Level-5 just turned 20 years old. Let's discuss their work.

Well Level 5 had to start somewhere. So they gave us this... a blend of a roguelike dungeon crawler and Soul Blazer town rejuvenating. This game has its charms, and in the beginning is actually kind of fun. Crafting your own weapons and designing the town layouts are the strongest highlights. However, about midway through the charm wears off, and the formula becomes all too tedious. Basically Level 5 took what should be a 12 hour game and used time wasting methods to stretch that out to 30 hours. To see things through to the end, you'll need a mountain of patience and a bit of a masochistic streak (especially for the last boss). Supposedly Dark Cloud 2 (AKA Dark Chronicle) fixes all the problems this game has. So I would suggest skipping this one and going straight to its sequel instead. (7/10)

Dragon Quest VIII represents the standard 1986 DQ formula polished to sheer perfection. With its languid pace, frequent loading, and incessant random battles, this classically styled JRPG is not for the impatient gamer. Vintage enthusiasts however will be enthralled with DQVIII's amazing cel shaded graphics, huge and perfectly scaled game world, orchestrated OST, charming protagonists, and massive overall experience. If DQVIII has any fault, it's perhaps too much of a good thing; many will burnout before the end. For those with the fortitude and verve for such a long journey though, a masterpiece draws near! (9/10)

Good adventure game for DS but not at all in the same league as say Ace Attorney or Hotel Dusk. (7/10) (apparently that's all I had to say in 2013)

Professor Layton and The Diabolical Box is part of a highly lauded series of adventure puzzle games for the DS and 3DS. This particular entry was the second game in the series, being a sequel to The Curious Village. Here we find Professor Layton and his assistant Luke once again mixed up in a strange series of events that will test their noggins to find out the truth. All the while testing the patience of the player to endure the endless boring bits along the way.

Diabolical Box's improvements over its predecessor are few. Primarily the presentation has improved noticeably. The background artwork hre is astoundingly well crafted, top notch. Level-5 successfully ripped off The Triplets of Belleville aesthetic perfectly this time. The animated cutscenes are also nicely done and are a joy to watch. The music sounds well enough too, although it is extremely limited in instrumentation (hope you like accordions) and sparse in track selection. (You WILL get tired of hearing that same old music box tune for EVERY. SINGLE. PUZZLE.) There are also a lot of mini-games here that you let you do riveting things such as brewing tea, taking photos, or designing an exercise course for a hamster.

Diabolical Box's plot starts out legitimately interesting. A strange death inducing box shows up out of nowhere. Layton takes it upon himself to discover its past. While this plot starts out quite interesting, it quickly loses all steam during the entire middle portion of the game. The plot does get more interesting at the very end, but the way it is resolved is utter deus ex nonsense and atrociously unbelievable. On top of that, the plot focuses on resolving the fate of two characters that were barely even developed by that point. I've seen better story telling in Saturday morning cartoons to be totally honest.

Plot aside, you will spent most of your time either poking the stylus over every square pixel of the screen looking for "hint coins", or perhaps actually solving puzzles. Puzzles are everywhere here flying at you like gnats on a sticky summer day. Now, when the puzzles are actually intertwined with the plot and include stylus interactivity, they are truly enjoyable. Unfortunately about 85% of this game's puzzles are nothing like that, and are instead abstract non-interactive ones ripped right out of Akira Tago books. If you enjoy inane number puzzles or tracing maze loops, you'll find plenty of that bland joy here.

To be perfectly honest, I found the bulk of Diabolical Box to be excruciatingly boring. The plot was unengaging and badly paced. Environs such as a blase train and endless Bavarian architecture weren't much fun to explore. Puzzles were of the quantity over quality format. The entire experience is so concerned with being faux-quaint and overly inoffensive, that I was actually offended by how ridiculously prim it ultimately is. It's like the game thought only elderly nuns were going to play it, and even they would have felt the callouses of Level-5's kid gloves after a while.

Well folks this was the second game in this series I completed, and I still don't understand why people love it so much. Compared to other adventure games on DS like Hotel Dusk, Ghost Trick, or Ace Attorney, Professor Layton's first two games are utterly milquetoast and forgettable. (I hold out a little hope for the rest though, as Tatsuya Shinkai did not direct any other games in this series after this.) A true gentleman may never leave any puzzle unsolved, but he could certainly be forgiven for leaving this diabolical box forever locked shut. (5/10)