ShockingAlberto said:
A lot of puzzles have to be changed/created.
It is surprisingly difficult.
That's just a bullshit excuse really. There's a much more realistic reason why it's taking so "long" and while most people here won't like to hear the answer, I think it would be retarded if Nintendo decided to speed up the releases just to please us.
Firstly Layton 1 launched late, but it met with massive success in both the US and Europe. It's a long selling game with some serious legs. Most of the people buying it don't know about the Japanese releases and they don't read up on Japanese release updates and go "whoa shit we are 3 games behind!" or whatever. They're just content with whatever comes out. Hence it makes no sense for Nintendo to cannibalize their own sales by releasing the next Layton say 6 months from now, if Layton 2 is still selling well.
Secondly, Level 5 has rapidly expanded over the last few years, and they are handling a shitload of projects. Not only are they making a ton of self-published titles in Japan, but they also have to aid with the localization of every game that will eventually arrive overseas. Since their primary business is developing and publishing games for the Japanese market, that's where the bulk of their manpower will go to. This means they are sort of constrained when it comes to localization work. If you notice, White Knight Chronicles isn't out in the US either. Having to wait about a year or more for a Level 5 title to be localized is not entirely unusual. It sucks that people have to wait, but Japan is still their priority.