Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box is the second game in the first trilogy of Professor Layton games. While the game has been available in Japan for quite a while (along with the 3rd) we’re only just getting it this week. The first game, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, was released last year and is considered among the best DS games by a lot of gamers and press. The premise behind the Layton games is simple, there are several mysteries that Professor Layton, and his sidekick Luke, must solve, and in order to do so need to solve tons of smaller logic puzzles. As you explore the environments and search for clues to the big mystery you’re constantly presented with puzzles that will earn you items to use in bonus games, advance the plot, or just to challenge you.
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box features the same great graphical style, voices and music to tell a really interesting mystery tale. Layton and Luke return as the heroes and are also joined by some familiar faces. This time around, the environments are more varied and there are 150 puzzles within the game to complete. There’s also the standard set of bonus features including more challenging puzzles, free downloadable content, and 2 new mini games.
To give a brief overview of what gameplay is like, Professor Layton plays like a point and click adventure. You use your stylus to investigate areas looking for puzzles or hit coins, or to move to other areas. Hint coins can be redeemed during any puzzle for hints on how to go about solving the puzzle. Each puzzle has 3 hints. When you try to solve a puzzle the stylus has a number of uses depending on the individual puzzle.
There’s a point system called Picarats. You earn a certain number for each puzzle, but if you fail a puzzle the number you get decreases. These points unlock bonus features after the game. You can also input codes from end of Professor Layton and the Curious Village and the upcoming Professor Layton 3 to unlock additional features.
Gameplay remains pretty much the same as the previous Layton game. There’s not much of a change. There are more hot spots with descriptions which are good. Now you can see more about what characters are thinking about the objects you click on objects. Some of the puzzles are more tied to the world and the story, which makes the experience flow a little better too. The puzzles are a bit hit and miss too, most of them are a good balance between fun and challenging, but there are several that just feel like really easy, boring filler puzzles to bloat the total number of puzzles available. At least there’s not many of those.
Like the previous game Diabolical Box also includes some extra puzzles that you can play as you collect the necessary items throughout the world. The 3 in this game are:
1) Exercising the fat hamster!
You obtain an out of shape hamster early in the game and as you collect toys and food for him you can place them on a grid to maximize how far the hamster has to walk to interact with them. The goal is to get the hamster to a more healthy size by making him walk the maximum steps possible.
2) Fixing the broken camera.
You’ll get a busted camera early on as well. Finding all the pieces and putting it back together is the goal. It’s an interesting puzzle because pieces could possibly overlap; making it tougher to know what goes where.
3) Brewing some tea.
In this one you just collect ingredients and using combinations of 3 you try to find all the tea recipes in the game.
There’s not much else I can say about Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. It’s more of the same, which is not a bad thing! These games are really fun, and are an all around fun and entertaining experience. You don’t have to play them in order, aside from a couple of minor references back to the first game you won’t miss much. So I recommend anyone who loves puzzle games or games that make you think to try out this game!
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