Go on another puzzling adventure with everyone’s favorite gentleman.

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS)

[starreview]

Developer: Level-5
Release date: September 12, 2010
ESRB Rating: E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older

There’s no use trying to hide it, we at NintendoGal.com are hopeless Professor Layton fans. You wouldn’t think a game mainly comprised of dozens of logic puzzles would be such a compelling purchase, but twice now Level-5 has managed to craft a compelling storyline around it, along with excellent artwork and charming characters. The game has gone on to see great commercial success, and has even spawned another game series, in Telltale’s downloadable Puzzle Agent. Now the third tale in the series has arrived; does Professor Layton and the Unwound Future hold up as well as the first two? The answer: yes, it does. It really does.

Unlike many games I’ve reviewed recently, Unwound Future actually does have a story to speak of that contributes heavily to the game. Professor Layton and his apprentice Luke receive a letter with mysterious instructions, and by following it, they find themselves thrust ten years into the future; teaming up with Future Luke, they must stop the future version of Layton, who controls London with an iron fist. You might think I’ve ruined the story for you, but as is usual with these games, nothing is as it seems, and the plot twists that this title has in store are excellent, leading up to a pulse-pounding climax at the end of the game.

The characters are charming as always, with excellent voice actors, especially the fellow who plays Professor Layton himself; Flora’s voice actress is a bit of an exception, as they seem to have acquired someone new to play her voice, and I’m not really a fan. What I especially appreciated was how the game managed to round out the characters a bit more, showing multiple side of them, and making the titular professor feel more human, especially during the ending. It’s a very appreciated touch.

While the story does play a larger role in this series than in, say, a Mario title, the gameplay is still what keeps people playing, and Unwound Future delivers on what people expect. There are over 150 puzzles in the main mode, along with 15 more or so to be unlocked, and a weekly puzzle is available for the truly addicted. These puzzles as a whole contain fewer frustrating tasks like block puzzles, and less of them feel like the answers are unfair or unreasonable (though the odd crap puzzles does still exist). Additionally, a greater percentage of the puzzles are integrated directly into the story and feel like they belong, as opposed to the numerous instances of “Oh hi there stranger, why don’t you solve this puzzle for me?” Though you will still be seeing the latter an awful lot, but they need to fit all those puzzles in somewhere, so perhaps it’s a necessary evil.

The memo function is more expansive in this game than it has been in past titles. You can always turn on the memo overlay, which lets you draw lines and color in with up to eight different colors, which on certain levels is an indispensable tool for keeping your thoughts in order. Additionally, there are no longer only three hints; once you’ve exhausted your first three, you can spend another two hint coins and buy a “Super Hint” which brings you significantly closer to the answer, nearly giving the whole thing away. There are occasions where you will get really get stuck and have to use one, but at the end of the game I still had over 100 hint coins to spare, so don’t think that the puzzles have gotten that much harder. They have gotten more fun, though, generally.

As usual, there are three mini-games to partake in. One of them is a picture book game; as you solve puzzles, you’ll get stickers that need to be placed in one of three sticker books. It’s not obvious which sticker goes where, but solving the mystery of which sticker goes where gets easier as you receive more and more of them, and if you read the text carefully. Another is a car mini-game; you have a tiny toy car and a number of maps, with flags scattered about. You need to place arrow and jump panels on the ground to make your car roll over all the flags and get to the goal, but your number of panels is limited so you’ll have to think carefully. Lastly, there’s a delivery game where a parrot tries to jump about and deliver goods to customers. You need to draw ropes on the screen with your stylus in order to give the parrot the ground it needs to make the delivery. All three of these are entertaining and challenging, though the picture book is probably my personal favorite.

Instead of the more rural setting of the past two games, this title takes place in the slightly more populated streets of London, mostly Future London. The place gives off an impressive ambience of semi-dystopia, like it takes place in a future that’s slightly more advanced but much more desolate than futuristic, which sets the mood rather well for the story. The streets are a bit sparse, but you’ll run into some entertaining and well-designed characters along the way. The game’s graphics are gorgeous, sporting a hand-drawn look that is well complimented by simple European street minstrel music. As I said before, it’s charming, all around.

So how long will this puzzle game last you? By the time I had beaten the main story, I had managed an impressive 10 hours of gameplay, and I still had several mini-games to beat and puzzles to locate and complete. There’s also a weekly puzzle to download, as mentioned earlier, which lasted for about half a year in the case of Curious Village. So once the main story is done, there’s likely still a lot of things for you to do that will extend the game’s replay value. Eventually, though, you will exhaust the game, and then you’ll really only have the weekly puzzles to bring you back.

All in all, Unwound Future is probably the best Layton to date, and given the quality of the previous two, that’s saying something. Better yet, beating the game indicates the promise of more to come; we can only hope that we keep getting new titles for the foreseeable future, and maybe a film or two like Japan’s getting. For now, though, if you’re a fan of brain teasers, great artwork, and a well-designed storyline, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is an excellent buy for you.