The Professor and his cockney assistant Luke have returned at last, with a hundred-odd more brainteasers that all come together to tell us the tale of Pandora's box, though it goes by another name here: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - except in regions where it does actually go by Pandora's Box. Hooray for localization!
It was localization into English that took two years for this sequel, but you welcome the efforts, otherwise, you'd be solving everything in Japanese, which would add to the difficulty just a little bit...
Let's get onto this case before the clues all dry up then.
Frustrations
Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not a cockney anymore. That's not cool. What happened to you, Luke? This change in voice has rocked me, it has. I need a minute to recover.
Fun Times
The presentation of the Professor Layton games is a nice change from what I'm used to on the Nintendo DS. Voiced animated videos - how does it all fit on the cartridge, eh? It looks damn near identical to the first game, though I'm sure there are differences for the eagle-eyed out there. The eagle-eared will notice that Luke has become more accustomed to the English language, but that's about the only major difference that I'm seeing so far.
Probably worth noting that I still haven't wedged myself into the sofa to play either of these games on the DS itself, so I'm emulating for the sake of some screenshots here. I'm fairly certain that you don't need to have finished The Curious Village before playing Diabolical Box, but the 1001 write up does mention some in-jokes for those that have, so that's a little more incentive to play through hundreds of puzzles and see what these characters get up to.
Professor Layton's old chum Dr Schrader has come into possession of the Elysian Box, and it has consumed his academic interest and threatens to consume his life. His curiosity is getting the better of him, and you know what it does to cats. Is it already too late for the doctor?
There's no time to waste, and lucky for us, he included a map to his flat in his letter.
It wouldn't be a Professor Layton game if the map was in one piece, though, would it? The included map is a jigsaw, complete with an extra piece to confuse you.
As in the first game, puzzles are worth Picarats, which are used to... what are they used for? Just a score? It's been a while since The Curious Village was on my mind, clearly. Anyway, the quicker you solve a puzzle, the more you get. Try your best.
Oh look, we're in London. Not sure of the time period, though. Seems to be a blend of all of them. Still, it helps to sell Diabolical Box as another quaint little adventure in a funny little country with those delightful English fellows. If this was on television, it'd be tea-time family viewing.
But it's not on television, it's on the DS, and it's already kicking my arse.
Further Frustrations
I don't have a problem with jumping into the hint system of any game if I'm stuck. I don't have problems with looking up guides and walkthroughs, either. One of the worst feelings in gaming is to know what needs to be done but not know how a game wants it to be done exactly.
I know damn well that all I need to do is circle a window, and I know damn well that it's not going to be the window with the music coming from it, and that it is going to be a window in the sun. I know this. This information cost me two hint coins and told me effectively nothing.
Clearly, I'm seeing this picture differently from how the developers painted it. How, I don't know, but after three attempts and lost Picarats, we knew where the doctor lives.
In between puzzles and cutscenes and conversations, you can sort of explore your surroundings, again like The Curious Village, and it's in 'unusual places' that you can find extra help coins, should you need them.
Yes, Diabolical Box, I'm going to need them. Lots of them. Are they in the flowerbed?
Further Fun Times
Back to the story now that I've eventually found the doctor's apartment. The locked door gives us another quick puzzle to solve - not hints needed this time - and we burst through to find the body of Dr Schrader on the floor, the windows open, and a mystery to solve: what happened here, then?
According to the grumpy-looking Inspector Chelmey, the answer is simple. A heart attack was caused by witnessing a big dinosaur skeleton. Case closed then, let's go home.
No, of course not. More is going on here. It's a classic locked-room mystery, and through the tiny screen of the Nintendo DS, we're able to snoop around the room looking for clues.
Further Frustrations
Am I just having a bad day, or has Diabolical Box taken its name as inspiration for the puzzle difficulty? I spent three hint coins on this in the end, and the final clue was that what I'm looking for is found in pairs.
What's found in pairs? Shoes. No shoes. Where are the shoes? Why am I looking for shoes? Trousers? No, don't be silly. Scissors? How tiny would scissors be in these pictures, come on, think you fool.
It's always obvious after the fact, isn't it? I'm definitely not on the same wavelength that Diabolical Box wants me to be on. Give me a sudoku to solve and I'll get right on it, but a locked room and I'm as stumped as the inspector here.
We go on to find a torn-up photograph, but Chelmey promptly takes it before we can piece it together, so we leave to go and catch the train into the countryside.
Final Word
The prologue complete (eventually), I called time on Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, mostly because I felt I was getting dumber and wasn't in the mood to carry on, but like the first game, I do want to get stuck into this.
It's like a good book. I likened the first game to the Usborne Puzzle Books, which are well worth a read should you be a kid. Solving a puzzle to progress a story is the foundation for lots of games, and it's rewarding to be able to solve something on your own.
That implies that it's not very rewarding when you have to rely on hints and walkthroughs or get inexplicably stuck on something that really ought to be easy to overcome. It doesn't feel great to be in those situations at all, but I hope that my issues with the Diabolical Box are not its fault, but mine.
I would imagine the games could be tackled in any order. They're all going to have a variety of puzzle types and difficulties, and it's going to be the underlying story that will keep you engaged, so you might as well pick a story you like the sound of and just dive in.
From what little I remember of The Curious Village, I think I'll end up preferring Diabolical Box's story, but I do think I'll play them in order, if only in the hope that I'll get used to the way the series works by the time I get around to playing the game I want to play the most properly.
And as I have both in cartridge form, I can finally abandon this keyboard, focus on the mystery at hand, and not get distracted by anything else - so long as I don't need to Google some answers...
If you're a fan of Professor Layton, you've got more of the same here. As to some finer details, well, you're going to have to wait for me to find my brain, or find out for yourself.
Fun Facts
Nearly twice as much data as the first game has been crammed into the cartridge for the professor's second outing, thanks to some refined gameplay mechanics and a focus on puzzles that tie more closely into the story itself.
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, developed by Level-5, first released in 2007.
Version played: Nintendo DS, 2009, via emulation.