Professor Layton

History

Professor Layton was a direct result of Akihiro Hino's childhood love of Akira Tago's popular Atama no Taisou series of puzzle books, which have sold more than 12 million copies to date in Japan.

The main character in the Professor Layton games is Professor Hershel Layton, a renowned archaeologist and a well-mannered gentleman. He is called to solve various mysteries in different places. Professor Layton is always accompanied by his apprentice Luke Holland, a cheerful and curious boy who brings a touch of humor to the story of Layton. According to Hino, Layton is partly inspired by the character of Phoenix Wright of the Ace Attorney series. Wanting to improve over what he saw as "bad points" in Phoenix's character, he was able to develop Professor Layton.

Games

There was also a "Friendly Version" for The Curious Village, from which all weekly puzzles are unlocked, as well as the game being slightly easier for those who were troubled previously. For Diabolical Box, the Japan-only "Level-5 Premium Silver/Gold" collections on Nintendo DS included an exclusive side-story, "Professor Layton and the London Holiday" (レイトン教授とロンドンの休日) in addition to the actual game and another Level-5 game, Inazuma Eleven. The Holiday in London includes ten puzzles, some of which are from the first game, and a short storyline, set in Professor Layton's London office, in which he reminisces about his previous adventures around the world.

Gameplay

The game is essentially a collection of puzzles with exploration sections between them. The player (as Professor Layton, Luke and other characters) explore their environments in a point-and-click adventure game fashion using the DS's touchscreen. This can be used to talk with non-player characters, learn more about the environment, moving between different areas, or to find hint coins that are used during puzzles. Often, when interacting with a person or object, the player will be presented with a puzzle, valued at a number of "picarats", a type of currency within the game. Solving the puzzle correctly will earn the player that many picarats, but a wrong answer will reduce the value a small amount on subsequent attempts down to a minimal picarat number. In order to progress the plot, the player is required to solve specific puzzles, or to solve a minimum number of puzzles or gain a minimum amount of picarats. When the player leaves an area due to progression of the plot, puzzles they have yet to find or solve are collected and placed into a "Puzzle Shack" owned by a fictional character known as "Granny Riddleton", where they can return and attempt to resolve later. The Curious Village contains 135 puzzles, The Diabolical Box contains 153 puzzles, The Unwound Future contains 168 (The later two having another special puzzle obtained via the use of codes found in the previous game), The Last Specter contains 170, The Miracle Mask contains 150, and The Azran Legacy contains 165.

The puzzles take the form of brain teasers and are only loosely tied to the plot. All puzzles were created for this series by Akira Tago, who is famous for his best-selling Mental Gymnastics series. They take the forms of math problems, logic puzzles, mazes, sliding-block puzzles, and brain teasers. The games give the player the opportunity to bring up a translucent memo screen they can write on using the stylus to work out their answer before submission. If the player is stuck, they may spend one hint coin to receive a hint. Each puzzle has three hints available, and within The Unwound Future, the game introduces "super hints" that nearly solve the puzzle for the player but which can only be bought with two hint coins and after the three other hints have been revealed. The puzzles are not timed, though for puzzles such as mazes or sliding blocks, the player may be challenged to complete the puzzle in a limited number of moves.

Each game features an additional set of three unique meta-puzzles that can be accessed at any time through "Layton's Trunk". These puzzles generally require the player to complete specific puzzles in the game to receive items to use within the meta puzzle; for example, The Curious Village gives the player furniture as a reward for some puzzles, which then must be placed within a set of apartments to Layton's and Luke's exacting desires in the meta puzzle; the meta puzzle cannot be solved completely until all the furniture has been collected. Completing the game also opens a number of series of more difficult puzzles to be solved, including one that involves a curiously heavily-locked door that the player may encounter during the game. Until its cancellation in 2014, the games could use the DS Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection features to connect to Nintendo world network and unlock additional puzzles for play for a number of weeks after each game's release.

Setting and characters

The game takes place in and around contemporary London.

Characters

Plot

The only games and media with overarching structure are The Last Specter, The Eternal Diva, The Miracle Mask and The Azran Legacy. Other games and media in the Professor Layton series do not have any overarching structure or direct connection to each other, but do follow a chronological order through the appearance of reoccurring characters met in earlier works.

Main series

Spin-Off

Future entries

Another game, titled Layton 7 (レイトンセブン, Reiton Sebun), has been announced for iOS, Android and Nintendo 3DS, sporting a rather different style from its predecessors. The "7" in the title refers to the number of the playable characters (including a zombie, a taxi driver, and a dog) rather than the number of the installment. Professor Layton himself also makes an appearance in the game.

Level 5 CEO Akihiro Hino confirmed during a livestream in June 2016 that a new entry in the series which he described as legitimate will be shown at the Level 5 Vision 2016. It has been also been confirmed that neither Professor Layton, nor his son Alfendi, is the title character in the game.

Hino has expressed interest in porting the series to Wii U.

Lady Layton: The Millionaire Ariadone's Conspiracy is an upcoming puzzle video game in development by Level-5 for Nintendo 3DS, iOS, and Android. The game is the seventh main entry in the Professor Layton series and follows a new protagonist, Katrielle Layton, who searches for her missing father Professor Hershel Layton. The game is planned to be released in 2017.

Manga

Humour manga intended for child audiences was first serialized in February 2008 in the special edition of Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic. The series has since ended. The title of this manga is Professor Layton and the Cheerful Mystery (レイトン教授とユカイな事件, Reiton-kyōju to yukai na jiken), covering many mysteries in the story. Several chapters are based on the games; most of the others are original stories with little relation to the game canon. The chapters also included puzzles for the readers to solve. The series was collected into four volumes, with the final volumes coming out in June 2012. Tokyopop has released all four volumes in German under the name Professor Layton und seine lustigen Fälle. The series has also been released in Spanish under the name El Professor Layton y sus Divertidos Misterios by Norma Editorial, in French as Professeur Layton et l'étrange enquête by Kazé Manga and in Italian as Il professor Layton e i misteri buffi by Planet Manga.

Feature film

An animation film called Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva was produced by Masakazu Kubo, who is mainly known for producing the Pokémon films, and animated by P.A.Works, the same company that develops the animated cutscenes for the games. It contains an original story, separate from the game series, and taking place after the events of The Last Specter. It has been a general success in both Japan and Singapore where the movie was released. The film was released in the United Kingdom on DVD and Blu-ray Disc by Manga Entertainment on October 18, 2010. Viz Media announced they had licensed the movie at the 2011 anime Expo and released it on DVD in North America on November 8, 2011 A sequel is being made as well as a live action feature.

Novels

Three books based on the Professor Layton series were also made, though they are still in Japan only. They consist of Professor Layton and the Wandering Castle in 2008, Professor Layton and the Phantom Deity in 2009, and Professor Layton and the Illusory Forest in 2010.

Reception

The Professor Layton series has been generally successful in the UK, the US, and Japan. Professor Layton and the Curious Village sold over 700,000 units in Japan in 2007. The game was also the top selling game for the Nintendo DS in the United States in the first three weeks after its release. After it was restocked in the UK, sales of Professor Layton increased 54%, moving it from 10th place to fourth place.

Curious Village received generally positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator Game Rankings, the game had an average score of 86% based on 48 reviews. On Metacritic, the game had an average score of 85/100, based on 57 reviews. The combination of the adventure game and "brain training" Genre(s) received mixed appreciation. Some reviewers praised the game for the successful combination with 1UP commenting on how the game's approach is much better than games where the puzzles were integrated into the environment. Other reviewers felt that these two genres do not merge well within the game; Game Informer noted that while the player is given numerous small puzzles to solve, the mysteries of the main plot are basically solved for the player. The game was noted to have little replay value; once all the puzzles were solved, there was no point in playing through them again. The presentation of the game, including both the general European animation style and cutscene animations, was appreciated by reviewers. Hyper's Darren Wells commends the game for its "clever concept, with plenty to solve and unlock as well as its fantastic presentation". However, he criticizes "some puzzles feeling tacked on and the music can get annoying".

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box was considered to be a major improvement from the original. In Japan, the game has sold 815,369 copies, according to Famitsu, as of July 9, 2008. The UK's Official Nintendo Magazine awarded the game a score of 92% (and consequently their Gold Award medal), praising the increased number of puzzles, animated scenes and voice acting, but complained that it could be slightly repetitive at times. IGN gave the game a score of 8.5 and also their Editor's Choice Award.

The series was popular enough to have a movie called Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva made. It has been released in Japan, Singapore, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, America and Canada. It received positive reviews from the first six countries, but has not yet been talked about in reviews in America and Canada. It was released in the UK on the 18th of October, with a full English Dub.

Nintendo Power listed series mascot Professor Layton as their 10th favorite hero, citing his use of brains over brawn.

The series has gone on to be one of the most successful Nintendo DS exclusive series, with the lifetime cumulative sales of Professor Layton games standing at 10 million units sold as of October 2010. Level-5 reported 11.47 million unit sales worldwide for the franchise ahead of the release of Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask in February 2011, and over 13 million copies sold in March 2012. In August 2013, Level-5 reported 15 million unit sales worldwide, and is also the most successful Level-5 series.