The English-speaking audience has a huge fanbase for Professor Layton and his lovable, whimsical adventures of mystery and intrigue. Unfortunately for us, however, the western releases of these games are often delayed, even to the point of coming out two years after the original Japanese launch.

Such is the case with Layton's fourth game - Professor Layton and the Last Specter. This game marked the first of a prequel trilogy known in Japan as "season two," telling the story of how the professor first met his friend Luke. It also features a large cast of secondary characters who, despite being set three years before the previous games, were not seen until now.

Amazingly, this game also came packed in with an RPG set in Layton's world known as London Life, in which players could create their own avatar and live in London, interacting with characters from the series and exploring new places. The bonus game was toted as being over 100 hours in length, and certainly gave this Layton an unprecedented amount of bonus material for Level-5's series.

Likewise, a fifth installment to the series came in the form of Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle. This game was a launch title alongside the Nintendo 3DS in Japan, and understandably tweaked the existing formula in new directions to take advantage of the capabilities of the 3DS. Characters were also for the first time represented as 3D models in the game, though with cel-shading and polygon outlines to match the traditional Layton art style. Furthermore, the cinematic cut scenes were of course animated in the classic style.

At E3, it's unlikely we'll see any news of a release date for Layton 5 in English any time soon, unless Nintendo plans to skip one of the titles. As the stories follow a sequential order and continually reference events in the other games, this is also unlikely.

Instead, hopes are high that The Last Specter will see some kind of news about a translated release on the horizon.

Similarly, we can hope to see some new information about Layton's other 3DS jaunt - his co-starring role with Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright. Hopefully we can see some info about an English release for this game too.