User blog:Sunshineandravioli/Stuff Sunshine Likes, Issue VI



Review of: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

Media: Video game

Systems: Nintendo DS

Developer: Level-5 / Nintendo

Released: 2007 (Japan) / 2009 (North America)

Welcome, one and all, to issue six of “Stuff Sunshine Likes!” As you may recall, last week I reviewed the 2008 DS game Professor Layton and the Curious Village, the first entry in the now well-known Professor Layton series. I also promised that this week, I would be continuing my praise of the series by reviewing the next entry – Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, which, sadly, I also recently finished playing through a second time (for the same reasons I replayed Curious Village… yes, I know, I’m a dork). Again, going “back in time” by replaying earlier games was a bit odd, but the fresh new perspective it gave me was worth it.

I mentioned repeatedly last week that one of Layton’s greatest accomplishments was that each of its games improved upon predecessors, rather than simply trying to repeat prior successes (though of course it does that as well). Diabolical Box, entry number two in the series, serves as the first proof that Level-5 will not settle for simply recreating an experience; that they will do everything in their power to improve on achievements past and make each game a new, exciting experience, without straying from the base formula Curious Village used. Furthermore, one of Diabolical Box’s greatest achievements is that it serves as the series’ first foray into a deeper, more complex plot – an excellent one all on its own, but when looked at after playing through successors Unwound Future and Last Specter, clearly just the tip of the iceberg, a shadow of things to come.

Ultimately, Diabolical Box stands up to the two massive standards a game’s first sequel must meet to be considered a true success. First, it delivers to fans looking for the same experience they had in Curious Village, with fun but challenging puzzles, memorable and well-done characters, and an engaging story full of twists and turns. But it also nails the second standard that most sequels miss – it improves on that first experience, looking at everything the first game did and asking, “What can we do to make this better?” And then, after considering this question and coming up with answers… they actually do improve upon anything that can be improved. These massive improvements, and Level-5’s great care in implementing them, will be the main topic of my review here today. (Be warned that some minor SPOILERS might follow, though I’ve done my best to exclude anything significant.)

Basically, all the things that worked in Curious Village are retained in Diabolical Box. The point-and-click-adventure style of environmental exploration, along with the way one subsequently finds puzzles, is pretty much the same as in Curious Village. One improvement this successor makes, however, is that Diabolical Box visually differentiates between tapping on something that will reveal a new puzzle or clue, and tapping on something that will simply spark conversation. (In Curious Village, tapping on anything interactive would cause an exclamation-point symbol to pop up, making it difficult to tell whether or not you were about to encounter a puzzle. In Diabolical Box, the exclamation-points only pop up when encountering a new puzzle; if there are no puzzles available, you’ll see three white lines – anime/manga fans will recognize it as the symbol for a person taking notice of something.) The general style of the game’s art and characters is the same, though the sprites have been adjusted so that, at least while interacting with them, all appear at a three-quarters angle that make it look more like Layton/Luke and the NPCs are talking to each other (in Curious Village, Layton and some of the NPCs were at a dead-on front-and-center angle, which was a bit odd-looking). The lovely, whimsical animated cutscenes return again, though this time there are even more of them (glee!). Basically, if there was any game mechanic you liked in Curious Village, chances are it’s back again in Diabolical Box, though perhaps with a few minor tweaks to make it work all the better.

Speaking of, the puzzle system returns more or less unchanged in Diabolical Box – picarats, hint coins, and puzzle variety are all pretty much as they were in Curious Village. However, Diabolical Box works to integrate the puzzles and the story a bit more (translation: no more puzzles about texting in a world that still uses gramophones!!), often being inspired directly by what the player is currently doing (ie. a puzzle asking the player to calculate the total cost of Layton and Luke’s meals after they go to a restaurant) or specific items in the environment that they are currently investigating (ie. a riddle concerning a fountain the duo takes a look at). Additionally, Diabolical Box features more slider puzzles than its predecessor (something that continues for the rest of the series, resulting in some painfully challenging puzzles – OHH THE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH) and also has several groups of puzzles that follow the same theme – for example, a series of puzzles where the player must move a knight around a chessboard in a way that it lands on every square only once, with puzzles becoming increasingly difficult through changes in the size and shape of the chessboard. Curious Village had a few of these types of puzzles, but Diabolical Box utilizes them much more, and in my humble opinion, a bit more effectively.

Another major improvement in the puzzle system is the introduction of a little something called the “memo”. Remember last week’s review, where I complained that one of the puzzle system’s shortcomings was that there was very little space to do out your work? Well, the memo remedies this – by selecting “memo” on the puzzle screen, a second, transparent screen comes up over the puzzle, allowing the player to trace, do out work, go through process of elimination or whatever they so please, and without having to cover up any of the puzzle itself – just hit “back” and the memo goes away, allowing the player to look at the decidedly not-covered-in-math-scribbles puzzle before hitting memo again, bringing the work right back up! This is particularly helpful for puzzles that require math (you can write out your work!), process of elimination (you can cross out choices you’ve determined don’t work!), mazes (you can trace your path!) and so forth. Unfortunately, one issue from Curious Village remains even with the new memo function: you’re still unable to erase aside from clearing the entire memo screen. Annoying, but still, overall a major improvement that’s extremely helpful while puzzle-solving.

Now then, as I mentioned earlier, the rest of gameplay remains pretty much the same. However, there is one itsy-bitsy adjustment to the exploration experience that I feel I ought to mention – unlike Curious Village, where the player was confined to exploring St. Mystere, Diabolical Box sends the player through a plethora of locations. By the time the player completes the game, they’ll have had five different environments in which to find puzzles, hint coins and clues: three towns (London, Dropstone, and Folsense), the Molentary Express (more on that later), and one brief little stop in the countryside. This helps add a nice sense of adventure and variety to the game, as well as serving as extra incentive to thoroughly explore one’s environment before moving on – once you leave a location, you can’t go back, so any hint coins you miss are gone for good (local puzzles and the rewards that come with them, however, remain available through Granny Riddleton’s shack, which mysteriously shows up in every location you visit). The more numerous locations also help make the game seem much bigger and more exciting than it was before, even though, when you think about it, the new locations aren’t much bigger than St. Mystere was; in fact, most of them are actually a bit smaller. The fact that you’re actively traveling, though, still makes it all seem a bit vaster that St. Mystere was, and makes the environment seem more like real bits and pieces of a far more believable world.

Now, then, what sort of mind-boggling mystery are the professor (again voiced by Christopher Robin Miller, still with that rich, rich British accent that I’ll admit I’m probably a bit too enthusiastic about) and Luke (again voiced by the ever-charming Lani Minella) trying to solve this time? Well, of course the first thing the game has us do is find out – but this time, rather than use a simple expository scene to tell us, we get a whole “prologue” chapter taking place in London. Interactive! Not just watching Layton and Luke talk about what happened! It’s a nice choice that helps to make the player all the more invested in the situation, watching a mystery unfold before our very eyes rather than simply hearing about what happened earlier and kind of thinking “Oh, yeah, he’s right, that does sound kind of sketchy…” And, thankfully, an interactive introduction rather than an expository scene doesn’t rob us of the chance to hear more of Miller and Minella’s still-wonderful voice acting; Diabolical Box expands on the instances where we get to hear the characters’ voices, having vocalized lines not just in cutscenes but in certain points of in-game dialogue too, usually at points that turn out to contain critical information or introduce important individuals.

This increase in voice-acted dialogue means Miller and Minella get some extra help in the form of actual, honest to goodness other voice actors! (Albeit the two of them, particularly Minella, still voice a good deal of them… about 95% of the speaking females are her doing.) Among these new recruits are Stuart Organ (a British actor who was once on Doctor Who in 1987), Jock Blaney, Mark Carr, and Cynthia Geary. Unfortunately, the game’s credits only list the voice actors and not who they voice, so it’s hard to determine who voices who; from my research, all I know for certain is that Stuart Organ voiced Dr. Andrew Schrader (who you’ll hear about in just a moment). The group puts in stellar performances, especially Miller, Minella, and whichever one of the group voiced Anton (a new character who I may or may not cover later – he’s pretty spoilerific). Ms. Minella, however, continues to do best as Luke, while her female characters tend to range from average to unbearable (her performance as rich lady Babette was enough to temporarily make me afraid of my DS, but in her defense, I suppose the character called for such a horrifying voice). My current explanation is that most of Minella’s female voice work experience comes in the form of anime dubs, and, well, I’m sure a lot of you know by this point how dubbed female anime characters are made to sound. (For those of you unfamiliar with anime dubs… think Dawn’s voice in Total Drama: Revenge of the Island. Yes, oftentimes it’s that bad.)

Now then, back to that mystery… the game starts with Layton receiving a letter from his former teacher and mentor Dr. Andrew Schrader, who claims to have gotten his hands on the Elysian Box, a rare artifact rumored to bring instant death upon those who open it. The tone of Schrader’s letter leads the professor to believe that something isn’t quite right, and he and Luke decide to pay the doctor a visit, along the way giving the player a brief tutorial on moving, exploring the environment, and finding/using hint coins, plus a few simple puzzles to get the player used to the puzzle system. They arrive at Schrader’s office, and… the doctor is unresponsive on the floor, the Elysian Box nowhere to be found, with only three clues to point them in the right direction: the first, an open window where a “tightrope” made out of a ripped-up curtain is tied, implying that someone snuck in and stole the Elysian Box; the second, a torn-up photograph that is confiscated by the police before the duo can reassemble it; the third – and most important – a train ticket for the Molentary Express, with no destination written on it. Thus, Layton’s (and the player’s) quest is to solve the mystery behind Schrader’s death and the Elysian Box alike, and with the train ticket their only real clue, the professor and Luke hop on board the Molentary Express to investigate.

Investigation? Train? Anyone thinking Murder on the Orient Express yet? Well, that’s not really what happens – yes, you spend most of the first half of the game on the train, but no one gets murdered and no suspects are accused (although there is one mini-mystery that you get to solve while onboard, though certainly nothing so thrilling). The Molentary Express, a luxury train known as the “cruise ship on rails”, allows the player to form a basis for their investigation and solve puzzles in a similarly confined manner to the first game – after all, you don’t exactly just step off a moving train (unless you’re crazy, and thankfully, the game deters crazy people from doing so by not giving the player any options to get off the train while it’s moving). This travel-by-rails also serves as an explanation for the player not being able to return to past locations once they’ve left; the train keeps traveling straight until it reaches the very end of the tracks, only then turning around to return from whence it came, and by then you’ll have completed the game. To keep you company on the journey, the Molentary Express also contains a nice group of the Layton series’ wonderful, memorable, at times whacky supporting characters – some of them staff on the train, others fellow passengers.

On that note, the NPCs also benefit from the inclusion of several different locations in Diabolical Box, as their differing surroundings become evident in the way characters act in comparison to each other, resulting in a nice diversity that, in ways, Curious Village lacked. While all Curious Village’s townsfolk lived in the same village and thus all had pretty similar backgrounds, Diabolical Box’s characters come from all different areas and walks of life, and Level-5 strives to make their personalities and actions reflect this. For example, the residents of Dropstone seem down-to-earth and cheerful, even perhaps a little folksy, whereas Folsense’s townsfolk appear more somber and withdrawn; and while Dropstone’s villagers all seem to know what business is going on about town and act familiar with one another, characters in Folsense and, even more so, passengers on the Molentary Express seem to exist within their own little worlds, not quite aware nor particularly caring what’s going on in the lives of everyone else. Add this background to Level-5’s already immense care in developing characters, and you have a supporting cast that’s engaging, memorable and superior to those in a great deal of video game series. (For me in particular, Diabolical Box was the first game to introduce a background character that I really, desperately wanted to learn more about – Ilyana, a voluptuous, smooth-talking woman found in Folsense who apparently works at a local “cabaret”, one I’m pretty sure isn’t the type of “theater” the ever-oblivious Layton seems to think it is.)

As the Molentary Express continues to rumble down the tracks, the plot progresses with it, and unfortunately I won’t be able to follow it the rest of the way here – too many spoilers that would ruin the fun of the game’s many twists and turns. (All I’ll say is that Diabolical Box features Level-5’s first experiment with the tearjerker ending, something they’d perfect in future Layton media. Oh, and there’s a super-sweet swordfight that’s worth playing the game for in and of itself.) Instead, I’ll now discuss another improved-upon feature from Curious Village: the mini-games.

Like its predecessor, Diabolical Box features three mini-games that earn the player three bonus puzzles each upon completion, but features brand-new mini games rather than simply revamping the ones from the previous game. The first of the new mini-games is the “camera” game, which features two parts: first, reassembling parts of a broken camera (the parts being rewards for solving certain puzzles), somewhat similarly to the “gizmo” game from Curious Village – this time, however, it’s more difficult than simply tapping a part to send it to its proper place; the player has to move and rotate each piece until they find the place where it can fit without going outside the box and without overlapping with any other pieces. Once you finish reassembling the camera, you unlock the second part of the mini-game: certain areas will prompt a camera icon to appear onscreen, and tapping it will take a picture of the area, allowing the player to play a short “spot the difference” game where they locate three discrepancies between the photograph and an image of the real area. Once they do so, they’ll be able to find a new hidden puzzle in that environment, and often a hint coin or two as well.

The second mini-game is the “hamster” mini-game, starring a terribly obese little rodent with a brash Brooklyn accent (yes, it’s as O_O as it sounds) who the player gets to name. Using “hamster toys” received as rewards for solving certain puzzles, the goal is to get the hamster to exercise by building him an obstacle course with the toys. Eventually, the hamster will become thin and fit, and along with the satisfaction of completing the mini-game, you’ll also receive the reward of having the hamster help you locate hint coins in the environment.

Finally, the third mini-game – one of my personal favorites from the series as a whole – is the “tea set” game. Layton and Luke acquire a tea set, and by solving puzzles, will be given a total of ten tea ingredients. The player then has to experiment with different combinations of ingredients to make new tea brews, which they will then be able to serve to the professor, Luke, and NPCs they meet along the journey. Each person will prefer a different blend, so the player must use hints in the characters’ statements to determine their favorite and serve it to them, with the goal of the mini-game to successfully fill all requests. Overall, all the mini-games are much more challenging than their predecessors, which in turn, makes them much more fun – the tea set game in particular is perhaps my favorite out of all the series’ mini-games, and the two-part challenge of the camera game is a nice touch.

As I stated above, the mini-games in Diabolical Box earn you bonus puzzles just as the mini-games in Curious Village did – and many of the other bonus features make a return as well. Just as with Curious Village, the bonus menu features four choices for the player to choose from: Weekly Puzzles, which again allow the player to download one new puzzle per week for a year using Nintendo Wi-Fi; Puzzle Index, a collection of all puzzles encountered in-game (still available in the Professor’s Trunk as well); Layton’s Challenges, where the fifteen bonus puzzles (three for each mini-game, three for completing the game, and three for solving all other puzzles) can be found; and “Top Secret”. Top Secret contains the same lovely extras as it did in Curious Village – profiles, art, music, voice, movies, and the Hidden Door. For many reasons, this is now an even bigger draw than in its predecessor: there’s more voice lines from more characters, there’s now 23 cutscenes in comparison to Curious Village’s 15, and as a bonus for completing every single puzzle in the game, extra profiles (for the nameless characters who appear in puzzle illustrations, certain characters’ alternate outfits, and the Layton-Mobile) are unlocked in the profiles section. Even the Hidden Door is a bit more exciting in that it now features two extra features – one unlocked with a code from the predecessor (an extra puzzle), and one unlocked with a code from the sequel (lovely, lovely concept art). All this continues to make the bonus section a way to continue to have fun with the game even after the story is done, and the fact that you now get an actual reward for solving all puzzles rather than simply a colorful “congrats!” screen serves as extra incentive for 100% completion.

So, to reiterate: Diabolical Box takes everything that worked in Curious Village, tweaks it a little to make it even better, and then takes the things that didn’t work and redoes them to the point that they fit much, much better. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, they also continue to experiment with new features and storytelling that make the game seem fresh and new, even though it’s still nicely based in Curious Village’s successful formula. Does the game still have its problems? Of course; even the best of games do. But the issues are such minor quibbles in comparison to its many successes, that it simply seems better to forgive them and enjoy the many things that did work – especially when you know there’s a third entry on the way that will certainly improve even further on the series. And speaking of that third entry, tune in next time when I review Diabolical Box’s incredible sequel Professor Layton and the Unwound Future – the game that made this series cross the line from wonderfully fun to absolutely, sheerly epic. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this review – and I certainly hope it’s convinced you to try out Diabolical Box, which I’m confident you’ll enjoy even more!!

Overall Score: 9/10

The Good Points, in Sum: A major improvement on the already-successful Curious Village, a fairly ambitious plot, improved gameplay mechanics, even more puzzles than the predecessor, better relation between puzzles and the plotline, even better-developed characters, larger scope of environment, more charming cutscenes, increased presence of voice-acting, more challenging and still fun mini-games, even better bonuses, more “themed” puzzles that become increasingly challenging, plays best as part of series but is capable of working as a stand-alone title, visuals improve as the series settles further into its style

The Bad Points, in Sum: Memo system still needs improvement, cannot return to re-explore past areas after leaving, voices of Minella’s female characters range from average to grating, later puzzles can still be a bit too challenging (then again, that’s why most of them are bonus puzzles)

Recommended for: Fans of Professor Layton and the Curious Village, fans of any/all of the Professor Layton series, puzzle aficionados, DS game fans, animation lovers, fans of anything British, mystery lovers, anyone who loves a good story, artists, writers, casual gamers, Steampunk/Victorian style fans

Consider Before Playing…: Like Curious Village, Diabolical Box is only available on Nintendo DS. If you know you’re the type who will skip any puzzle not absolutely necessary to advance, or if you just don’t like puzzles at all, you may want to skip the series – though only certain puzzles are mandatory, some points require you to solve a certain number of puzzles before you can advance in the story. Because this game was released a few years ago, you may want to search for it as a used game, where it’s more likely to be available and will definitely be cheaper than buying it new. Also, be warned that the final puzzle in story mode requires you to blow into the microphone on your Nintendo DS. If your microphone is broken, you will not be able to solve the puzzle and, subsequently, you will not be able to complete the game. Also note that, while I feel the series is appropriate for all ages, Diabolical Box does contain one puzzle that references alcohol and some very mild violence/scary imagery towards the very end of the game. None of it is severe enough to be worrisome, however.