But then 2023 came along and things started to change. Out of the blue, Level-5 popped up at the February Nintendo Direct Showcase with announcements for Layton, DECAPOLICE, and a brand new Fantasy Life game. Soon after, a Vision Showcase revealed that all of these games (including Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road) would be receiving a global release between 2023 and 2024.

But how would Layton work on the Switch? And is the Switch really the place for DS games of old? Fortunately, we’ve seen plenty of these make the jump to the console in Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection, Dementium and Might & Magic. DS games are here to stay, clearly, and even if the control scheme needs to be slightly adapted for the Switch, these tweaks are more than possible. So, what about Layton?

Layton is a series that makes use of touch controls more than most (character movement, puzzle-solving and searching for Hint Coins are all done with the bottom screen) but let’s not pretend that the Switch doesn’t have touch functionality of its own. Plus, from Miracle Mask onwards, the series has tweaked the controls to be much more analogue stick-friendly with its scroll-and-tap approach to scanning the environment.

With the change in the console, the need for two screens also needed to be adapted. The original trilogy displays puzzle instructions up top, while the puzzle itself sits on the bottom. This was substituted for a touchscreen-only approach in the 3DS games which, while we felt it provided an unnecessary extra step, undoubtedly bypassed the need for more than one screen. Of course, all of this was put into practice when the original trilogy was brought to iOS and Android between 2018 and 2020. This is all the evidence we need to prove the series could be played on a single screen.

Looking at all of these clues, a Layton collection on Switch feels like a no-brainer. We’re not asking for all six titles to come bundled in one neat package (surely no mean feat given how beefy some of the later games are), but perhaps two separate bundles á la Ace Attorney could be the best way to split the prequels from the sequels.

Level-5 will be hosting its second Vision Showcase of the year on 29th November 2023, where it has promised to reveal the latest info on Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. It would be a long shot to hope that this singular presentation could contain a hint of a Switch collection too, but is that going to stop us from keeping our fingers crossed? No way.