The Professor Layton games are an absolutely stunning example of ??the puzzle genre, with some crime-fighting thrown in for good measure. With the next installment in the series coming in 2025, let?’s take a look back at the previous releases. 

If you want to play all of the Profess??or Layton games, you’re likely wondering whether you should do it chronologically or in order of release. Well, the good news is that either option is entirely open to you. It just depends on ??whether you can handle some differences in gameplay. 

How to play all Professor Layton games in release order

Within the community, it’s commonly believed that this is the preferable way to play through the series of games. Although the story wil?l be a bit disjointed, as the chronological order of the games i?s different from the release order, it can be hard to overcome gameplay differences.

Many of the later games implemented quality-of-life upgrades, whic?h would have made the earlier games much nicer to play, so losing them can make it hard to stomach the older games.

Here’s how to play all of the Professor Layton games in order of release:

How to play all Professor Layton games in chronological order

If you’re able to accept that gameplay might be a little inconsistent, then yo?u can play the games in chronological order. It’s like watching the Star Wars movies in chronological order and having to accept that the older movies, while more recent in the in-universe timeline, have more dated effects. 

Based on the Prime Minister’s speech during the prologue of Unwound Future, the Professor Layton games mostly take place in the 1960s, although the exact time setting for? each game is unknown. 

Here’s the chronological order of all Professor Layton games so far:

1. Professor Layton and the Last Specter
2. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
3. Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy
4. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
5. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
6. Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
7. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
8. Layton Brothers: Mystery Room
9. Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires�Conspiracy

When is the next Professor Layton game going to be released?

Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is set to release on Nintendo Switch at some point during 2025. The events we've yet to see in the upcoming addition to the Layton universe take place one year after the events of Unwound Future, which would place New World of Steam as the eighth game in the chronological order of Layton games.

The post How to play the Professor Layton Games in order appeared first on Destructoid.

HD puzzle solving

Professor Layton and the Curious Village is now available for mobile devices. Just a few weeks after announcing intentions to bring the Japanese HD mobile port West, the game is now available on the App and Google Play stores for $9.99 USD / $11.99 CAD / €9.99 / £7.99. While there doesn't seem to be any new gameplay elements, apparently there are brand new animated cutscenes (a series highlight!). You'll also get the game in HD, which looks wonderful with Layton's crisp artwork.

Here is a trailer to get you excited.

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Like a true Gentlemen

Apple has Tweeted out that Professor Layton and the Curious Village will be heading to the Western app store soon. While not giving any other details, this is likely to be a localization of the Japanese mobile release from earlier in the year. ??Since that port also had an Android release, I wouldn't be too surprised to see it coming to Google's popular OS as we?ll.

As for now, we'll just have to do what the Tweet says and stay tuned. As great as it is to get an HD version of this game in the West, I could definitely g?o for a six-game compilation on Switc?h.

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Excellence in a clamshell

The Nintendo 3DS is gradually bei??ng put out to pasture, now that it's bulkier, flashier half-brother is taking over. We're bidding adieu to a consol??e that had a pretty impressive back catalogue, and dominated the handheld market for a good number of years. 

But what if you're not ready to say goodbye? What if you want to get more use out of the littl??e pocketbook marvel? Or what if you want to get an older console for the first time? Well, the 3DS is backwards compatible with the original DS's games, and if you never tried those ou??t, then you're missing something special.

[F?or where to buy the games/hardware, I've linked to Amazon and eBay sellers, but that's not an endorsement for buying off of these sites – you might find better deals elsewhere.]

Hardware

If you're interested not only in playing your original DS games on your 3DS, but in actually getting some hardware, there are three different versions of the DS that you could purchase: the original DS, the DS Lite and the DSi.

I would recommend the DS Lite, as it is more elegant and compact than the unwieldy original. The DSi comes with an internal camera and very small selection of exclusive games, but is crucially missing the Game Boy Advance slot in the bottom of the console. It's your choice – between messing around with a by-now pretty low-grade camera, or opening yourself up to Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, or Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, just for starters. I would take my pretty white DS Lite any d??ay of the week.

The staples

I got a huge amount of use out of my DS Lite, and I still do today, because some of the more popular titles are replayable, distra??????????????????????????cting fun. One of my favouri?te aspects of the original DS is that the games were so whimsical; I value a game that can completely pull me out of any stress going on in my personal life.

As with a lot of consoles, the titles th??at are popular have earned that position due to their qu?ality. There are six of these titles that I would recommend above any others.

1. Trauma Center: Under the Knife (Atlus, 2005)

This game came out around the time I started watching House, M.D. I'd always been fascinated by medical shows, whether it was catching snippets of ER as my parents watched it (I'm still haunted by the surgeon getting his arm chopped off by helicopter blades), or being warned not to run with scissors after watching a particularly grisly episode of Casualty with my grandma. Theme Hospital is also one of my favourite games of all time, so why not take the action a step further and actually remove lumps of?? tissue from patients' chest cavit?ies? Heck yes!

In Trauma Center, you conduct surgical examinations of patients an?d treat a range of illnesses and injuries that span the mundane to the outright bizarre. Frankly, only Atlus could make draining abscesses with a syringe this compelling. Needless to say, it's not a game for people who flinch at the sight of cartoon pus, but it's hardly a gorefest, either. A sequel was released in Nort?h America and Japan (not an issue for us PALsters, since the DS, aside from DSi games, is region-free), but the original is absolutely worth giving a go first.

2. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo EAD, 2006)

Getting back to the roots, how can you collect for a Ninty console and not buy a legitimate Mario platformer? Not including this one on the list would have raised a few eyebrows, and for good reason. New Super Mario Bros. is probably one of the more definitive entries to the Mario platforming series. It has very few quirks and twists, though it's undeniable that games that ran away with a theme, such as Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy, are some of the best games ever released for their respective consoles. It's just a simple box-headbutting platform game, which was invaluable for those of us who had long since consigned our Game Boys to the car boot sale. I think this and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins are the two entries I would give to someone if I wanted them to have an immersive experience with Mario games in a single afternoon.

3. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (Capcom, 2007)

OK, I get it. Why pick a game from the Ace Attorney series and not go with the real G, Mr Phoenix Wright? Did I not enjoy those games? Did Maya ca??st some sort of befudd??lement hex on me?

No, I am deliberately selecting Apollo Justice above any of the originals, as great as they all are. I remember tearing through the Phoenix Wright games as an activity I did every year, when I went on holiday to Majorca with my family. All of the Ace Attorney games I've played (Justice for All, Trials and Tribulations, and Apollo Justice) have been equal parts taxing and fascinating. But Apollo Justice has the most interesting story, in my opinion.

Seeing a young upstart filling Phoenix's defence attorney big boots spoke to me more than being the loveable oaf, Phoenix, himself. Also, the storyline with Klavier Gavin pipped any of the prior ones to the post. I suppose if you want to understand the story properly, you should start right from the beginning and get the first Ace Attorney game. But if you're not the sort of person who minds jumping into a series halfway through, you will certainly enjoy Apollo Justice as your first entry. You don't have to dig around on eBay for a used DS cartridge, either – it's coming to 3DS via the eShop in November.

4. Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Level-5, 2007)

I'll admit that this is a series I always borrow??ed of??f my sister, rather than buying for myself – and one that even my fairly smart 15-year-old brain had trouble with.

Any riddle aficionado will enjoy playing as the Professor as he investigates...well, a curious village, accompanied by his impossibly young assistant, Luke (Layton can expect truancy fines and court summons through his letterbox any time now). You hop from villager to villager, solving the puzzles that they are agonising over, some of which still leave me scratching my noggin. Rather than starting with the most recent iOS release, this is one series where I would advise going back to where it all began, simply because the conundrums have always been flawless. And you'll want to try every single one of them, once you've experienced the Curious Village.

5. Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo EAD, 2005)

This title isn't actually the origins of the series. In this case, there had already been an Animal Crossing title released worldwide for the GameCube, simply called Animal Crossing. Confused yet? Still, I feel like the marriage between Animal Crossing and handheld consoles is an indefatigable one, so yo??u o?we it to yourself to pick up the first pocket version of the game.

You probably know the drill with Animal Crossing: get into fights with bees, rid the landscape of all sustenance, put up with your neighbours' incessant nagging? and become an indentured servant. No, but seriously, you plod around your little town, interacting with a number of delightful animals living in nearby shacks, building collections and making your abode beautiful.

If you already have the 3DS release, New Leaf, I would still advise getting Wild World, to see all of its little individual quirks. As with all original DS games, you will have to accept that the online functions are no longer functional. But, regardless, you can have hours of aimless fun in your own little town with Wild World, all while failing to socialise with your real-life neighbours! As it s?hould be.

6. Picross DS (Jupiter Corporation, 2007)

This is a very special entry to the list for me, because it's a game I still play on a regular basis. I became interested?? in on-paper logic puzzles at a very young age, ever since my grandma used to let me try out old puzzle books she hadn't finished. These books always contained a couple of nonograms, and as I got older, I started buying books with just nonograms in. My own rule was always that if I screwed up, that specific puzzle was a wash, because an eraser usually couldn't get rid of the markings 100% and the grid would become impossibly muddy if I tried to start afresh.

Imagine my joy when I released, in 2017 (oh dear, Charlotte), that nonograms had actually clawed their way onto a handheld! Suddenly, I could undo my shoddy work and try the same grid over and over again. It was an amazing discovery for me, and I snapped up a Picross DS cartridge for a handful of coins.

Picross DS is made all the more enticing by the fact that there are theme categories, various difficulty options ??and mini-games, and th?e more you play, the more puzzles you unlock. I have spent hours in bed watching Netflix and tucking into a nonogram or ten, and I can guarantee that if you love picture-based puzzles, you will love picross, too.

Honourable mentions

I admit that everything I've included so far isn't very obscure. But if you're in the market for some cult classics, the DS also has plenty to offer in this regard. Elite Beat Agents is an unmissable rhythm game, if you haven't got your fill of the genre after the fairly recent Parappa the Rapper Remastered release. The World Ends With You combines RPG elements an?d hip-hop, while remaining effortlessly cool.

If you want to do something more gruesome with your DS (not an invitation for photos), Resident Evil: Deadly Silence is a commendable port of the game that christened survival horror, with a few of its own neat additions. If you want rock-hard dungeon-crawling, it might be worth keeping an eye out for Etrian Odyssey and its sequel on eBay. For some broodier detective work, check out Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and Flower, Sun and Rain. The graphics for the DS port of the latter are eye-bleedingly awful??, but most Suda51 games are work a peek, at lea?st for curiosity's sake.

Of course, there are a few more obvious entries I would encourage you to consider, even though they didn't make it onto my "staples" list. The Cooking Mama series is a guilty pleasure, as I find being rewarded for repetitive movements quite soothing; admittedly, since I learnt how to cook for myself in real life, it's lost some of its charm. And whether the Dr. Kawashima's? Brain Training: How?? Old Is Your Brain? games actu?ally make you smarter or not, they do provide a nice level of entertaining challeng?e – plus, you can't go wrong with sudoku.

Which of the original DS games would you recommend to a first-timer? Did you own a DS back in its heyday? If so, what did you think of it? Let me know in the comments down below!

The post A brief buying guide for the original Nintendo DS appeared first on Destructoid.

It will be adapted into a form of cartoon that originated in the East. What is it?

The Professor Layton series is pretty god damned awesome and has always contained an anime style for it's animation. It was one of the first DS games to have full motion video that didn't look like absolute garbage and even resembled Studio Ghibli, so the announcement of it getting an anime adaptati?on isn't all that surprising. The news comes from Level 5-abby, a subsidiary of Level-5 and Dentsu Inc.

The series will feature 26 episodes (the perfect length) and will star good ol' Hershel and Luke on many wacky adventures. If each episode doesn't tug at the heart strings and change your perception of life, then it will fail to live up to any of the games in the series. There isn't a firm date for airing, ??but the series should be ready sometime next year.

This new show comes from an initiative by Level-5 to expand the Layton series into a "variety of content" that includes "animated products" and even a new game (that isn't Layton's Mystery Journey)! Maybe we'll see a Layton themed escape room or murder mystery train tour! That? would be fun.

I really love the Professor Layton series and I'm a casual fan of anime, so I'm definitely all for combining the two and making something cool. I even enjoyed the anime film from 2009, Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva. Whether or not you've seen it or?? liked it, that stands as the best film based on a video game for not only being half-way decent, but also accurately capturing the essence of the series it was based on. I could have done without all the ?fan service, though.

Licensing Magazine: Professor Layton TV Series in Development [Anime News Network]

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PROFESSAH!

Professor Layton is a god! The dude is calm under duress, always witty and willing to help those in need of obtuse puzzle solutions. He does it all and looks dapper while doing it. I?t seems, though, that Level-5 can't quite figure out how to bring the Professor's English charm to the Switch, as noted in an interview they gave with Eurogamer.

When questioning series producer Akihiro Hino on the possibility of Layton coming to Nintendo's hybrid console, Hino stated, "I played Zelda. I love the Switch. I think it's amazing hardware. The problem is, the Layton series does a ?lot with the touchscreen and pointing. So, the problem with the Switch is, if you play on handheld you can do it, but if you put it on the dock... we're trying to figure out how that would play into it."

While the easy solution would be to go the route of Voez and make it tabl??et only, it looks like Level-5 doesn't want to lock anybody out of enjoying the random ass puzzles that Layton always seems to encounter. Seriously, why does literally everyone in those games have their nose buried in some kind of quandary?

My suggestion would be to utilize the motion controls of the joy-con, seeing as how they can sort of replicate touching a screen. It isn't exactly the same, but it also means you don't have to create multiple solutions to a single puzzle for player specific needs. I think it would also work wonders with Layton, which doesn't feature touch sensitive puzzles so much as jus??t shifting things around.

Hino concluded with, "If we can get around that and figure out a way of doing it, definitely we're looking into putting the next Layton onto?? the Switch," so at least all? hope isn't lost.

Level-5 is trying to make a Layton game work on Nintendo Switch [Eurogamer]

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We know the Layton series is a moneymaker -- the first four DS games have shipped over 11 million units globally. Nonetheless, every time one of the games hits a milestone, I feel like throwing a? party.

Just this morning, Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino tweeted that the original game, Curious Village, had ?crossed one million copies sold in Japan alone. Time to break out the good vintage.

There was no reason for me to post this other than t??hat Layton is a badass. I apolog?ize for nothing.

First Professor Layton Crosses One Million [Andriasang]

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