Improved or expanded on almost every front, the Unwound Future is Professor Layton's greatest adventure yet.
+ truckloads of the usual clever and diverse puzzles that are more addicting than ever
+ an expanded memo function and a refined hint system
+ the most engaging and intricate Layton plot to date, showing the emotional sides of characters
+ generally better voice work and writing
+ bonus content and minigames will keep you coming back for hours after you complete the game
+ beautifully detailed environments and stunning cutscenes
Cons:
- Flora's voice is dreadful
- cinematics aren't always played in ideal spots in the story
- pacing of the adventure is slightly uneven
It's reassuring when a series with the same basic structure stays consistently great for three entries. In this case, you always know what to expect, and you're always satisfied with what each game brings to the table. The Professor Layton series has remained relatively unchanged for several years, but it hasn't lost its quality or charm a single bit. The third installment in the brain-bending series, the Unwound Future, does indeed return everything found in the two previous games with similar excellence, but it actually exceeds being just as good as them. It achieves this by stretching just about every wonderful facet of the series to grand new heights. Though there still isn't a new major innovation, it's not enough of a problem to hold against a game with such a polished and fun formula.
The most impressive improvement belongs to the game's story, which proves to be by far the most complex and captivating tale the series has yet seen. The inquisitive Professor Layton and his enthusiastic apprentice Luke are plunged right into their new befuddling mystery at the opening scene of the game. Layton receives a letter from whom seems to be none other than a future Luke, claiming that London has been brought to turmoil 10 years in the future and can only be disentangled from the perilous predicament with the Professor's assistance. This premise takes Layton and Luke on their most baffling adventure yet, with multiple jaw-dropping plot twists that make the game extremely difficult to put down until the exceptional ending. What makes it stand out from the other Layton games' stories is that it's on a higher emotional level, expertly showing the more personal sides of the characters, especially the Professor himself. However, it still retains the previous games' charming sense of wacky humor, gentlemanly advice, and some absurd-yet-amusing moments.
The story is also told in the same way as its predecessors--through fully voiced, awe-striking cutscenes and text dialogue (that are also occasionally voiced), both of which incorporate better writing than before. A small annoyance, however, is that the cinematics aren't always placed in the pivotal parts of the plot, some of which use text dialogue instead. The more significant problem with the Unwound Future's story, though, is its somewhat jagged pacing. For the most part, the plot develops quite nicely, but right in the middle of the game, your investigation seems to turn into a wild goose chase for a few short hours. There are multiple times during this period when you think some mysteries will be revealed only to find that you need to travel to yet another area before the unveilings. Even so, the tale in the Unwound Future has its many merits and is certainly one to remember.
Progressing through the enigmatic story as you travel from place to place gathering clues works the same way as before with most of the same simple features and techniques. You'll investigate the streets, alleyways, and buildings of London in a point-and-click fashion by the sole use of the touch screen. New are buses and subways that greatly abridge lengthier journeys across town. Your immediate surroundings are shown on the bottom screen, and a map is shown at the top. Talking to residents to gather information (which usually results in puzzle-solving) is as simple as tapping on them with the stylus, as is finding hint coins and hidden puzzles in all the nooks and crannies.
And what would the Professor Layton series be without its awesome puzzles? The 165+ brainteasers in the Unwound Future are uniformly well-designed, and again require you to use all the critical thinking skill you can muster to solve them. While offering a rigorous challenge, they are always surmountable if you have a logical mind to see past the crafty tricks the puzzles use to throw you off. The gargantuan library of puzzles consists of riddles, mazes, math problems, analyzing shapes and other pictures, and mixtures of these categories. With more diversity than ever, you won't come across the same situations and set-ups for puzzles as often as before. Also improved are both the hint system and memo function, which make the various solutions much more accessible while still as devilishly challenging. Predictably, not all the hints are helpful, which has led to some frustrations in the past, but most of them do lead you a step closer to your answer this time around. There's also a super hint worth 2 coins (available after unlocking the 3 normal ones) that you could use if you're really stumped because it almost spells out the solution for you, which takes away the temptation to look up answers online. The memo function introduced in the Diabolical Box that allows you to take notes on the screen has been outfitted with different colors and thickness of lines for organizing your thoughts and an eraser (along with the returning "erase all" option). Rewards for solving these brainteasers include the immense satisfaction of figuring them out, a charming saying from Layton or another character, progressing through the story, earning the usual picarats that are used to unlock bonus content after the game is finished, and items or levels for minigames.
Optional tasks are offered in spades to make sure you have plenty of opportunity to give your brain a workout in multiple ways. The three non-obligatory minigames are just as perplexing as ordinary puzzles and can be played at any time on the adventure. These include a sort of create-your-own picture book with stickers of different objects that affect the stories, drawing platforms for a delivery parrot to reach customers, and setting a track for a toy car. Of course, more rewards are offered upon completion of these distractions, such as the parrot acting as a valuable seeker of hint coins. If you've accumulated a hefty cache of picarats by the end of the story, you can spend them on even more puzzles of insane difficulties and other bonuses.
The stylish presentation the Layton series is known for is shown as brilliantly in the Unwound Future as in the Diabolical Box, providing the pleasant, charming visuals and audio you would expect. The detailed future London is an immersive setting, with cartoony touches and wacky yet appropriate character designs around every corner. And it wouldn't be a true Layton experience without the gorgeous, engrossing cinematics that push the power of the DS to great effect. The voice acting that goes with the cinematics includes the most natural performances from the characters seen in the series. The only exception to this is the girl Flora, who sounds like a terribly raspy five-year-old. The accordion, violin, and piano tunes you'll listen to while traversing from one area to another verify the different ambiances the graphics supply effectively and, thankfully, don't offer the abysmally drab music that the series provided in its first installment.
If you didn't enjoy either of the past entries of the Professor Layton series, the Unwound Future won't be the game for you, seeing as there aren't any changes to the formula. That being said, even though there's little change, there's vast improvement, so established Layton fans will easily come to love the Unwound Future. More brainteasers, a bigger and better story, and every other slight improvement of the others features of the game bring the series to a surprising new altitude. Puzzle aficionados will get the most out of the Unwound Future because of the plentiful and challenging content it offers, but no true gentleman should dream of missing out on Professor Layton's finest outing.
Score: 9.1/10