Next Professor Layton doffs hat Sept. 12

The day after Square Enix moved up the launch of Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, Nintendo has revealed one of its higher-profile handheld releases will also arrive a bit earlier than expected.

This morning, the game giant announced that that Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, the third installment in the popular DS puzzle series, will launch in North America on September 12. The game had previously been slated to ship out on September 20 and was originally released in Japan in November 2008 as Layton Kyouju to Saigo no Jikan Ryokou. (See video below.)

As outlined in GameSpot's hands-on preview from the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the game sees the titular top-hatted academic and his faithful boy sidekick Luke investigate another puzzle-packed mystery.

This particular caper begins when Luke receives a letter from his future self and the pair head off to London to see the unveiling of a time machine. Naturally, the presentation goes horribly wrong, and the pair must follow a trail of clues left by Luke's future incarnation to see where it all leads.