For fans of the Professor Layton series, it should come as good news that both an anime series as well as a new game will be out in 2018, Level-5 has confirmed. Simon Waldron, senior vice president of marketing and licensing of Level-5 shared further details regarding Level-5’s plans for the future in September’s issue of License Global Magazine.

The new anime will contain 26 episodes, however it isn’t first anime adaption of the series. The previous one was Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva from back in 2009. Additionally, Simon Waldron shared information about Level-5’s plans for its other franchises. For one, we will be seeing a reboot of Inuzuma Eleven titled Inuzuma Eleven: Ares which will feature a retelling of the original story with slight changes. As of now, we do not know what platform the game will be available on, but a Switch release looks likely.

Yo-Kai Watch’s third season will be premiering across North America and Europe in early 2018. Finally, Level-5 had recently launched a brand new IP titled Snack World and they’re looking to bring over the game to the West.

Thanks, Animenewsnetwork.

Inazuma Eleven wasn’t too far behind, selling 6.5 million games in total worldwide for all of its games. Meanwhile, Ni no Kuni for the 3DS (available only in Japan) and Wrath of the White Witch, the PS3 adaptation of the game, managed to sell 1.4 million copies worldwide.

So far so good, though the sales for Ni no Kuni are somewhat sobering, especially considering the hype and positive critical reception the game received when it released in the West. At least Layton still manages to make it rain for Level-5. We’ll see how Wonder Trick fares when it releases in November.

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With Miracle Mask, the first entry on a new platform that prides itself on its visual enhancements, Layton had the first legitimate chance to break out of the established mold and perhaps attempt something slightly more ambitious. But the eponymous gentleman chooses instead to stick to what he knows best, and deliver another great adventure with charming characters, brilliant storytelling, and some of the trickiest mindbenders in the series.

Miracle Mask, of course, plays exactly like every other Layton game in the series. For those still not in the know (and seriously, shame on you if that’s the case), the Layton games are best described as glorified interactive puzzlebooks that you used to have so much fun solving back as a kid. Unlike just about every other puzzle game series that originated on the DS, the Layton games try to give you some context to all the puzzle solving by wrapping them up in neat, genuinely intriguing mystery stories, that the characters try to solve. The puzzles themselves are mechanics representing the characters’ attempt to decipher clues towards the final mystery. Yes, Layton is gaming’s very own Sherlock Holmes.

The stories are almost always exciting and filled with unexpected twists, so that you’re playing the game as much to know what happens next as you are for the puzzles themselves, filled with well developed characters, and all of it told via a distinct, anime like style, well animated, well voiced, well directed, and generally well beyond the quality of story presentation expected in a video game, especially a handheld game.

In that regard, Miracle Mask is no different, as you find Professor Layton and his ‘apprentice’ Luke along with his assistant Emily being called to a town by an old friend to sort the mystery of a Masked Gentleman who is causing problems, and has promised to destroy the town using his mask. Pretty much the standard setup for a Layton story at this point in time, but as always, it comes with its own twists and turns, and the ending is perhaps particularly exciting and unexpected, and unlike so many entries in the franchise, actually appears to make sense. It’s not on par with the best ending of the series (Unwound Future’s heart wrenching conclusion), but it’s pretty much on the right side of the scale.

A great part of the story are the Layton flashbacks, focusing on Layton’s days in high school and clearing up a lot of mysteries about his character. These are great, clearing up so much about everyone’s favorite top hatted Professor, and actually being sweet and entertaining in their own right. The only problem is, there aren’t enough of them. We need more.

The meat of the Layton gameplay are the puzzles, and in that regard, Miracle Mask doesn’t disappoint. The game is packed with all manner of puzzles, with there being a round one hundred and fifty of them available this time. Unlike in Last Specter, the puzzles don’t repeat themselves so much, and are actually very well varied. In fact, I would argue that they are the best of the bunch so far, second only to Unwound Future. If there is any criticism to be leveled at the puzzles, it is only that they don’t utilize 3D all that much. With Layton’s emphasis on puzzles, there was some real scope to have some truly mind bending 3D exclusive puzzles, but the game opts to use 3D for some visual panache in puzzles instead, never making them essential to the solution. Ah well.

The main Layton campaign is meaty enough, and should last you a good dozen hours, after which you can still continue to play the story mode to finish any number of the minigames the game offers, or try and work your way through the unfinished and unsolved puzzles. In addition to that, you also get one free puzzle a day, every day, for a full year as free DLC over Nintendo Network. Now that’s DLC done right.

Again, the only criticism about the post game content is the lack of a full fledged RPG mode that Last Specter offered with London Life. While that is probably an unfair standard to judge all subsequent releases against, it’s not unreasonable- you expect every progressive entry in a series to be better than the last one.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask is ultimately a great game, and a damn fine Layton game. It’s a great debut for the Professor on all new hardware, and ultimately better than last year’s somewhat underwhelming Last Specter. It still doesn’t manage to scale the heights of the original trilogy games, but it comes pretty darn close. Ultimately, it probably stays too safe for its own good, but it sticks to doing what it knows best, and what it knows works. As long as that is fun, it doesn’t matter. Like a true gentleman, the Professor delivers yet again.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo 3DS.

Thanks to Joystiq for the info.

Nintendo has announced release dates for Professor Layton and the Last Spectre for the DS and Tetris: Axis for 3DS in the US region.

Professor Layton and the Last Specter will be releasing on October 17, and will include the bonus Professor Layton’s London Life RPG as a North American exclusive, adding extra hours of gameplay. The game was also available in Japanese copies of The Last Spectre, but you had to beat the game to unlock the bonus game. In the North American release, the game will be unlocked from the get go.

Tetris: Axis will be released on the 3DS on October 7. It’ll be released with features like 8-player wireless MP support, ugmented reality features and more.

Nintendo also announced a new Zelda bundle today, and it looks great.

The third instalment in the Level 5 developed DS exclusive puzzle game series is all set to hit shores earlier than expected, now joining Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days in the list of games to have had their release dates pushed up.

No word was provided as to why the game’s release date was changed, although the sooner we can get our hands on this little bugger, the happier I’ll be.

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is the latest instalment in the multimillion Professor Layton series. It’s gonna be exclusive to the DS, so make sure you get your hands on one, because seriously, this is one game that warrants a playthrough from everybody.

Speaking with Nintendo Power in an interview, the CEO of Level 5 confirmed that the company is looking to expand upon its western footprint by releasing as many titles here in the west as they can. This also includes Professor Layton, which Level 5 is now going to look at publishing by itself, meaning that there’s a slight possibility that we won’t have to wait for years at end for the next title in the DS exclusive puzzle series to release.

That’s all well and good, Level 5. Your games are awesome, so we’d want as many of them as we can get our grubby paws on. Ni no Kuni is just another one of those.

” There is no plans for Wii release. This trilogy comes to a conclusion with Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel, but we will be releasing the first title of the new trilogy, Professor Layton and the Flute of Malevolent Destiny in Japan. The new trilogy will also be based around solving puzzles, but will also include greatly improved bonus modes so I think that players will be able to enjoy the games for even longer.”

I guess that is bad news for Wii onwers.