Pandora's Box (or Diabolical Box if you wanna be all American about this) is a very familiar feeling to Curious Village (or Curious Village if you wanna be all American about this). But it's definitely got improvements. Most notable, to me at least, is the introduction of a memo pad. In the last game only certain puzzles let you use the touch screen to take notes, but now every puzzle has a dedicated memo pad function. I would say the screen to write on is a bit small, but still (might be worth noting that I played on a 2DS XL so maybe the OG DS with the OG stylus was better?).
It also has more varied and interesting locations. I loved the first town you visit in the game, so it's a shame you don't get to go back there, but I still like Folsense too. The only real downside to this, if you wanna count it, is that it means certain hint coins are permanently missable from these starting locations. Luckily no puzzle is ever missable, as like the last game there's a dedicated spot to house any puzzle that is tied to a specific chapter that you didn't run in to.
As weird as it sounds for a visual novel, I don't play these games for the story (I just like brain teasers), so I won't say if the plot is any better or worse than before. It's got the same charm, yet weirdly feels like it's aimed at very young kids despite tackling themes like murder, and puzzles that I wouldn't expect the 5 year old certain dialogue and tone seems to market to, to be able to solve.
Speaking of the puzzles, I guess that's where this game hits its biggest snag. Might have been less noticeable on release with a year between them (in Japan they came out in the same year???), but playing the games close to each other you notice how many puzzles are just reworded or otherwise retooled versions of the last games puzzles. Like last game would have you divide a 5x5 square with images on it into 4 sections, so that every section contained the same images of equal amounts. You can find a couple of that exact puzzle here, just with new images so a new set-up can be tied to the explanation. And there's still a ton of block puzzles. I'm not a fan of those... If you are then you're in for a treat.
But no matter what type of puzzles you are a fan of, there's a lot of variety. I'm personally drawn to those ones that give you 5 or so suspects and you get a certain amount of detail of each one, so you have to work out who is lying. I'm really bad at anything involving shapes and trying to imagine flattened cubes as 3D ones. If you only care about completing the story you can skip many. I think you need to complete 80/138 story puzzles to complete the game? At the very least that was the last gated checkpoint I remember seeing. If you're like me you'll just use a guide for the ones that stump you... Don't worry, I didn't set it to mastered!
But I do wanna give the puzzles some credit in this game too. Many of them are much better tied in to what's going on in the story. There's still a lot of "I have no information to give you, but how about a random puzzle!" or "I'm not sure about that, but it reminds me of a puzzle about a similar thing" (so expect a lot of box-based puzzles), but now many puzzles seem like the characters are actually solving them in-universe to work through their quest.
There are also a small amount of those game-wide puzzles that are housed in your briefcase. They're a bit more involved this time too. The most complex has you getting camera parts as rewards from specific puzzles, then finding specific spots on the map to take a picture, then playing a spot the difference game, then finding the secret puzzle from the finished picture. It's puzzles on top of puzzles!
The cutscenes still amaze me for what they pulled off on the DS, and there's even more of them now!
Certain minor things that bugged me from the original are still present too. Like when searching for hint coins you can too often hit random objects that have Layton or Luke say something in a pop-up box, which sounds small (and it is), but given how hint coins could be literally anything, it's annoying to be spam tapping the screen and getting the same box over and over. Traversing long distances is also a pain as you have to keep pressing the movement button in the bottom right to open up the arrows for the next screen.
If you've played the first game you won't need selling on this one. You'll know if you'll love it or hate it.
It also has more varied and interesting locations. I loved the first town you visit in the game, so it's a shame you don't get to go back there, but I still like Folsense too. The only real downside to this, if you wanna count it, is that it means certain hint coins are permanently missable from these starting locations. Luckily no puzzle is ever missable, as like the last game there's a dedicated spot to house any puzzle that is tied to a specific chapter that you didn't run in to.
As weird as it sounds for a visual novel, I don't play these games for the story (I just like brain teasers), so I won't say if the plot is any better or worse than before. It's got the same charm, yet weirdly feels like it's aimed at very young kids despite tackling themes like murder, and puzzles that I wouldn't expect the 5 year old certain dialogue and tone seems to market to, to be able to solve.
Speaking of the puzzles, I guess that's where this game hits its biggest snag. Might have been less noticeable on release with a year between them (in Japan they came out in the same year???), but playing the games close to each other you notice how many puzzles are just reworded or otherwise retooled versions of the last games puzzles. Like last game would have you divide a 5x5 square with images on it into 4 sections, so that every section contained the same images of equal amounts. You can find a couple of that exact puzzle here, just with new images so a new set-up can be tied to the explanation. And there's still a ton of block puzzles. I'm not a fan of those... If you are then you're in for a treat.
But no matter what type of puzzles you are a fan of, there's a lot of variety. I'm personally drawn to those ones that give you 5 or so suspects and you get a certain amount of detail of each one, so you have to work out who is lying. I'm really bad at anything involving shapes and trying to imagine flattened cubes as 3D ones. If you only care about completing the story you can skip many. I think you need to complete 80/138 story puzzles to complete the game? At the very least that was the last gated checkpoint I remember seeing. If you're like me you'll just use a guide for the ones that stump you... Don't worry, I didn't set it to mastered!
But I do wanna give the puzzles some credit in this game too. Many of them are much better tied in to what's going on in the story. There's still a lot of "I have no information to give you, but how about a random puzzle!" or "I'm not sure about that, but it reminds me of a puzzle about a similar thing" (so expect a lot of box-based puzzles), but now many puzzles seem like the characters are actually solving them in-universe to work through their quest.
There are also a small amount of those game-wide puzzles that are housed in your briefcase. They're a bit more involved this time too. The most complex has you getting camera parts as rewards from specific puzzles, then finding specific spots on the map to take a picture, then playing a spot the difference game, then finding the secret puzzle from the finished picture. It's puzzles on top of puzzles!
The cutscenes still amaze me for what they pulled off on the DS, and there's even more of them now!
Certain minor things that bugged me from the original are still present too. Like when searching for hint coins you can too often hit random objects that have Layton or Luke say something in a pop-up box, which sounds small (and it is), but given how hint coins could be literally anything, it's annoying to be spam tapping the screen and getting the same box over and over. Traversing long distances is also a pain as you have to keep pressing the movement button in the bottom right to open up the arrows for the next screen.
If you've played the first game you won't need selling on this one. You'll know if you'll love it or hate it.
whu
1 year ago