Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (DS)

8/27/2009 9:12 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

(Co-authors: John Teti and Ryan Kuo)

Ryan Kuo didn't like the first Layton game, Professor Layton and the Curious Village. I loved it. So when we were assigning the review of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, it was a little awkward. After all, the sequel looked much the same as the original. We all head into these reviews with open minds, but we knew that if Ryan wrote up Diabolical Box, a "Fry It" was likely, and that I would probably "Buy It."

Before the argument devolved into fisticuffs, an experiment was proposed: a joint review! We've both played the game, and we're going to bounce this review between us point-counterpoint style until we arrive at a Buy/Try/Fry rating with twice the usual gravitas. I'll kick things off.

John Teti: First things first; I love puzzles. The cartridge could just contain a hundred puzzles or so, and I would be happy. The challenge for the makers of Diabolical Box is to build something around the puzzles that doesn't just feel like filler.

And that's what takes Diabolical Box from good to great, because I never find myself tap-tap-tapping to hurry through the cut scenes in this game. Even though the puzzles are often only tangentially related to the action, I get involved in the game's charming Continental trappings. The Agatha Christie, Jr. mysteries that form the background of the game are told at such an easy, relaxed pace that it's never difficult to follow the story -- this despite the fact that a player has to juggle six or seven different plot threads that stack on top of each other.

Ryan Kuo: I'm more indifferent to puzzles, but I began to hate them in earnest after a few hours of Curious Village. The series is based on the premise that lush point-and-click exploration can somehow uncover the latent appeal of hair-tearing, SAT-style word problems -- an idea that I liken to drenching castor oil in honey.

I was done with Curious Village the instant I found myself faced with a "two trains going in opposite directions" question. Not to invoke the word "fun," but the game felt like just the opposite -- compulsory weightlifting for your brain cells. But for all its similarities to the original, I actually find Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box a pretty different experience.

Because much of Diabolical Box takes place on a train, instead of the first game's literally dead-end village, I immediately have a sense of forward momentum. With each puzzle I solve, I end up several miles closer to my destination and wade deeper into the deftly paced plot. No longer is the puzzle a cheap way to rack up gameplay time. Instead, I can see how working through a puzzle is a metaphor for Layton's own intellect, patience and pleasure in the unknown.

John Teti: Ryan zeroed in on the most important difference between Diabolical Box and its predecessor. I was really tired of that Curious freaking Village by the end of the first game. Diabolical Box has so much more movement to it. The train is used to full effect, literally driving the proceedings forward.

But look, this is still a Layton game, and the puzzles are the thing. Overall, they're a slight improvement over the selection in Curious Village. The best puzzles compel you to look at something familiar in a new way. To question basic assumptions. What I find so pleasing about Diabolical Box is that it assumes you've played Curious Village and built up a sense for the kind of trickery that's afoot.

In other words, you come to the second game with a new set of assumptions, and Diabolical Box responds to that. There were a number of times when I was on guard for some complex solution, having been trained by Curious Village never to be satisfied with my first answer. And then the answer was simple, made difficult only by my own machinations. The most extreme example was a puzzle in which you have to break up segments of a chain in order to join them into one long loop. I came up with the right answer in about 30 seconds. I then agonized over the puzzle for a half hour because I was convinced I was wrong.

Diabolical Box does more than offer difficult puzzles; it sequences them so nicely. It follows a spatial puzzle, along the lines of "what would this shape look like if it were turned inside out?" with a puzzle that relies on some subtle verbal shading. The cliché way to express this is that it's "exercising different muscles," but it's more artful than that. It's about predicting the audience's state of mind and then using that against them -- like a stage magician who knows that the crowd will follow his left hand while he palms a card in his right.

Ryan Kuo: I can't speak to how the puzzles compare to their Curious Village counterparts, since I only played that game for about three hours before returning it in a huff. I take them more at face value, for better or worse, and find that they sometimes conflict with how I want to experience the game.

I go into Diabolical Box expecting the utmost polish, which I get from the game's immaculate "Triplets of Belleville"-style illustrations and toy-box music. This polish lends the game a strong consistency in tone. As Layton and Luke journey from London to ghost town, it's amazing how much atmosphere seeps from the game's static backgrounds and reams of unspoken dialogue. Over time, the accumulated atmosphere of train cars, village shops and city streets makes me feel as if I've truly traveled miles across the countryside with the duo.

On the other hand, the Diabolical Box puzzles seem to veer from one end of the spectrum to the other. Some are so rooted in mathematics, logic or verbal comprehension that I still find it hard to tell that I am playing a game and not taking an exam. These are dreary to think through and immensely satisfying to answer correctly. Some hide unexpectedly simple, unorthodox solutions that punish the literal-minded. It's maddening to realize that one of these puzzles is actually a gimmick, when the previous two puzzles were completely straightforward. Finally, some puzzles require little more than trial and error. For example, one puzzle asked me to place roses optimally throughout a train car. The puzzle updated itself visually as I went along, and ended automatically when I stumbled upon the right configuration.

As John says, the game's puzzles speak to different states of mind. I suppose this seems intentional. But for someone like me, who doesn't love all puzzles equally, they're inconsistent to a fault. When I pass a test of logic in the game, I do feel like Layton. When I accidentally slide blocks, stack pancakes, or distribute roses the "right" way, I only feel like a fraud. I wish that none of the puzzles could be played through reactively, like a conventional videogame -- even if these are the ones I'm best at solving. They don't speak to the cultivation of the mind.