10 Beautiful Video Game Endings That Made Us Cry

Considered the best in the franchise by fans, Unwound Future - or Lost Future for you Europeans - marks the very first time Layton fans were treated to a glimpse behind the eponymous Professor's stoic facade to the man underneath.

Herschel Layton's fixation on being a True Gentleman, it's revealed, comes from his late girlfriend Claire, a scientist who was experimenting with time travel. On the day of the machine's first real trial run, the machine explodes, killing Claire along with it.

However, the end of the game reveals that Celeste, a woman claiming to be Claire's estranged twin sister, was Claire the whole time. The time machine worked!

In its explosion, Claire was shot forward several years into the future. However, the reason she didn't seek out Herschel all this time is that she discovered the effect to be temporary. She hasn't traveled through time, so much as she's been briefly misplaced from the moment of her death. And it's always been a ticking clock for when the timestream corrects the error.

As her time finally draws to a close, Claire and Layton have one final heart-to-heart. And Layton... breaks. The classy, stoic gentleman refutes all logic and reason, telling Claire that she cannot go; that he cannot go through that again. Claire tells him that she knows he'll be alright. After all, that's what a gentleman does.

Claire rounds a corner and disappears. Leaving Layton holding the top hat she gifted him all those years ago, clutching it to his chest, and quietly sobbing as the snow falls around him.