'Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights' is the sincerest form of flattery

Konami first entered the "games that strongly remind us of Professor Layton" genre this year with Zac and Ombra: Amusement Park of Illusion. The company continues to make new strides in the field of making games that look a lot like Level-5 made them with Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights for 3DS, which will be released in Japan this spring.

Dr. Jean-Pierre Lautrec, a top-hatted archaeologist at the Museum of Natural History, and his intern Sophie travel around Paris, solving puzzles and attempting to follow a mysterious treasure map. Unlike the Layton titles, Konami's game doesn't appear to be all puzzles. Exploration is carried out from an isometric view and the characters have some form of RPG stats. Also, unlike Layton, Lautrec has a totally commanding 'stache.