Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

 By Elizabeth F.


Only a true gentleman, er...woman, could solve this puzzle, Luke!

Though it took me almost a year to complete Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, it certainly wasn't because the game wasn't excellent. In fact, it's complimentary to the game that as someone who isn't very good at playing games through to completion, I never wavered in my resolve to hunt down every puzzle and solve every mystery -- no matter how tricky they might be! Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box is a worthy sequel to its predecessor, Professor Layton and the Curious Village -- packed with logic puzzles and mind benders, full of interesting characters who seem to go through life with nothing but puzzles on the brain, and carrying on the tradition of a solid, fun game that's great for any age. 

The Layton series has now expanded to four games (the Curious Village, the Diabolical Box, the Unwound Future, and the Last Specter), all for the DS. While I have only played Curious Village and Diabolical Box, I can say with confidence that I think the Layton formula is solid enough to withstand many more sequels. For one thing, the characters of Luke and Layton are incredibly likable and as a fan of the series, I want to continue to see them in action for some time to come. More importantly than that, though, are the puzzles embedded in every aspect of the game. Not only is the game plot a bit like mystery novel in it's many twists and turns, but to unlock the mystery's solution Luke and Layton must solve their way through dozens of logic puzzles -- many of which are hard enough for me to solve.

He'll take any help he can get.

I can only imagine a younger child trying to work these out (and for the record, some of these are as hard as any logic games I had to take on the LSAT). Not to fear though, the player has the option of unlocking up to three "hints" which can give you critical clues to solving the puzzle. Hints are unlocked using "coins" that the player collects throughout the game. I pride myself on being an obsessive coin collector. I would probably fall into Evan's weird video game habits on this; I literally tap on every iota of the screen to see if there's a coin hidden there. Between hint coins and a few other nudges from Layton and Luke, you can usually work out most of the puzzles and move on to solving the big mystery!

Professor Layton and his sidekick Luke unravel a deadly mystery.

While I found the plot of the Diabolical Box to be less coherent and slightly harder to follow than the Curious Village, I think that the puzzles improved overall. My biggest complaint of the Curious Village would be the predominance of numbers-related puzzles (think math). As someone who is personally less mathematically oriented, I prefer the straight logic, or the maze-type puzzles. I think the Diabolical Box corrects the problem of too many math-strong puzzles by substituting with some great visual puzzles and even a few particularly tricky ones that require you to think WAY outside the box (diabolical box perhaps?). Sorry, couldn't help myself there. It also seems like the puzzles are spread out a little more, so that you spend more time exploring the game in between bouts of puzzles (which I prefer).

One of over 150 puzzles.

The only reason I'd say that the Diabolical Box doesn't quite match up to it's predecessor centers around the overall plot, which didn't seem to flow very well through the Professor's and Luke's travels, and gets a bit stale in the last quarter before the finale. I felt like I spent a lot of time wandering around the town for a while before the game really grabbed my interest in the end.

Overall, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box was a highly enjoyable game, perfect for someone like me who doesn't like fighting, dungeons, or really anything that doesn't involve pure puzzle-solving and game exploration. I am eager to play the Unwound Future and I hope we'll continue to see a lot of more of Professor Layton and Luke in the future.

Score: 8.5