Professor Layton & the Diabolical Box for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

I really loved playing this game. The graphics are beautiful -- they look a lot like a Miyazaki movie (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle) -- the mysteries are fun, the pacing is great, and the puzzles are fun to solve.

I've seen reviews in which people say things like, "it's boring just trying all the possibilities for each puzzle until you find the right one." The whole point is to enjoy solving the puzzles yourself! My advice is, don't rush through the game. Don't cheat to find the answers by force or trial and error. Try to figure them out yourself! Enjoy it!

If you don't like solving puzzles, fair enough! I personally don't like games in which the character runs around shooting monsters, you know? We all like different things.

There are only a few drawbacks to this game.

#1. Some of the puzzles are frustrating, not difficult. For example, one puzzle is a picture of a scene in which something is wrong, and the puzzle solver is supposed to figure out what's wrong logically. The problem is that the scene is dark and it's raining, so it's actually difficult to see the scene at all, much less figure out what's logically wrong.

#2. The major "mysteries" of the game are solved by playing forward through the game, rather than by you, the player. For example, in the beginning of the game, Professor Layton and Luke are looking for a missing child, Tom. I figured out almost immediately why they were having so much trouble finding Tom, but I wasn't able to tell the game that -- the mystery was "solved" for me by Professor long after I had figured it out.

#3. It's too short! But that's sort of a complaint of love....

So, on the whole, this game is wonderful, though it's not for everyone. If you like puzzles, and don't mind patiently figuring them out, then play this game! And I would give basically the same review for the first Professor Layton game.