E3 09: Hands-on with Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

12:00 PM on 06.04.2009   |   Chad Concelmo

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The original Professor Layton game for the Nintendo DS -- Professor Layton and the Curious Village -- was a critical and commercial hit. And rightfully so! A fascinating hybrid, Professor Layton combined the exploration of a classic adventure game with the cunning (and surprisingly difficult) puzzles of a new-age "brain" game.

In Japan, all three games in the Layton trilogy have already been released. Lucky for us -- and since the game was a local hit -- the second game in the series, entitled Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, will also be coming to the US in just a few short months. August 24th to be exact!

I was pretty confident before I played the E3 demo that I was going to adore this game. I mean, since the format was supposedly so similar to Curious Village, what could Level 5 mess up? The first game was so fantastic that nothing could be bad about a sequel with brand new puzzles surrounded by a brand new story, right? RIGHT?

Hit the jump for my hands-on impressions of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box to find out.

I hate to disappoint the ones of readers out there that are dying to read my inspirational words, but this will be the shortest hands-on I have ever done. Why? Well, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (that is a doozy of a title to type over and over!) is so similar to the first game that there really isn't anything much to add.

Oh, it is also completely awesome.

Set in different locations, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box follows the adventures (yet again) of Layton and his apprentice of sorts, Luke. In this game -- without giving too much away -- Layton and Luke must travel to meet Layton's mentor and find out information about a mysterious box that has even more mysterious powers.

One difference between this and the first game, though, is that Diabolical Box takes place in multiple locations, as opposed to the first game's lone, central village.

Other than that, not much has changed! You still travel around various screens looking for hidden coins (used to buy hints), talking to NPCs, and solving a myriad of tricky puzzles. And, just like the first game, the puzzles make up the majority of the gameplay.

I guess there are some small things that have changed in this sequel, but they feel more like improvements rather than actual changes.

First off, there are more puzzles in the game. Curious Village has a total of 120 puzzles; Diabolical Box promises 150. Also -- and this is tough to confirm since I only played the first part of the game -- the puzzles seem to be more varied this time around. Not that the puzzles were slacking by any means in the first game, but most of them seemed to fall into the "pick an answer" category. The puzzles in the first section of Diabolical Box seem to utilize the stylus in more creative ways, such as moving around tiles or drawing and circling items.

One other upgrade that I really appreciated was a heavier focus on finding items in the environment and carrying them around with you to use later. In the first game, there were really no items to find in the game, leaving most of the exploring to just talking with villagers and searching for hidden coins. While that stuff is still alive and kicking in the sequel, there seems to be more moments of finding actual items that help things feel more like an adventure game and less like a means to get to more puzzles.

For example, at the very start of the game, you are asked to find Layton's keys in his office. After looking in a drawer, Luke finds the keys and carries them around with him for future use. If more items like this can be found in the game and used later, Diabolical Box will feel much more like a classic adventure game. And that makes me very, very happy.

It also has to be mentioned that Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box is just as jaw-droppingly gorgeous as the original, with Triplets of Belleville character design, a stunning art style, and killer voice acting. After playing the demo my eyes and ears were dancing in happiness.

If you liked the original Professor Layton you will easily love Diabolical Box. Everything that was great about the original is back and better than ever! There is nothing really more to say. Buy it in a few months and enjoy! You are going to have a great time all over again.

Based on my hands-on time with the game, I am giving my impressions of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box a 9.0.*

*This is a ridiculous scoring system and has nothing to do with the final game. I just thought it would be fun to score all the games I play this week based on my hands-on time with them all.