations players will pass through in both the past and future London, many are tied into the story.

As such, the gameplay within Professor Layton and the Unwound Future feels much more fluid than in previous titles. Generally, the storyline itself will guide players past the majority of puzzles featured in the game, instead of forcing them to explore every inch of a location on their own. This allows for many great new puzzles that are now connected to the present situation, instead of merely being a random puzzle with no significance to the current happenings.

Speaking of the puzzles, I found the tasks in this Professor Layton title to be much better crafted than those in its brethren. In other words, I felt as though there were fewer questions trying to trick the player this time around. While the game is not completely devoid of these eyebrow raising puzzles, their infrequency allows players to solve the majority of the puzzles with clear logic and intellect, rather than abstract reasoning for fear of being duped.

I also noticed an increase in the action puzzles present. By action puzzles, I am referring to those in which players automatically solve the puzzle by actively completing the challenge. A few examples include navigating Professor Layton through a road littered with bananas, guiding a gem out of a box filled with obstacles, and piecing together a bridge that is being hindered by a spiked ball. I always felt these types of puzzles to be some of the best found within the Professor Layton series, and to see some wonderful ones scattered fairly frequently throughout the game adds to the already fantastic variety of puzzles and breaks up the minutiae of simply filling in an answer.

With that said, though the puzzles in Unwound Future are most certainly well done, I worry that their increasing ease comes with the experience of solving so many similar challenges throughout the series. While I'm glad to see steps being made to broaden the puzzle spectrum, such as adding more focusing on action, in the future I'd like to see an even wider variety of puzzle types evenly distributed throughout the game. Thankfully, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future solves some of this issue with its fantastic sub-challenges.

Though the game sticks to its normal formula with few exceptions, its sub-challenges are much different than any seen in previous titles. In fact, many of the sub-challenges require more time and thought than some of the hardest puzzles present in the actual game. This time around, players are presented with the three sub tasks comprised of a parrot, toy car, and storybook.

The storybook section is the most charming and simple of the three, as players will try to recreate three stories using stickers gathered from solving puzzles. With calm ambient music playing in the background, players will go page by page through the book filling in the story holes with people or objects that will make the tale logical and complete.

Selecting the parrot will present players with several delivery challenges, in which they must guide the parrot from one platform to another by creating places for him to land on using ropes. Each separate puzzle within this section will grant players a certain number of ropes to use, and give them a set time limit. Though these puzzles seemed easy at first, I was pleasantly surprised to see how complicated they became. I found the best part of many of these was when the solution didn't even come close to what seemed to be the obvious route from the start.

The last of the three sub-challenges, and my personal favorite, is the toy car. In order to complete the toy car challenges, players must navigate the vehicle around a map collecting all of the items, and then makes their way to the exit. In order to accomplish this goal, players are given a limited number of turn arrows and jumps to control the toy car. These puzzles are fantastically done, and go to painstaking lengths to ensure that players complete the track in a very particular way. Many times I would find myself one arrow away from success, only to wind up having to start over from the beginning. Reminding me of many similar games from my earlier gaming days, the toy car section became one of my favorite aspects of Professor Layton and the Unwound Future.

Even though the game contains well over one hundred puzzles in total, the majority of which are completed within the main game, the thirteen hours or so I spent playing went by the quickest of any other Professor Layton game I have played to date. Maybe it was the engaging story that pushed the game onward in a smoothly flowing manner, the great puzzles, or the sub-challenges that I couldn't pull myself away from.

What I do know for sure, is that Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is by far the most polished title in the series that we have seen in North America to date. The great gameplay is complimented well by the story driven direction, and the sub-challenges will give even the best puzzle solver a run for their money. For dedicated followers of the Layton series, this title is a must own, and for those who still have yet to catch onto the Professor Layton fever, look no further than Professor Layton and the Unwound Future to get you permanently and hopelessly addicted.