What do drugs, murder, curses, demons, cabaret women and Nintendo have in common? They all share the stage in the point-and-click DS adventure Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. A sequel to the 2008 release […] and the Curious Village, in Diabolical Box, the Professor finds himself on a mission to discover the truth behind a package known as the "Elysian Box". A box which seemingly kills anybody who looks upon its contents. And unfortunately included in "anybody" happens to be Layton's friend Dr. Schrader who, after procuring the ill-fated box, sends a letter to Layton loosely stating the following: 1. Dr. Schrader has possession of the Elysian Box. 2. Curiosity killed the cat and Dr. Schrader is about to follow in its footsteps.
Upon hearing the news, Layton and his apprentice quickly head to Schrader's residence and confirm that the good doctor had correctly predicted his fate. Never being one to stand by the sidelines, Layton investigates the scene and finds clues that will lead him on a cross-country journey to understand why the box is just so atrociously diabolical in the first place. Unfortunately as this mystery unravels, so too does the plot. Increasingly, and unnecessary, large plot holes mix with quickly tacked on narrative doohickeys to create a story that ends with a whimper. The real tragedy is that the developer clearly thought it was a bang. But this is easily forgiven, because Diabolical Box excels so thoroughly on virtually every other point.
The professor inhabits a world very different from ours. A strange Victorian-esque culture where puzzles are the linchpin of society. Used as icebreakers, locks, aptitude tests, recreation, chores, and just about everything else that you can imagine, puzzles are a necessity for every occasion.
The game's collection of puzzles, mostly comprised of brain teasers, utilize every method of thinking from math to language to spatial information and my guess is that players will find the puzzles to be wildly varying in their difficulty. While partly due to increasing complexity, puzzles which play to your personal strengths will often be dismissed as 'too easy'. However, the pendulum swings both ways so rest assured, everyone will have their fair share of devilishly difficult levels. Furthermore, If the 150+ puzzle count provided in the campaign isn't enough to stave off brain atrophy, a new puzzle is available for download every week over WiFi.
From the opening screen to the credits, the game oozes with polish. Its near-flawless presentation of an audio/ visual experience is an achievement on both stylistic and technical grounds. Not only is FMV generously dispersed throughout the game, but its animé style combined with hand-drawn backgrounds creates a truly organic feeling during scene transitions. Other developers should take note: this is when/how FMV should be implemented.
Even more impressive is the amount of voiceover. While I don't have any stats to confirm my assumption, I would be surprised if less than half of the game's dialogue was not spoken aloud. Even many encounters with minor characters have an accompanying voice track (and not just in FMV sequences). Unlike the horribly compressed voiceovers usually found on DS carts, Layton's audio quality can only be described as top-notch. The cart must not have a byte to spare. That alone would be impressive, but Diabolical Box features some of the best voice acting to ever grace gaming. For being cursed with both its medium and the animé style it draws upon, the fact that Diabolical Box's voice acting feels forced in only a handful of moments would be best described as a miracle if not for the hard work required to produce such results. It's clear that no expense was spared.
Diabolical Box really makes a case for why the DS is perfectly suited for point-and-click adventures. The static nature of the scenery in the genre provides the means for developers to make a game which doesn't present itself as a compromise. There is no gimping, no hardware choking, and almost no stripping of features (the lack of 100% spoken dialogue being the exception). Diabolical Box has the presentation quality of a AAA console title with an experience perfectly tailored to the handheld.
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