Written by: Ian

 

 

 

The first Professor Layton was a runaway success, so it’s no surprise that a sequel has arrived so soon. Promising more puzzles and better production values, surely this is a winner for all the family on DS this Christmas?

 

 

As with the previous game, there’s several mysteries to be solved, within the context of the larger plot. You start out in London before getting on a fictionalised Orient Express, to chase over Europe to find Pandora’s Box, and to unravel the mystery of it, and the mysterious disappearance of one of Layton’s old pals. The story itself, is fine, albeit a little hackneyed, and as before, doesn’t even do a fantastic job of explaining why you get presented with puzzles at certain moments.

 

The game has not really in any way expanded to being a proper adventure game, it’s just a story driven puzzle game as ever, that lets you approach things in a slightly non-linear fashion.

 

 

 

As aforementioned, Layton is clearly a puzzle game- whilst you do get to do some exploration, and search around for hint coins, this is clearly secondary, and just gives the appearance that the game is less linear than it really is. In fact, gameplay wise, little has changed from the first title, with one exception- everything is bigger. There’s more locations, more puzzles, and more unlockable extras, including a neat little RPG game originally intended for the iphone. However, is bigger necessarily better?

 

In my opinion, no. Level 5 have just pumped out more of the same, with little to no enhancements to the gameplay. If you’re happy just to have 150 ‘new’ puzzles, you’ll be fine. But I found the puzzle types were pretty similar to the kind of stuff I was playing through in the first game, and thus I started to lose interest more rapidly, because I’d seen it all before. If there were new styles of puzzles, or just something a little bit different, I would be much more enthusiastic.

 

As it is, it seems a little bit like an expansion pack for the first game. To best honest, some more adventuring, and more context based puzzles would have really enriched the experience, whereas at the minute, many of the 150+ puzzles come at very forced moments. For example, you’re on the train, and someone offers refreshments, but you have to solve a puzzle before you get them. This is just crazy- you’d get the sack if that was a real-life situation! It’s just a shame that things couldn’t feel a little more natural. Anyway, if you were obsessed with the first game, you’ll find there’s far more content than before, although I felt rather too much déjà vu.

 

Most of the same problems from the first game also exist. The hints are a) still too obtuse, and b) the whole mechanic of having to find hint coins is annoying a little unfair. Additionally, whilst the game is recommended for anyone over the age of 7, a 7 year old will have real problems.

 

 

The game still gets really difficult really quickly. If you are looking to enjoy a story, and solve a few puzzles on the way, this, again, is not the game for you. Some puzzles are incredibly frustrating, so be prepared to repeat several of them over and over, as some of the clues themselves are deliberately misleading in their advice. It’s always annoying when deliberately obscure wording makes an otherwise relatively simple puzzle into a towering colossus.