Tiamatini

Well, if I was quicker off the mark, or less busy at work this would have been published days ago, but what can I say…? Sorry folks, I’ll try and do better next time.

However, on with the review… In short, if you enjoyed the Curious Village, you’ll enjoy the Diabolical Box – so-called over here presumably because they think those of us in North America won’t understand the term Pandora’s Box – a heads-up to game developers: we do, at least, I do, and I’m ever so slightly annoyed that, in my mind, my version of the game will always have the slightly dumbed down title. Fortunately this is an ever so small stumbling block on the road to enjoying the game. Read on to see why it really doesn’t matter all that much what you call it…

The basic story is, I suppose, simple enough – Professor Layton finds his mentor and former teacher dead, presumed murdered and sets out to discover what happened. The old favourites are here too – Chelmey with his hot temper and illogical deductions, Flora with her eyes so large they may at any moment take over the rest of her head, Granny Riddleton in case you miss anything along the way and random others (the explorer who never seems to know where he’s going for instance…) Their investigation leads them to the Molentary Express, as far as I can gather this is the Layton version of the Orient Express. In the course of your journey there are, naturally, many puzzles to solve – some are insanely simple, and others I simply had to leave for a while and come back to with a fresh pair of eyes and a fresh mind a wee bit later. I did, however, fall into the Layton game trap of following the storyline a bit too closely and consequently missed a few puzzles along the way on my first play through – I would suggest saving to a different slot in each location so that you avoid that kind of mishap yourself – after all, what’s the point of a puzzle game if you don’t do the puzzles?!

In short, the game is good, very good. I finished it in a couple of evenings, simply because it sucks you in once you start. If you need more convincing than my resounding endorsement, then read on, and you may also want to check out this rather spiffy video over at backfortwoseconds.com. I have to admit, I was a little shocked at the, um, ‘showgirl’ cracking onto Luke, and the suggestions of sex and drugs dotted throughout the game, but then, they do say sex sells, don’t they… :s Maybe I’m just old fashioned, after all, this isn’t by any stretch the only video game I’ve played with such elements running through it, in fact, by comparison to some it’s really rather tame, I guess I just tend to think of the Professor Layton series as more ‘innocent’ than many others. I have a few gripes with it, a lot of the time the pace is very slow, but I did find that with the last one – you have to keep scrolling through lines of text waiting to be able to move on with the game, and at the end, it just seems to ‘stop’ rather than end in many ways, and some of the storylines are left largely unresolved. I should be clear that they do resolve these in the sketches as the final credits role, but from an engaging with the game point of view, it would have been nice to see them through to the end myself, and there is, of course, the ‘to be continued…’ at the very end of it all, which lifted my spirits slightly as, despite my gripes, I do love the game.

The mini games in this one are also pretty good – you have to exercise a hamster (more fun and more challenging than it may sound…), build a camera which then becomes a mini game of ‘spot the difference’ in certain locations where you are allowed to take photos (these reveal hidden puzzles and are worth doing), and make different teas from various ingredients you find around town which you can use to placate, energise, or cure various townsfolk, leading them to divulge more information or more puzzles as you wander around town.

The basic puzzles themselves are the same sort of thing as in the Curious Village – there’s a healthy mix of mathematical, visual and logic problems to tax all those areas of your brain that you’re supposed to work out but don’t want to buy the Brain Training games for. And like I’ve said already, it really is a good game. I fully intend to go back and find, then solve, those puzzles that I missed, but for now it’s Lost Odyssey that’s taking up my time, thanks to Mr McBoob’s recommendations. But if you don’t already have this game, then buy it. Unless of course you’re not in North America, in which case, pre-order is the way to go…