Professor Layton and the Last Specter

After the original trilogy was concluded, Professor Layton and the Last Specter is instead a prequel, covering the first meeting between Layton and his two new assistants: Luke and Emmy. It included a prototype of Level-5 and Brownie Brown’s life-sim "Fantasy Life", under the name “London Life”, which was cut from the European release to salvage it.

London Life Minigame
Fantasy Life is a life-sim game co-developed by Brownie Brown and Level-5. After its DS version, which had a sprite art heavily reminiscent of Mother 3, was canceled (a 3D polygonal 3DS version was released in December 2012), its assets were reworked as a bonus mode for Layton 4, with completely different gameplay and controls from the usual Layton games. It featured cameos from other Layton games, but was unfortunately extremely repetitive.



It can be accessed from the main menu, from a fourth option, much like the bonus chapter from Layton 2 JP version. While the JP version had it unlocked when the main story is cleared, the US version had it available from the start. Its files were completely removed from all European versions, including the UK version, in order to prevent a futile delay. The button in the in-game menu to access London Life was dummied-out from the EU versions as well.

Japanese Fish Minigame
Not unlike the Parrot game from the third game, the Fish minigame got completely changed in the localized versions. Granted, it was untranslatable: the Japanese version required you to get specific words by feeding other words to fish so that they “alter” them in different manners.



In the US/EU versions, the fish are moving diagonally, reflecting at walls and bubbles placed by the player, where you are required to make their move pattern cross all the coins placed in the level.

Changed For Europe
Only the Puzzle No. 006 got slightly changed: You still have to reassemble the broken nameplate like in the US version, but instead of forming the word “POST”, you must form in the UK version the number “1234”.

Of course there is the fact that most puzzle titles and instructions have been rewritten, on par with the earlier games in the series.

Anti-Piracy
Professor Layton 4 had a different copy protection system than usual... Instead of resorting to a white screen on boot-up like with the previous games, the game would proceed normally. That is, until you get to the first puzzle. If you tap "Submit", you get Luke animation, then regardless of whether you are correct or not, the puzzle restarts with no picarats lost, looping endlessly.