REVIEW ~ Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

 The best observation this detective ever made.

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

I very much enjoyed the first Professor Layton game, so when I heard about the sequel, I was stoked. I expected more of the same - puzzles, mystery, a guy in a huge ass hat - and I wasn't disappointed. Plus there were a few improvements along the way.

(You must excuse my blurry pics - most were taken in a car with an iPhone. I did the best I could. I actually went and retyped the dialogue so it would be easier to read.)


Just like in the previous game, Professor Layton and his "apprentice", Luke, set out to solve a mystery. This time they're trying to find out of this box really killed Layton's mentor. (I will not make a joke... I will not make a joke...) This time they get to explore several different areas and once again meet a slew of colorful characters. Along the way you solve puzzles to move the game along. (There are 138 in the story, but you don't have to solve them all to beat the game.) There are also a few minigames you'll want to complete, but we'll get to that.

You don't have to play the first game to enjoy this one - it will help, because there are several characters that carry over, but if this is your first adventure with the Professor, you will not feel like a kid who starts coming to class in the middle of the semester.

The great thing about the game is the story draws you right in from the beginning and it's hard to put down. Once the Professor and Luke start adding up the mysteries, you won't want to put the game down until "SOLVED" is stamped across all of them. The gameplay operates as it did before - point and click to move and talk to people. It can't possibly be more simple.

Animation, music, voice acting - all great. I wish there was a little more voice acting, but there was a decent amount of cut scenes, and they are limited by the size of a DS cartridge.


The puzzles are pretty diverse. You might be moving blocks or pancakes, filling every piece on a chess board, finding the area of a garden, dividing estate or answering a riddle. You won't get bored with the variation. Once again you'll find hint coins scattered around that you can spend for a clue if you need one. The hints aren't always the best, but for the most part they steer you down the path to the answer.


My complaint only really complaint concerning the puzzles is that I wish there were less that involved math. To me, a puzzle that asks me to find the radius of a circle, and then use that to find the area of this weird quadrangle area is way too much like school for my taste. If I need more than a simple calculator to figure out the answer - forget it. This is a video game, not a final exam. (Can you tell math was never my best subject?) I'd also like to see an "undo" feature - that would have helped me quite a few times. Sometimes all you want to do once in awhile is take back a move instead of starting the whole puzzle over.


New to this game was the memo feature you could activate during a puzzle. Although it's not really a lot of space to write, it was usually all you needed to jot down a thought or a number. What I also liked was that you could go back to look at the puzzle and then return to your scribblings - whatever you wrote on the memo screen didn't disappear unless you cleared it.

 

Using the memo feature for something totally nonconstructive.

Were there a few puzzles that I thought were kind of ridiculous? Yup. But those were few and far between. I wouldn't say it affected the game at all.


There are 3 mini games that you can access throughout the game. You don't really have to do any of them, but 2 are definitely worth completing. The other...eh. We'll get to that.


The first involves putting a camera back together. You find pieces as you do puzzles. Once you put the camera together, you can take pictures of certain locations and find the differences between the actual location and the picture you took. Once you find three, you'll be able to find a hidden puzzle. I thought putting the camera together was interesting, but finding the differences in the photos was certainly a highlight.


The second involved playing personal trainer to an overweight hamster you get to name. (I named mine Rocky.) As you solve puzzles you get various toys you use to lead your hamster around the board, trying to get him to take as many steps as possible. As he meets his goals, he slims down and once he's lost all his excess flab he'll be a big help to you. The only drawback to the hamster is his voice - he sounds like some cranky stereotypical New Yorker. (I can say that, because I'm from New York.) I cringed every time I heard his voice, but otherwise I thought the training was pretty fun and definitely took some planning and thought.

 

Youz guyz betta go easy on me, or you'll be swimmin' wit' the fishes!

Finally...there was the tea. Oh, the tea. First of all, who carries around a full tea set? Second of all, where the hell are they heating up this tea? I'm scared at the amount of equipment Layton is making Luke haul around. I hope he'll be willing to spring for the chripractor.

So, as you solve puzzles you get tea ingredients. You can mix 3 and try to create one of 12 different tea recipies.

This part of it is okay, if you can overlook the logistics I pointed out. It does get frustrating to create cup after cup of "bad tea" that the characters then passive aggressively mock you for.

I think Layton is covertly brewing poisons, judging by the skull and crossbones.

Trust me. That whole crying thing isn't even the worst of it. I think the game's goal was to get you to cry. Anyway, once you finally concoct a blend that's not gonna kill anyone, people around town will starting whining about various problems. Tea is apparently Layton's drug of choice, 'cause he's pushing it like he's makin' a profit. (To even get someone to request tea, you often have to enter and reenter areas numerous times. It wasn't so bad that you were waiting several minutes or anything, but it was kind of annoying.) Anyway, you'll next have to choose which kind of tea you want to serve them. And it better be the right one.

I found that often it was kind of hard to choose exactly what tea the person wanted, and had to try several before I chose one they wouldn't throw back in my face. And if you want to unlock every puzzle in the game, you better like to play tea time. Because you'll have to serve a successful cup to everybody in order to unlock them all. I just found this whole game silly and often frustrating. The logic behind the whole thing was also just too much for me to accept. Seriously - Layton's investigating something kind of important here. I understand a gentleman is always nice, or whatever, but come on. You don't have time to be brewing tea for everybody in town - especially if you're building a fire to boil the water, which is the only marginally reasonable explanation I can think of - especially when you're pulling out the cups and crumpets in the middle of a forest. Also, I don't know where Luke's parents are, but I don't think they'd want their son to be your tea toting pack mule.


Now that I've torn that mini game apart, I feel better. That's really the only gripe I have with the game, and it's not even a big one, really. There's so much to like about this game that one low light really falls into the background. Even after you complete the story there are more puzzles to solve - you can even download a new one every week by connecting to the online network. 

So I highly recommend this game if you enjoy a good puzzle and a good story...perhaps with a nice cup of tea. I just hope you actually have a stove.


My rating: 88 out of 100.