I have owned all of The Professor Layton games so far and so when this one was released it was a must for me.

For those of you who are not aware of the Professor Layton game sthey are a series of puzzle games which follow Professor Layton and his apprentice Luke as they set out to solve a mystery. In this game the Mystery is the disapperance of scientists and the Prime Minister in London the disappearances are all linked to a time travelling machine which has blown up. When a letter from the future gets to Professor Layton he a Luke set out about solving the mystery of time travel.

The main characters in this game include:

Professor Layton himself he is known for his puzzle solving skills around London and his top hat which in this game causes quite a stir when he and Luke get to the London of the Future where Layton is believed to be running a gang a villans.

Future Luke this is the Luke of the future Professor Layton and Luke are lead to believe he is the one who sent the letter from the future but could he really be Luke 10 years on?

Luke is Professor Laytons younger apprentice also a keen puzzle solver.

Flora is a character from previous Professor Layton games who the Professor and Luke saved.

Barton and Chelmey are the Police Officer and Detective who have also featured in previous games they are investigating the mystery at the same time as Layton and Luke.

This game features 153 puzzles which I learnt on completing the game. Once you have played the game through which took me 13hours the titles will role you then play the The Final puzzle so wait for that. Once you have finished you are then able to go back and revist the game to complete puzzles you have missed. I had completed 129 puzzles when the game came to an end so I have still got a fair few to go.

The puzzles in the game are hidden in various places some are available when you talk to people as you go through. Others are in doors there are a few of these in this game and you need to solve the puzzle in order to open the doors and move on.

You direct the game using your stylus there is a foot print which you press to decide which way to go. The story of the game is easy to follow. Though I did find with this one there was a lot more story than in the other games and this did on occasion get on my nerves as I just wanted to get on with the puzzles. For some of the talking the characters actually talk and the words are displayed and for other parts the characters speech is displayed but a dududud noise is made instead of the speech not really sure why that is but I usually play with the volume off anyway as the music tends to bug me its a repetitive sound over and over again which I find makes it hard to concentrate. There are also mini videos which run which you are not able to skip.

As well as the main game as you go along you can collect stickers and these are to be used in one of the mini games which is hidden in the Professors briefcase which is displayed in the right hand corner. The game takes the form of a story and you put the stickers in the right order to make up the story.

Other mini games include a car game where you use arrows to direct the car to its destination without making it crash I quite like this game its one you can play for a while.

The other mini game is a parrot one and this one I found frustrating as I could not get my head around it. It involves the parrot having a destination to get to and you have so many ropes to make it bounce there when I play the parrot keeps falling off so I stopped because it was making me cross lol. The more you play the parrot game though the more the parrot helps you in the game and he will appear on your screen to indicate where hint coins come from.

Hint coins are coins which can help you with puzzles they are found throughout the game by pressing on the screen they are hidden in light, lamp posts, bushes and cannot be seen so you need to explore each scene to find them and I do find them really useful especially on some puzzles which are really hard. This time round you can use 1 hint coin for 3 normal hints and 2 hint coins for a super hint if you are really struggling. The super hint basically tells you exactly how to solve the puzzle.

The briefcase also contains the Professors journal which shows how far you have come also the myterys you are trying to solve. On this game I found out that if I continue to play my mysterys which I have solved, this is indicated by a solved stamp across them, I was able then to move on to getting a 'whole story' stamp on them when I got father into the game.

The game is made up of Chapters and if you don't find all the puzzles in each chapter they are saved firstly in a flower with a bee and then in a shack as in the previous game. This means you don't loose puzzles. I think that these places can pnly hold a certain amount of puzzles though because when I had finished the game there was only 6 games stored as missed and I am now hunting for the other puzzles I have missed thsi is good however because it adds to my game play. I am still after stickers for my mini games as well.

Overall this is another excellent Professor Layton game I would recommend it for adults as on the adverts I think soem of the puzzles would br tricky for younger children, teenagers I think would be able to cope though. The puzzles consist of mathematical problems, logic problems, skill something for everyone I like the logic ones the best the maths ones I struggle on a bit and here i was grateful for the super hint to help me complete it.


You also have the use of a memo pad this time which is a screen which comes over the puzzle which you can draw on to help you work out the puzzle it is especially useful when trying to solve maze puzzles.

I think the graphics are good for the console they are crisp and clear and I had no problems working out who was who or what was going on.

I give this game 5 stars it has kept me busy for hours well worth the money. The game can be picked up from games stores at around £30. This game is one to play individually so not one for those of you who want a multiplayer game.

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