It's story and addicting puzzles will make you want to come back for more, in the thrid installment in the series

User Rating: 9.5 | Layton Kyouju to Saigo no Jikan Ryokou DS
After completing Porfessor Layton and the Pandora's Box, really wanted to play Lost Future which is the thrid and final chapter in the Layton series. The series however have been pretty intriguing for it's well written story, charming anime charcters and addicting puzzles.

The main story plot for Lost Future is set in London where Layton and his apprentice Luke are invited to see a presentation on a machine which is actully infact a Time Machine and a strange letter was sent from the Future. During the presentation the experiment goes totally wrong, Layton and Luke investigate on what happend before and after the Time Machine exploded. The strangest part of the whole story is when Layton and Luke step foot in a clock shop and seem to go 10 years forward into the Future. It's up to them to solve the case and find out who's really behind this whole mess.

Gameplay: Gameplay: Plays just like the last two game where you'll be solving puzzles throughout the entire game and chatting to people to find clues. It does feel more of a point and click game when you are heading to where you need to go or by tapping the arrow button where to go next. Each puzzle you'll have the question/riddle on top of the screen and the bottom touch screen for solving puzzles by writing the answer down or tapping on the answer you think is right.

Each puzzle you'll get picarats which are like points which can unlock various stuff on Bonuses the more you have the likely you'll unlock the extras. But however if you fail to guess correctly for each puzzle the picarats will decrease but if you have trouble solving a puzzle you can come back to it any time. Throughout the main story half of your adventure exploring the city of London in the future and in the present-day world of London.

There are hint coins which can be used to spend on giving you hints on how to solve the puzzle straight away but some hints on certain puzzles don't really give you any help at all. Another thing that may annoy a few DS owners out there or anyone new to gaming that if you are writing a number down it might not recognise your handwriting. Some puzzle's you'll be using Memo quite a lot for taking notes down for various puzzles which might be handy if your stuck on a puzzle.

Graphics and Sound: Nothing has really changed much since the second Layton game, the animated cutscenes and visuals are still pretty impressive and stunning to look at. Its characters are also cute and charming making most of the characters look like something out of an old British cartoon but with a mix of Japanese Anime putted together.

Its environments make another good impression for setting London in the moderen-present day world and 10 years in the Future both have great settings and city environments. Most fans would say that series reminds them of an old cartoon back in the 60's and 70's but its animation makes a great impression for the game.

For those who did play the last two Layton game you've still got the same English voice actors who played Layton and Luke, some of the new characters you meet in the game do a nice job too. You've still got the same text-dialog when speaking to any of the local people or getting through the main story, so there's much voicing but lots of dialog. Soundtrack does a nice job too making you more focused on its puzzle and hearing a few odd tunes once again making it feel you welcome back to the series.

Overall: More than 165 puzzles to solve you'll be coming back to this game a lot which can be quite addictive; there were times I wanted to keep coming back for more. Not only that there are also puzzles which you can download from the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, there are a few mini games from collecting stickers from various puzzles and placing them in a Picture Story book. The Toy Car would have to be my favourite where you place arrows and other tiles onto the course n order to take the toy car from the start to the goal. Also The Parrot is another mini-game where you help your parrot make deliveries by creating perches out of rope getting from one side to the other side.

I'll admit that Lost Future was highly addicitive and didn't want to put the game down at all. Its story and puzzles made me come back for more and more, it's not often we get really good DS games as good as this one.