Play Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box Online

Summary

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (known in PAL regions as Pandora’s Box) turns the DS stylus into a detective’s magnifying glass. Each brain‑teaser is tagged with a picarat value, and you can spend limited hint coins to reveal up to three clues before solving it by tapping, drawing or handwriting the answer. Correct solutions add picarats and sometimes reward hamster toys, camera shards, or tea‑making ingredients that let you customize Luke’s pet hamster workouts and brew new brews for the cast.

Beyond the core 138 puzzles, the game offered weekly Wi‑Fi‑downloaded challenges for 33 weeks, unlocking a total of 15 bonus puzzles and a hidden‑door secret that required codes from the first and third titles. The soundtrack, composed by Tomohito Nishiura, expands on the original themes with extra percussion, and the ending song “Iris” (sung by Salyu) appears in the international version as an instrumental cue.

Critics praised the tighter integration of puzzles with the narrative, earning “favorable” Metacritic scores, an A‑ rating from 1Up.com, and nominations for Portable Game of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Original Story. By September 2009 the title had moved over 1.26 million units in the West and became the fastest‑selling DS game ever in the UK, cementing its place as a beloved sequel in the Layton series.

Storyline

Professor Layton, the world‑renowned archaeologist, and his self‑proclaimed apprentice Luke are drawn into a mystery when Layton’s mentor, Dr. Andrew Schrader, collapses after handling the fabled Elysian Box. The only clue left behind is a ticket for the Molentary Express, prompting the duo to board the train with the help of Inspector Chelmey and a stowaway named Flora.

The train stops in Dropstone, a town celebrating its 50th anniversary, where they learn that the town’s founder Sophia once sought the box and that her granddaughter Katia continues the search. Don Paolo, Layton’s rival, kidnaps Flora and later disguises himself as her, while the conductor uses sleeping gas to switch the train’s carriages, sending Layton and Luke toward the remote town of Folsense.

In Folsense, the pair discover a mining town built over a gold vein that released a hallucinogenic gas fifty years earlier; the gas still lingers, causing nausea and strange rumors of a vampire named Anton. After a tense duel and a collapsing castle, Anton is revealed to be an old man and the town is found abandoned, the gas having caused the original deaths.

Layton opens the empty Elysian Box and finds a hidden compartment containing a love note from Sophia to Anton, explaining the box’s true purpose. With the mystery resolved, Dr. Schrader awakens from his temporary coma, and the group returns to London, ending with a “to be continued” hint at a time‑machine adventure.