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Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box: Reviews

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Game Score: 9/10

"Dear Luke, I do believe we have stumbled upon another puzzle." -Prof. Layton

Ahh, now here's a gem of a game. Most certainly one of the best titles the DS has to offer. What starts off as a mysterious arrival of a letter form The title characters' mentor suddenly escalates into a search for this elusive artifact known as the Elysian box, a sort of Pandora's box. Filled with a beautiful, and highly curious art style, as well as an intriguing, yet layered story, and lets not forget 150+ puzzles and minigames, this game will have you up into the wee hours of the night trying to uncover the next clue/puzzle to the story.

Graphics: A rather peculiar, "unproportionate" art style, where characters may have an exaggerated feature(oblong noses, short legs, big heads, wide shoulders, etc.) gives this game a fresh look, almost unique in a way. Coupled with several videos animated flawlessly, this game looks completely unlike most DS games. 9/10

Gameplay: A simple point and click game. You simply wander around the various screenshots of the world of Prof. Layton, and tap your Stylus everywhere, looking for either puzzles, hint coins, or other secrets. It's always nice, and rather hilarious to randomly poke a sheep in the background, only to have Proffesor Layton make an exclamation about a puzzle revolving around sheep. There are over 120 puzzles within the main storyline of the game, about 70 of which are important to the main "quest". 8/10

Plot: The game begins in a rather cliche mystery fashion. An old friend mysteriously dies, and your goal at first is to uncover whodunnit. As you begin to explore the in-game world, searching for clues, you uncover information about this mysterious box, which has connections to your old friend. after searching for clues, you arrive in this strange village, where nothing is as it seems, and the characters have interesting back-stories. The game finally concludes with every answer, and mystery solved in the game with a very deep, and touching ending. (The ending had me crying tears of sadness, and joy) 10/10

Interactivity/controls: The game is played entirely with the Stylus, so no need to worry about any button pressing. As far as this game goes with using the touch-screen functionality, it's hardly anything new. You'll either be "clicking" an answer, circling it, or writing it in. 6/10

Difficulty: The game is just one big puzzle marathon. It starts off with simple iterations of puzzles, which are more of an introduction of how Professor Layton plays. This game will have you tearing your hair out as you try to work out some of the more "difficult" puzzles, only to find the answer was so simple, you wonder how you never thought of it in the first place. 8/10

Replay: On a personal level, I don't find the overall gameplay enjoying during the second play through, because I knew the answers to every single puzzle. but it was still fun watching this engaging story unfold yet again, and conclude beautifully once more. This game is worth playing a second, or third time once the next title arrives, since each game has several clues, and connections to the next. 7/10

Overall: A deep, engaging mystery story filled with gorgeous art, and unforgettable characters, as well as a slew of mind-testing puzzles. Definitely a great title to pick up, or download and play. I promise you, you'll never want to stop playing this game, until you've beaten it. 9/10