Puzzles and a Spot of Tea: A Review of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

I ended up buying the first Professor Layton game about the time the first one came out, and staying true to form, ending up playing the second one, the Diabolical Box, just as the Unwound Future was released. This wasn't by any particular design, although it did make my wallet happy.

Armed with the experience of having finished every puzzle in the Curious Village, I was quite happy to return to the world of Layton and Luke. My only reservation was that, having had so many puzzles in the first game, there would be some inevitable overlap; after all, you can only come up with so many puzzles in a base sense, much like there are only so many plots for books. However, I was to be proven wrong, and the sequel to the premiere adventure-puzzle series lives up to the first.

As before, the Prof. and his loyal sidekick come upon a town where everyone is acting very strangely, and again there is a large foreboding building that no one wants to go near. Again you are investigating a murder caused by a strange object, and a number of familiar faces pop up during the course of the adventure. Despite the similarities, the plot still feels decently fresh and then ending is as unexpected as the first time. This game featured even more video segments and a surprising amount of voiced dialogue (for a DS game) leading to an enjoyable experience, especially a sword-fight towards the end. The dialogue was humorous, the characters about as well-fleshed out as the previous venture, and overall I enjoyed the setting and the art style, especially the opening segment on a train.

The included minigames were also a step-up from the original, consisting of taking photos, collecting pieces for a camera, feeding and exercising an overweight gerbil, unlocking pieces to an old diary, and brewing & serving tea. All of them were nice diversions from the main quest. My only complaint here was the tea serving-- the people you had to serve tea to would randomly trigger getting thirsty when you walked into an area, and I actually finished the game before all of them decided they needed a drink. Thus, I spent a considerably portion of time afterwards just going in and out of the many sections of town until the people finally flashed thirsty, which was made only more difficult by the game not telling you who you have and haven't served yet. Besides that minor inconvenience, though, all was good.

And most importantly, naturally, were the puzzles. As I mentioned, a surprising number seemed completely original, whereas the ones that shared similarities to the first game were changed enough to be different. An especially welcome feature that has been added is the ability to trigger a transparent overlay and draw in "memos," which meant my habit of always having a sheet of paper and pen near me while playing was unnecessary. The puzzles went more smoothly this time, although I think the majority of the reason why was I had become accustomed to the frame of mind needed from playing Curious Village all the way through. I certainly still clocked an impressive amount of hours, around 20, which is good for a game of that sort. They also got rid of most of the ridiculous hidden puzzles, and all of the environmentally trigged puzzles have a much bigger "click" area, so I had far fewer unfound puzzles at the end of my adventure.

Overall, Diabolical Box either matched of exceeded the quality of the first Prof. Layton game, and I greatly enjoyed my time with it. If you played the first definitely pick up the second, and if you're looking for a good slow-paced, intellectually stimulating video game, the Layton series is an excellent on, and coming in in the middle is no particular hassle.

-HTMC