Professor Layton and the Unwound Future/Lost in Translation

Like the first two games, Unwound Future has puzzles that consist of riddles playing on Japanese puns. Most of these were replaced entirely in the overseas releases, but some fairly understandable ones were also scrapped.

Other puzzles survived the translation, but got their titles changed in the process along with other small tweaks: while the hiragana letter input method is heavily used in the Japanese version, the localized titles often have you input numbers, rather than the English letter input method, which was completely abandoned in the second game.

Bizarrely, the European version (based on the US one) changed some of the puzzles in turn: All the ones relying on English language, but oddly some other puzzles. The wording is clearer in the EU version, and most puzzle titles, and even some minor NPC names have been changed.

Changed For America


Puzzle No. 003: The US version has a puzzle about which bus has the minimal wait period, which replaced a (crappy) hiragana riddle about "what is the thing that you can't see when you are looking at something else, but you can see it when you close your eyes" (ゆめ, or "dreams", apparently).



Puzzle No. 007. What Time Is the Clock Showing? It is the question in both versions, but while you have to focus on the arrow positions in the US version, the "hour" in the JP version refers instead to the number of letters used for the hour shown on the clock.



Puzzle No. 012: The US version has a "move numbers and symbols to get a valid equation"-type puzzle, based on the assumption that nobody outside Japan understands the concept of "Jan-ken-pon" aka "Rock-Paper-Scissors".

The Japanese variant is "When playing 'that' game with three people, if the sum of your opponents is 2, you should put 0. If it's 4, you put 0; if 5, you put 5; if 7 you put 2; and if 10 you put 2. By now, you should know what 'that' is. Well, if the sum of your opponents is 0, what should you put?"



Puzzle No. 013: While this puzzle involves an obscure Japanese pun, it more or less survived in the US version, where it was reworked as a logical puzzle. The answer and title are even the same! The general idea is to find which of the four pens is working. The hints differ, though:



Puzzle No. 015: The JP version is about moving two matches to find out whether the boxes are hot or cold, which requires only basic English knowledge. In the US version, you are instead asked to count how many piled match boxes there is, based on two perspectives.



Puzzle No. 016: The JP version asks which is the Biggest Shadow on Earth, with the answer being "the shadow of the moon", i.e. the night. The US version has a second variation of the "What day of the week is it?" puzzle.



Puzzle No. 020: This puzzle is literally untranslatable in its original JP incarnation (A Bigger Workplace), but it'd come out to "'My workplace is bigger than yours', he said. With that, the nurse knew the occupation of the person. Answer in 4 hiragana."

It got completely changed to "Making the Rounds" in the US version, where it is instead about which room a doctor will visit in his rounds in a particular order.



Puzzle No. 024: The JP version asks you to complete the missing final letter of a "magical spell". Were it translated to English, the spell would be something of the effect of "YADS RUHT YAD SENDEW YADS EUTY ADNO[?]". The US version instead has a maze to navigate.



Puzzle No. 025: The JP version is a pun-based riddle ("Where is the distorted car heading?") where you have to "distort" the lower part of the kanji for "car" to get "east". Obviously, NoA had to come up with another puzzle: namely, about how much time it takes some travelers to finish their journey on a shared car.



Puzzle No. 027: A puzzle about a card game in the US version, but a riddle in the JP one: "One day a rich person entered that door, and came out poor. Another day, a poor person went in that door and came out rich. But this cannot apply to a penniless person. Where do you think this place is? Answer in 3 katakana (6-letter English word)"



Puzzle No. 036: The JP puzzle is a riddle, namely "If I try to explain to you what it is, it'll appear. Even though it has appeared, you cannot see it." The US version is simply about counting goons while dragging the stylus to light up portions of the screen.



Puzzle No. 044: In the JP game, you have to move one match to help this tormented soul find its way to the toilets, with the help of basic English knowledge. The US version has a more elaborate maze puzzle.



Puzzle No. 051: Typical NoA censorship, which was a bad habit with the Layton series until they gave up on that in the fourth game (such as the "Who’ll drink first the poisoned bottle out of the two?" puzzle of the second game which was heavily censored to remove references to death/poison), but they went the extra mile with this one and replaced it with a "Park the Car" puzzle.

The JP version, "Burton's Case Report", roughly translates to the following:

''There was a woman murdered in apartment. The coroner's report is a follows:

1. The woman had an empty sleeping pill bottle in her left hand..

2. The woman was old on top of her bed..

3. All windows and doors were closed..

4. There was no suicide note..

Now then, was it suicide (A), or murder (B)?''



Puzzle No. 055: The JP version has you decipher a letter about a meeting location (クウコウ), while the US puzzle is the most interesting one, revolving about distributing troublemakers on chairs under specific conditions.



Puzzle No. 056: The JP variant asks you how many hiragana stamps you need to fill in the gaps in a crossword puzzle (with three kanji words, mind you). The US version makes a more sane use of its stamps to complete an equation with numbers.



Puzzle No. 065: The JP version has a board with reversed plates that form a message in Japanese. The US puzzle is a typical "Odd Man Out" puzzle, about five shapes drawn also on a board.



Puzzle No. 078: The JP version has a pet animal nameplate ("七Ｈラ") which indicates what kind of animal it is ("カエル"). The US version asks about the minimum number of hops it takes a rabbit to reach 10m.



Puzzle No. 083: The JP game has a katakana cipher about time to decrypt, while the US version has books to arrange in a specific order.



Puzzle No. 084: The JP version is a bit too easy. "A detective said the following about the criminal: 'I am surprised, but the criminal is someone I know. His father's wife's only son's wife has one only one brother and sister, an older sister. Their mother's grandson's father is me...' What is the relationship between the two?"

The US version asks how much time it takes four detectives to chase the criminal with a leaky boat needing several two-person trips.



Puzzle No. 092: Same plot, but in the JP version you need to locate the gold after decrypting the cipher left by the smugglers, and in the US version you need to cut wood for them in equal pieces.



Puzzle No. 103: The JP puzzle asks for a word, namely "This is a story about four siblings in my family. There is a just-born baby, a kindergarten student, a primary school student, and a high school student. However, a certain criteria about them is in the following decreasing order: high school student, kindergarten student, primary school student, and just-born baby. It doesn't happen in all families, but it isn't rare. What is this criteria?"

The US puzzle has a water pipe maze.



Puzzle No. 106: The JP version says, with the answer being ライオン: "A person went to the zoo, and the number 17 cage was empty, and a sign like the one below had fallen down. A guide in the park saw what happened, and ran away quickly. So what was in the cage?"

The US version instead is about using as few as possible stamps to make a valid equation.



Puzzle No. 117: The JP version has a hard language-related puzzle in which there is a report of a conversation between two persons which have letters of the first person's phrase jumbled with those of the second, requiring you to separate them.

The US version has a puzzle asking you to find an arrow in a huge mess.



Puzzle No. 122: The JP version has you form a password formed by five English letters, while the US version uses a numerical one instead. Granted, 081127 sounds more suitable to put as a code than the silly TOWER one...



Puzzle No. 135: While the US version revolves about labeling weights in order, the JP one has this gem with the answer being ブレーキ:

"I was driving on the main street. A boy riding his bike in front of me stumbled over, and donuts, gloves, and sandals hit the ground in that order. Which was the first thing I stepped on?"



Puzzle No. 143: The JP version has the cardboard shaped as the katakana ヒ ("hi") letter, and asks you to cut it to parts with the same pronunciation: the katakana letter "hi", and the kanji "hi". The US version asks you instead to cut a different cardboard to two geometrically identical pieces.



Puzzle No. 147: The JP version is "The same character should be in the two boxes. What Latin letter is it?", while the US version is about choosing the correct pavements for a garden.



Puzzle No. 149: The JP puzzle is once again a riddle, but a very funny one: "もも (peach) and トマト (tomato) are words that remain the same, read backwards. Write in three letters, a color where this rule applies." The catch here is that it is impossible unless you write it in English letters: "AKA (red)". Moreso, the hand-writing recognition system in the JP version usually defaults to only account for hiragana or katakana and ignore Latin letters, except for this very puzzle.

Ironically, the US version is also about strange symbols, but this time figuring out what number they hide.

Puzzle No. 150: The JP version says, the answer being C: "In a country, in order to protect their queen, they decided to choose a soldier that can reliably protect the queen. However, they all look unreliable." The US version talks instead about two old sisters bragging about their ages which must be calculated.



Puzzle No. 151: A complex mathematical puzzle (for only 15 Picarats!) in the US version, this puzzle is actually referring in the JP version to a trivial discussion between the London's gentleman and his little assistant:

"Luke, look at this card. It says 'MONDAY'. If you reverse all of these cards..." "It became 'LAYTON'!" "Now, if you turn back three of the cards, it becomes the name of something I love. Now, which cards do I flip back?"

Puzzle W034: Cluttered Bag 2: Despite being functional and fully translated in English, this puzzle is never unlocked, which is a shame. Also, most of the JP Wi-Fi puzzles were completely replaced. There are 17 more dummied-out untranslated puzzles, straight from the JP version.

Changed For Europe
Puzzle No. 014: Both versions ask you to find a shop: Only in the US version it is the building on the upper-left corner, but in the UK version it is the one just below it.

Puzzle W027: The US version has “A Trio Of Hearts”. The UK version has “Rendezvous Riddle”, a maze-like puzzle… However, it is on the US version, albeit unused. Triggering it marks it as W028 and adds 1 to the number of all the rest of the normally-available 33 puzzles.

Luke Train Minigame: Train Track 9 and Train Track 10 were completely replaced in the European versions.

Puzzle Battle No. 003: Layton vs. Dimitri: The JP/US versions have the map form the word "LIE", which is replaced in the European versions by "000".