L ike classic Disney, you don't approach the Professor Layton games expecting any great innovation, merely another cracking storyline told with skill and style.
The Lost Future sticks to this principle, tweaking small elements to improve them, but otherwise sticking to the usual point-and-click gameplay. The plot concerns a letter received by Layton and his young ward, Luke, apparently from the latter's's future self, and quickly develops into an intricate adventure filled with steam-punk inventions, amusing dialogue, static but beautiful hand-drawn locations and wide-eyed, snub-nosed characters reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki.
As always, gameplay involves using the stylus to move around locations, examining objects and prodding characters to reveal further clues, details or hint-coins which provide the puzzle-solving currency that all Layton games use.
With about puzzles to be solved, you'll be needing these whenever you get bogged down, particularly as there are now additional hidden puzzles revealed by listening out for unusual sounds or scouring the screen for concealed details.
By and large puzzles still fall into familiar categories, from unravelling tangled words to number or picture slides — and while these can be occasionally cryptic, they won't cause adventure fans any great difficulty. As in previous games, there's a gesture to casual gamers in the form of three new mini-games; none are essential to the overall game, but all unlock extra content if completed.
