Video Game / Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy

The sixth game in the Professor Layton series, third in the prequel series. It is also, according to Word of God, the final game in the series to feature Layton himself; though not the last game overall.

Layton receives a letter from professor Desmond Sycamore, who requests his help in solving a mystery he has stumbled upon: the identity of a young girl who was frozen in ice for millions of years but is inexplicably still alive. The girl is the key to solving the mysteries of the ancient Azran civilization, and it becomes clear that Layton and his friends aren't the only ones who are interested in doing so...

A first to the series, instead of remaining in a single locale or two, players are tasked to travel around the world to visit other locations connected to the main plot, all of them holding their fair share of puzzles and mysteries to solve the biggest mystery of the Azran Legacy.

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This game provides examples of:

• 100% Completion: As always, there are curiosities and bits and pieces to find. The reward for completing all the puzzles is a final Episode, in which Layton, Luke, and Emmy reminisce about their adventures in the game and thank the player for everything.
• Advanced Ancient Humans: The Azrans. Curiously, since they're stated to have existed 1 million years ago, they wouldn't technically be humans, at least not anatomically-modern humans, which are the sole surviving subspecies of the Homo genus - every other species of human went extinct during the last ice age, which occurred less than 1 million years ago, so the exact taxonomy of the Azrans is ambiguous.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: The game adds two new playable puzzle solvers to the group: Aurora and Professor Sycamore. Sycamore is later revealed to be Descole, meaning you were actually playing as him again, after his appearance as a disguised Angela in the previous game. You later get to solve puzzles as Descole without any disguises.
• Antiquated Linguistics: Julien. Good heavens. It's not just that he speaks in words of old / but, by habit, he speaks in metered verse!
• And the Adventure Continues: The last scene of the game is like this, showing Layton and Luke heading off to another adventure. It's also a Bookends for the series.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: One of the minigames is completed by making an outfit from clothes you win by solving - mostly frustratingly difficult - puzzles.
• And Your Reward Is Interior Decorating: Most of the rewards for the StreetPass treasure hunt sidequest are decoration items for the Bostonius.
• Aerial Canyon Chase: We get one of these early on in the game. Use your puzzle solving skills to shoot down unmanned drones and missiles!
• Arc Welding: Sycamore goes over the fact that the Golden Garden, Ambrosia, and the Nautilus Chamber, respectively uncovered in Last Specter, Eternal Diva and Miracle Mask, are all examples of Azran civilization. Soon after, another is revealed to be under Lake Kodh.
• Arduous Descent to Terra Firma: Shortly after Leon Bronev escapes from his headquarters in Targent and Professor Sycamore reveals to be Jean Descole in disguise and plans to board the Bostonius and leave them behind, Layton and his friends find themselves stranded atop the building where they confronted Bronev. Luckily, Layton devises a plan to catch up with Descole by using a pterosaur's skeleton as a handglider to perform an emergency landing to the launch pad where the Bostonius is and face Descole in a fencing duel. Luke, Emmy, and Aurora have to make their way back from the original path within the building, but at least they already know how to deal with the dangers present along the way.
• The Atoner: Sage Sheppard sees helping young people find love as his greatest joy and his means of atoning for his complicity with Hoogland's human sacrifices to the Dragonlord.
• Batman Gambit: Descole/Sycamore basically uses this in allowing Layton and crew to travel with him. He knew that Layton would want to solve the puzzle, and used that against him in order to get the key — to try and keep said key out of Targent's hands. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work out, as Targent had a mole in the party.
• Big Bad: The leader of the terrorist organization Targent, and Layton and Descole’s biological father, Leon Bronev.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Azran sanctuary is deactivated, averting the destruction of humanity, but Aurora - the last of the Azran golems - fades away with it, although she remains hopeful that she will see Luke and the Professor again in another life. Bronev is arrested for his crimes, but his humanity has been restored after many years, and while Layton declines Bronev's identity as his birthfather, he hopes that they will meet again, not as father and son, but as friends and fellow archaeologists. Descole and Raymond have escaped yet again, and fly off to new adventures, and Emmy bids a tearful farewell to Layton and Luke, hoping to return when she feels she's earned the right to be the Professor's assistant again. Ultimately, Professor Layton and Luke part ways with many friends and enemies, but they remain as adventurous as ever, and for them, the mysteries are only just beginning...
• Bleak Level: The majority of playable locations display the cheerful, lively atmosphere that is characteristic in the Professor Layton series. But then Layton and company arrive Mosinnia, a bleak city with a twilight sky and alleys approaching ruin in which nearly all adults are suffering from a mysterious disease that has put them to a seemingly-endless sleep, and it's up to the main characters to figure out the cause. Even the music is dreary.
• Book Ends:The last scene after the credits has Layton and Luke driving to St. Mystere, which was the very first scene of The Curious Village.
• But Now I Must Go:
  • Descole doesn't join everyone when the Azran Sanctuary starts to fall apart. He says goodbye to Layton, and is later seen riding off on the Bostonius with Raymond.
  • Emmy pulls this at the very end too after being revealed as a Targent spy, mostly because she wasn't in the original trilogy it seems.
• Can't See a Damn Thing: One of the quests. The truth is that the Chief is simply Blind Without 'Em.
• Call-Back: All over the place, fittingly so for Layton's (the character, not the series) last game.
  • Luke's parents, Clark and Brenda, show up. Clark even helps out!
  • Layton's parents get in a visit as well, thanks to Sycamore.
  • Layton fights Descole with a pipe - just like in Eternal Diva.
  • One of the puzzles references the Ambrosia legend from Eternal Diva, even mentioning the kingdom's beloved queen.
  • Luke's habit of touching fire is brought up twice, once with him hurting himself and another with him resisting.
• Call-Forward:
  • Chelmey and his newly-married wife are seen at the aerodrome, going on their honeymoon together. Interestingly enough, Chelmey cannot be interacted with, and is always looking away or distracted with something, in keeping with Layton meeting him for the first time in "The Curious Village".
  • In Curious Village, one of Layton's responses to a wrong answer is, "frankly, I'm ashamed". Here, that particular response has returned (albeit, in a harsher tone of voice. Ouch to anyone who manages to invoke that response.)
  • Also the ending, where Luke and Layton are shown driving towards the Curious Village.
  • One of the sidequests is a collection game where the player finds stated objects for points. You can trade in the points for prizes. Three of the prizes are hotel room tickets — Curious, Surreal, and Future. The Curious Room shows you a locale that looks vaguely like St. Mystere, and Stachenscarfen speaks to you! The original puzzle music plays as well!
  • The Surreal Suite shows Folsense, and the Future Suite — as its name suggests — is Future London.
  • To catch up with Descole, Layton builds a hang-glider out of a fossil and some fabric. Just like in Professor Layton and the Curious Village. And touching the globe as a tool to use (the way Layton did before) will trigger a puzzle.
  • In one of the final scenes of the game As Emmy is about to leave she bursts into tears and hugs Layton, just like Luke will eventually do at the end of the following trilogy.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • At the Hoogland chapel, a magnet takes away Julien's shovel. At the entrance to the Azran Sanctuary, another one takes away a Targent Mook's gun.
  • The dormis soporis mushrooms from Mosinnia. Sycamore uses them to take out a guard.
• Clark Kenting: It's all but outright stated that Professor Sycamore is not just Jean Descole's latest disguise, but rather his real identity that he spent most of his life as before becoming Descole. Unlike his more elaborate Latex Perfection disguises, Sycamore looks like Descole with the hat, coat and mask removed.
• Close-Knit Community: Most of the places visited by Layton and crew on their adventure. San Grio, in particular, is especially so, given that one of the customs is passing around the "original popono" to other people, to wish them good fortune.
• Collapsing Lair: The Azran Sanctuary becomes this once it has fulfilled its purpose.
• Cosmetic Award: The trophies you get for completing the daily puzzles, which are significant objects and places from throughout the series.
• Crazy-Prepared: Sycamore especially during the part in Targent's HQ. Sleeping smoke bombs!
• Cute Kitten: Keats reappears in this game. Raymond and Keats are shown to have struck up an adorable friendship in one of the episodes found during your adventures.
• Cutscene Boss: Shortly after Professor Sycamore reveals his true identity as Jean Descole, Layton intercepts him and faces him in a fencing duel. This duel is entirely showcased through a cutscene.
• Damsel in Distress: The final numbered chapter has this happen to Aurora, who gets kidnapped by Targent's leader Léon Bronev due to her holding the key to unveil the biggest secret of the Azran civilization.
• Demoted to Extra: Unlike in Miracle Mask where she appears as the retriever of any missed puzzles as well as the keeper of the ones solved, Granny Riddleton only appears once in this game to pass the aforementioned roles to her cat.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: The Nest, a dark city where the headquarters of Targent are located, and it's accessible once all Azran eggs are scooped from various parts in the world. It also includes a Point of No Return. Yet it's not there where the game ends. It ends in a familiar location.
• Dramatic Unmask: This one's a staple of the series. In this case, the reveal that Sycamore is Descole.
• Driven to Suicide: Played straight and then averted as Romilda about to be sacrificed, when given a chance to escape, she refuses to run away, nor die on their terms. She was planning on killing herself to spite the townspeople on how stupid the custom sacrifices were until the heroes discover a Third Option.
• Dungeon Crawling: Despite not bringing back the unique mechanic of dungeon exploration seen in the sixth chapter of Miracle Mask, the game does have its own version of this experience with the final level, Azran Sanctuary, which by default retains the point-and-click gameplay but its puzzles replicate the crawling of the Akbadain Ruins (including the use of buttons and the D-pad to move the characters).
• Empty Piles of Clothing: Invoked by one of the mysteries, which involves young girls from the town of Hoogland being sacrificed to calm down a wind deity. Upon being sacrificed, the girls are said to transform into a breeze, leaving all their clothing behind.
• Endless Winter: Froenborg, due to its geographical location (Tyrol, Austria). It's a town shrouded in snow with a frozen lake and very low temperatures, and it's noted to be in this state during the whole year.
• Enemy Mine: After Bronev opens the door to the Azran sanctuary, kidnaps Aurora, and has Emmy betray Layton, the latter and Descole team up to stop them. Neither of them are happy about it.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Macaw may be loyal to Targent, but he decides to quit after deciding killing people is just too much for him. Robin follows soon afterward.
• Face of a Thug: Old Red is a threatening-looking Canis Major, but he's a big softy at heart.
• Fakin' MacGuffin: One of the Azran Eggs is mysteriously swapped out when it is time to use them. Naturally, the antagonists took it and use it to lure the heroes to their Nest.
• Fangirl: Hannah of the Groskettes is back.
• Feghoot: Professor Sycamore provides one that ends with the punchline "Never judge a buck by its mother." The character he tells the joke to doesn't get it, but takes it on as valuable life advice.
• Filler: The entirety of chapter 4. It takes up half of the game storywise and consists of five sub-chapters, each with their own side-stories that have nothing to do with the overarching plotline.
• Five-Man Band: Layton's team over the course of the game.
  • The Hero: Layton himself, of course.
  • The Lancer: Luke.
  • The Big Guy: Emmy, the strongest, most agile, and generally most physically able member of the team.
  • The Smart Guy: Professor Sycamore, whose knowledge is indispensable throughout the journey.
  • The Heart: Aurora.
• Follow Your Nose: Chief Morel. Although he's Blind Without 'Em, he's been able to walk around just fine by following the scent of the local rafflesias and his wife's meals.
• Frictionless Ice: Two puzzles are based around this concept, where you have to get from point A to point B while dealing with ice that will keep you sliding until you hit a wall (note that this also puts you at the risk of falling into cold water, which will make you fail the puzzle if that happens).
• Fungus Humongous: Played with in Phong Gi, a dense jungle and one of the playable locations. There are many mushrooms that are part of the local wildlife, and the place's name is etymologically derived from fungi; however, the enormous mushroom-like formations are actually man-made buildings where the locale's inhabitants are. Said people, in turn, also have large afros shaped like mushrooms, except for their chieftain Morel, who has been in a dire mood lately (it's believed that he's ill or something, but Layton later discovers that it's because the old man's eyesight has deteriorated, so a new pair of glasses are made to recity that).
• Ghibli Hills: Hoogland is a breezy hilly locale visited in Chapter 4, and is geographically based on the former Transvaal region of South Africa. It's an idyllic town built upon the hills of a grassy mountain where the soon-to-be wives in weddings are offered to a "Dragonlord" as sacrifices, lest them make him angry and cause strong whirlwinds that can potentially destroy the town and the ones living in it. Layton and his friends aim to prevent the sacrifice of a bride they met (Romilda, who is Julien's girlfriend) by finding out the true source of the whirlwinds. After an extensive research, it's revealed that the whirlwinds are produced by a malfunction of Azran machinery.
• Global Airship: Being the only game in the series to take place in multiple locations across the world (instead of one or two like in all other games), it features a zeppelin owned by Professor Sycamore. Its name is the Bostonius, and with it you can not only go back to previous locations and find new puzzles (as well as events unlocked via the news published in the World Times), but also visit and complete the five locations related to the Azran Eggs in any order.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The quest for the Azran eggs. Chapter 4 of the game involves travelling the world to collect five eggs that are segments of an ancient key. Each of the five locations has its own subplot/side-quest in which Layton and his companions must solve a mystery to acquiring the egg.
• Gratuitous French: One of the NPCs at San Grio. In the French dub, it becomes Gratuitous German.
• Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter: Julian, in particular, speaks like he's in a Shakespearean play, even working in a Hamlet reference at one point.
• Gratuitous Spanish: The rest of the NPCs at San Grio.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Descole, surprisingly enough. He even gets to solve puzzles of his own!
• Gusty Glade: Hoogland features lots of windmills, and is apparently prone to tornadoes. The locals don't even seem particularly rattled, despite the destruction they cause. Layton and his friends eventually discover that the tornadoes are caused by a malfunctioning eolic machine of Azran origin.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Double Subverted with Emmy. Emmy was never evil, but she did work for Targent all along, and betrayed Layton and Luke. However, she only did so to try and bring Bronev out of his obsession for the Azran legacy, helped stop the Azran golems, and never did anything irredeemably bad, leading Layton and Luke to forgive her. Though she does leave Layton's side, partially out of guilt, Layton makes it clear that she can stay with him as an assistant if she wants.
  • After realizing how far he went to uncover the Azrans' secrets, how much it cost him (namely his wife and sons), how meaningless his quest turned out to be and the danger he unleashed upon the world by releasing the Azran golems, Bronev is devastated. Helped by a speech from Layton, he helps stop the golems by sacrificing his life, though he is revived. Though Layton still considers the Layton couple his parents, he isn't against the idea of meeting Bronev again as an archeologist, maybe even a friend, after he has served his prison sentence.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Aurora has one of these once her memories return, and attempts to jump off the top of the Targent tower. It's only through Layton's intervention that she finds the courage to make her own future.
  • Layton gets one of these as well when Bronev threatens his mum and dad. Sycamore snaps him out of it.
  • Villainous BSoD: Bronev upon realizing that the Azran Legacy would destroy the world rather than improve it, as he and his late wife had hoped. Layton pulls him out of it.
• Human Popsicle: Aurora, who survived millions of years of being trapped in a giant ice cube. She has a lot of catching up to do after she wakes up.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: As per usual for the series, the confrontation at Targent's HQ is this.
• Jungle Japes: One of the settings the airship flies to during chapter four is a jungle. It combines this setting with Fungus Humongous (not because of the natural mushrooms which are relatively modest in size, but because of the huge mushroom-shaped buildings where people live).
• Lampshade Hanging: Emmy calls out Descole's penchant for destruction and fancy dress in a hilarious moment at Scotland Yard◊. While Descole is standing right next to them!
• Lethal Chef: Larisa. Fish smoothies. Snails in trifle! Yikes!
• Light and Mirrors Puzzle: Returning from Miracle Mask is a series of daily downloadable puzzles where you have to position mirrors so colored rays of light will be reflected a certain number of times before they hit same-colored ghosts.
• Like Father, Like Son: Layton and Bronev in the credits, both teaching about the Azran - Bronev in prison, Layton in Gressenheller.
• MacGyvering: Pretty much standard for the series by now. The Professor constructs a hang-glider out of a fossilized skeleton, fabric, and a few other odds and ends.
• Marathon Level: Chapter 4 is not only the biggest, longest chapter in the game, but also the longest in any game from the Professor Layton series. This is because it takes place in five major locations instead of one, and each place has its own assortment of puzzles, collectibles, and characters, as well as a full-fledged mystery to solve that is tied in some way to the search for the Azran Eggs. To make up for this, the game has only 6 chapters (not counting the epilogue) whereas the other games have any amount between 7 and 13, though it's still one of the longest games alongside Unwound Future and Mystery Journey (and Chapter 4 alone is why).
• Marriage to a God: The remote mountain village of Hoogland traditionally offers up a bride to the Dragonlord, who they believe to be responsible for the destructive whirlwinds that plague the village. The bride is taken to the Dragonlord's chapel and locked inside, where she supposedly transforms into a gentle breeze and temporarily quells the deity's wrath. All that's left behind are Empty Piles of Clothing. Subverted; there's a hidden tunnel that leads from the chapel to the nearby woods. One of the local women secretly brings the brides a change of clothes and helps them escape to pursue a new life elsewhere.
• Metapuzzle: The minigame Dress Up. As with many other special minigames in the series (including the other two available in this very game), it is divided into levels, each one based on the dressing request given to Layton and Luke from a specific female character; the characters in question are Prima (Froenborg), Sonya (Kodh), Brenda (London, also Luke's mother), Amanita (Phong Gi), Miranda (San Grio), Scarlett (Torrido), Beatrix (Hoogland), and Mehri (Mosinnia). However, because satisfying the expectations of the ladies requires meeting specific stats and conditions for each (cuteness, formality, glamour, casual factor, etc.), the player is better off waiting until all requests are available and then working around the liberties and constraints provided by each, to they can know which specific clothing items need to be given to each girl or woman. And in turn said items are obtained as rewards by solving individual puzzles that appear over the course of the game, thus making it a threefold meta-puzzle.
• The Mole:
  • Emmy. It turns out she had been reporting Layton's progress on discovering the Azran legacies.
  • Bloom is also exposed as a mole for Targent, although the previous game made it clear.
• Mole in Charge: DI Bloom. Eventually, this is puzzled out by Layton, who confronts him.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: The game's second puzzle. Prima's friend sent her a gift inside a block of ice, with a card saying that "you can use five 150 ml cups of hot water to melt 30 g of ice" and that she'd need to work out how many cups she'd need to melt the 2kg block of ice encasing her gift. The answer: 0. Prima just needs to stick it in front of her fireplace. The image displayed during the puzzle does indeed display a fireplace in the background, but the puzzle puts itself as a simple word based mathematics puzzle, meaning that most players just pay attention to the text and take the image as just being there for the sake of flavor.
• Mystical Waif: Aurora. By a sheer act of getting mad, she blows out the antagonist's engines. And then faints.
• Nostalgia Level: One of the playable locations is London, which previously served as the main setting of Unwound Future, though its exposure is more limited due to the bigger prominence of the other areas (and London only being relevant gameplay-wise during Chapter 3).
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Layton pulls this early on in the game to get past some mooks.
• Opening the Sandbox: After Layton and company venture through Froenborg, Kodh and London (in that order) to investigate the mystery of the Azran civilization, while also dodging Targent's clutches more than once (and, in the process, exposing Detective Bloom as The Mole near the end of Chapter 3), they begin the quest for the Azran eggs across the world to unveil the ultimate secret of the aforementioned civilization. Thus, during Chapter 4, a whopping five major locations are unlocked and they can be visited in any order; and as they're cleared, new content is unlocked in the aforementioned three initial areas as well.
• The Phoenix: Mosinnia's motif and town mythology are based around this.
• Point of No Return: Bronev's office at the top of Targent's HQ. The game warns you that you won't be able to travel wherever you want after you pass this point, though. It's eventually subverted when you beat the game, after which you can exit the last room of the Azran sanctuary, allowing you to travel throughout the world as if you hadn't beaten chapter 5 (Complete with Sycamore, Emmy and Aurora in your party). You can go back to the last room to finish the main quest again, of course.
• Port Town: San Grio, one of the main destinations visited in Chapter 4. It's a lively coastal town where many Poponos are sold and (as part of a celebration) exchanged between travelers and citizens alike. This turns out to be a problem for Layton and his friends, because the Poponos are identical in appearance to the Azran Eggs and one of them happens to be a real one, so the overarching challenge lies in figuring out who has it so it can be retrieved. The town also has a luxurious hotel where the characters can spend a night in certain rooms and have dreams that foreshadow events from the first three games (which chronologically happen after this one), though accessing them requires purchasing suite tickets with Play Coins.
• Precocious Crush: Luke and Aurora, who gradually grow fonder of each other. It doesn't last, due to the latter's Heroic Sacrifice.
• Product Delivery Ordeal: The 50th puzzle revolves around a young forest boy who is carrying a wooden wheelbarrow stocked with the apples he gathered to take them home. The problem is that he gets lost, but some forest animals are willing to give him directions to exit the forest in exchange for feeding them with apples. Each animal guides him a number of squares on the way, but no two animals from the same species in a row can guide him, nor can there be any animal in the tiles with bare trees, so the player has to figure out the exact sequence of animal placements. Unfortunately for the boy, by the time he returns home, he realizes that he spent all apples on the animals who took him out of the forest, thus making his quest for food a futile one.
• Promoted to Playable: At one point during the endgame, you solve some navigation puzzles as Jean Descole. Though by that point this trope has been more spot-on when you factor in his tenure as Professor Sycamore (with whom you solved even more puzzles beforehand.
• Pun:
  • A village in the jungle in which the buildings are shaped like mushrooms, is named "Phong Gi".
  • Also, the name for the glue snail is "glutinus maxiumus".
  • Then there's a mushroom name: "Ommis Nommis". Doubles as a shout out to the internet meme.
  • Professor Sycamore's jokes, which are lame enough to make people stop laughing.
• Pungeon Master: Raymond, of all people! (Much to Sycamore's chagrin.)
• Regretful Traitor: After Emmy reveals that she's been The Mole for Targent the entire time, she expresses regret at having been so. After she's been forgiven, she resigns as Layton's assistant, feeling ashamed and unworthy to fill such a role anymore.
• Running Gag: Luke, Emmy, and Layton looking in the mirror.
• Retail Therapy:
  • Courtesy of Emmy, Aurora gets some of this, complete with a cutscene of them shopping for clothes, and then Emmy prompting Layton and Luke for their opinions. Crosses over with The Makeover as it's a means of helping Aurora to create a disguise.
  • Luke gets a little of this in the end credits as well, courtesy of his parents. He gets his outfit from Curious Village, to be precise.
• Robot War: This was what brought down the Azran civilization- they built golems that were as intelligent as people, but only treated them as tools, causing them to rebel.
• Saved by Canon: The scene where Emmy, Luke, Bronev, Layton and Descole sacrifice themselves loses much of its suspense by the fact that Azran Legacy is a prequel, meaning that at least Luke and Layton have to survive.
• Schizo Tech: Over the course of the story, Layton and his friends investigate an ancient civilization that was capable of creating all sorts of marvelous inventions (some of which were seen sporadically in the previous games of the prequel trilogy). This includes a large army of destructive robots which activate when Aurora (who is revealed to be an Azran Emissary) is forced to awaken them in the last chapter.
• Series Finale: Double subverted. This isn't the final game in the series, but it is Layton's final game. Crosses over into Zigzagged territory when you consider it's only the 3rd out of 6 games chronologically and thus is technically not the finale.
• Sequel Hook: Subverted; the game ends with Layton and Luke heading off on a new adventure, but it's not actually a new one- it's The Curious Village, the series' first game.
• Scenery Gorn:
  • Verges on this in Chapter 2, set in the town of Kodh. It's quite a bleak place, really — seems kind of run down and a bit shabby.
  • The Nest also counts as this.
• Scenery Porn: The entire game, though some locations like San Grio stand out even more.
• She's a Man in Japan: Hazel, the adorable yellow squirrel that helps the player find Hint Coins and provides the Nutty Roller minigame, is male in the Italian version.
• Shout-Out: Hoogland has the couple of Romilda and Julien.
• Significant Anagram: One of the regions Layton and his friends have to visit in order to gather the Azran eggs is Mosinnia, where a mysterious event has caused all adults to fall asleep indefinitely. After the mystery behind the event is solved, the adults wake up, but since many of them had fallen asleep for a whole week, they're having a difficult time sleeping once again. Tellingly, the name of the town is an anagram for insomnia.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Descole and Layton, to stop Bronev. Luke gives Descole all kinds of heck over this, causing Layton to scold him.
• Thirsty Desert: Torrido is a town located in one of these. It has a Wild West theme and feel to it, and standing in for the usual "criminal cowboy" lurking around is a large, leonine specimen that is actually revealed to be gentle (it is said to be looking for a girl Layton and company meet early on, but it turns out it's looking for that girl's grandmother, who looked identical to her back during her youth and had befriended the creature back then).
• Taking the Bullet: Descole, for Luke, when one of the laser-shooting statues reactivates.
• That Man Is Dead: The spirit of the trope is invoked by Layton in the ending, who learns that his real name is Theodore Bronev. Layton says that Hershel Layton is the only name he needs.
• That Reminds Me of a Song: Once again, some of the puzzles can come completely out of left field. For example, a woman in Hoogland gets angry with you and bluntly asks you to leave... after you complete a puzzle.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Aurora's a golem.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Hoogland, of all places. Young girls are regularly "wed" to a wind deity to calm down the strong winds it can create. And by "wed", we mean sacrificed,
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The dress-up puzzles. All of the people you need to help have certain requirements for their outfits, such as its attributes, colors and other things. If you meet all those requirements, however, the person may tell you that a certain piece of clothing isn't quite what they had in mind (albeit with a hint as to what they're thinking about), so you have to switch out the clothes until you get the right combination.
• Unexplained Recovery: The final chapters of the game heavily imply that Descole dies, but it's later revealed to be only a Disney Death.
• Universal Eyeglasses: One of the side trips in chapter four is solved by giving the village chief a pair of glasses that the professor made out of some crystals. Nobody even asks the chief if his vision is bad.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Azran Sanctuary, where the ultimate piece of Azran technology lays dormant. It is discovered after the power of the Azran eggs is awakened in the Nest (the headquarters of Targent), and is located in Froenborg, Where It All Began.

• Virgin Sacrifice: Hoogland's ritual of marrying young women to the Dragonlord to calm the fierce winds that blow through the town is basically this. Layton later discovers that the "Dragonlord" is actually a malfunctioning Azran Weather-Control Machine, and a local woman has been using an old network of tunnels to sneak the sacrificed girls out of town.
• Weather-Control Machine: The source of Hoogland's problems.
• Wham Episode: Starting from the end of Chapter 5, the game has no less than the biggest whams in the prequel trilogy, if not the entire series: Emmy was The Mole for Targent all along, monitoring Layton and Luke's progress. Descole is Layton's brother, "Hershel" is his real name, which he gave to his brother when the Laytons came to adopt him, and their father is Leon Bronev, the leader of Targent. Holy shit.
• Wham Line:
  • "Professor, handover the keystone." Said by Emmy.
  • Descole tells Professor Layton the tale of two little brothers that had to be separated and in three lines, we learn...
  Older brother: Don't be silly. You'll be living with the Layton family now.
  Younger brother: But Hershel, I want to stay with you!
  Older brother: Don't call me that! From now on it's your name now.
  • One of Bronev's last lines is to tell Professor Layton that his real name is Theodore Bronev.
• Wham Shot: The Azran ruins prevent weapons from being used and Bronev is cornered. But why is he smiling? Because Emmy just placed a crystal shiv at Luke's throat!
• What Happened to the Mouse?: At one point in chapter 4 Professor Sycamore casually mentions that he once had a daughter, but she died several years ago. Emmy, like everyone playing the game, is utterly shocked by this. It never gets mentioned again in the plot.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Azran civilization's downfall was a result of creating a race of golems, and forcing them to do manual labor despite them having emotions, resulting in them rising up and killing them. When they awaken and start to destroy humanity, Layton and company's only means of stopping them results in them falling to earth and breaking them; they show relatively little reaction, although they had no other means of stopping them.
• World Tour: Layton travels around the world to visit locations connected to the mysteries of the ancient Azran civilization, all of them holding their fair share of puzzles to solve.
• Zeppelins from Another World: You can see a huge airship flying in the background in the game, in much the same way a plane would.

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