Professor Layton is in one of my favorite gaming genres.  It’s a rare genre, but it is my favorite.  There aren’t that many puzzle style games, but Professor Layton is by far one of the top ones on my list.  It combines two of the greats together, mystery and puzzles.

Check out my review of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box after the jump…

This is the second installment of what I hope to be a long franchise of Layton games.  This adventure starts off where the first game left you, with Fiona now by your side.  Don’t worry if you never played the first one because  Level 5 does a good job with informing the player of the back story.

There were a bunch of new added features to this version of the game.  Besides the usual such as piecing together a random photo.  They included a camera, which after being assembled, allows the user to take pictures of areas.  After taking the photo, you then go and play a hidden pictures game with the photo to reveal a hidden puzzle in the game.  I thought that aspect was great except that if you missed the puzzle it’s gone forever because they are not sent to the shack.

Although this version has no dog, you do get a hamster that sniffs the coins out for you, that is after you make him skinny enough to sniff coins.  They also added a Tea Set, where you can mix teas and give them to characters in the game to get more hint coins.  I found that the Tea Set was fun, but was just annoying after awhile, because there were times when I gave the characters the wrong tea and then had to come back to them when they were thirsty again to get the hint coin if I really wanted the coin.

Overall, I was happy with the gameplay.  Most of the puzzles were fun and challenging.  Some not so much, but the overall experience was fun and I loved the story.  The storyline itself was great too.  There were a bunch of “mini” stories that intertwined with the main story.  They included Fiona from the first storyline into this version, which was nice to see that they didn’t just throw a whole new storyline together and forget about all the other characters from the first title.  The videos in this title are just as impressive as the first one.  I love how they can do it in such a solid and fluid video and on a DS!  Its quite impressive – just like the first title as well.

I hope to see more games from Level 5 that rocks!  And more of Professor Layton as well! Now bring the third one to the US!