Thankfully, there’s more than just the puzzles and adventure to keep you occupied. As you solve more puzzles, you’ll be rewarded with things like strange gizmos, painting scraps, and furniture, which you can then utilize in a couple of fun and distracting ways. Since Layton and Luke are forced to stay in empty rooms, you’ll be using the furniture to fill up your rooms, giving items to either Layton or Luke in order to improve their satisfaction. Painting scraps are to be put together in a giant picture frame, and the strange gizmos eventually build an electronic dog who can sniff out hidden coins or puzzles. Such items are fun distractions that help build up the game to something more.

One of the most important elements of the game’s charm is Professor Layton himself. The character is just charming, from his appearance to his manner of speaking, and it helps give the game its feel and sense of direction in a town otherwise populated by random (though interesting) misfits. He feels like a friendly Sherlock Holmes. It helps that they managed to get the perfect voice actor for him as well, which makes the cutscenes that much more enjoyable.