I never really thought much of the process of turning a book or other media into a game, but this and your other post about that are fairly interesting. I think the biggest challenge, as you highlight here, is maintaining the same "universe" while keeping the game as a whole balanced. I think that has been what has plagued most movie-to-game or book-to-game transitions as anything. -Aaron
if you kneel in a gate room(the ones that take you from castle a and castle b) they take you to the next gate room. Hint card 4 reads "Lower your eyes in front of the gate.You will find guidance there.
Great review. I've heard about this game so many times but I never seem to come across it when the time is right.
As for the DC games coming to xbox, I recall reading shortly after the Dreamcast started to go downhill, MS started courting a lot of the personnel and the original xbox ended up being connected in many ways to Sega. I think I remember they picked up some of the designers from Sega and even ended up bringing over Peter Moore who was COO at Sega America until he went over to the xbox division of MS. After Peter came over, the Sega connection got stronger than ever.
#loot for the chest
s to search for hidden doors - likely you weren't every actually stuck
you can type a number before hand, because each search is pseudo-random (chance+your wisdom, I think), so you may have to do a few.
ex - 15s searches all adjacent squares for secret things 10 times.
I seem to remember that most of the initial post-DC games (JSRF, Monkey Ball, Billy Hatcher, Panzer Orta, Shinobi, etc) were actually DC projects that had development moved to the new consoles instead of games actually created for those consoles in mind. Also they seemed to put their most graphic-important games on the most capable console at the time.
Still a great game. I expect it will be such forever.
I didn't really mind they changed Frog's (Glenn's) manner of speech. I found it a bit inconsistent between how he spoke as a human being, then how he spoke as a frog, and if you got the ending where they are all sitting around Lucca's house, he's back to speaking like he was as a human again. I have yet to explore the new content... and despite your warnings... It's not like I have anything else better to do with my time -.-;
And with regards to the entity talk, I have not poked around at it but... if I had to guess, I would say it is an allusion to reality, and the player is the entity...
Yes, it just struck me when writing that line that all the plot elements were "of Time."
It seems that they tried to introduce all the new stuff at the beginning of the game, and ended up with a game that (for the first half-hour) didn't much resemble Sands of Time.
Great game for me, because it is not the typicall game you play all days, this is more than others, has an extra poin with the art work, seems bored for someone, but if you want originality, this is the correct game.
Not really... though it's been like a year and a half since I played the original. They both do have these annoying puzzles where you have to move a giant block through a bunch of small blocks though. Hard to describe, but those always made me angry.
This game takes place after the first, but there's no required knowledge needed to enjoy Diabolical Box. A few of the characters carry over besides the Professor and Luke, but they barely touch on things from the first game. I'll get into this in my full review, but they're basically the same game with different puzzles and a different setting, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Well, this game was a deception for me, I played Neverwinter nights some time ago and I don't really like it, I was expecting more action and less table RPGs (or card rpgs or whatever you call it), but KOTOR was even worst, with the slow battle and the "click just once and the computer will battle for you" thing, and TO ROLL A DICE TO DECIDE HOW MANY DAMAGE YOU WILL INFLICT! holly cow, I can't imagine a Jedi and a Lord sith saying "hey let's fight but first lets roll this dice and if I win you will receive a powerful attack, Ohhh! I make 20 points it's a critical, come on! raise your head and show me your neck, cause this will be a hell of an attack", it just don't make sense, the amount of damage and the critical thing should be based on accuracy, speed, the power of your weapon, your own power, (in case of slashing, piercing or crushing weapons) enemy defense, enemy speed, enemy armor and enemy weakness or strongness against specific kind of attack and magic attacks, but I think it's ways easier to program the whole battle schemes just basing it on a stupid dice roll, well but that's just my opinion. But please don`t take me wrong I love REAL turn based rpgs like the classical Phantasy Star series, the classical Evolution series, the Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2 and lots of others, I just don`t like the ones that doesn`t make any sense.
This is one of my favorite games of all time. It's the first RPG I played and the turn-based battles really had me hooked, as well as the humor. I've played through it enough times to know the first hour by heart!
I had heard lots of good things about Prof. Layton but was never really interested until reading this. Would you recommend staring with this game or with the first?
"Therefore the Prince decides to voyage to the Island of Time, travel back in Time, to kill the Empress of Time before she creates the Sands of Time. Of Time."
"of time."
Good stuff. :)
Also, it's funny you mention that you were slightly disappointed up until about 35 minutes. I played this game a few years ago and only made it about to the Crow miniboss and never went back to it. Maybe if I had given it another 30 minutes it would have hooked me. I wish I would have had this "first hour" review back then!
For what it's worth, I find the story brilliant -- but to get to the point where you understand why, and why the princess saving thing is a complete deception, you will need to complete the game. Oh, and there's an excellent reason why World 1 is where it is, as you will discover!
The way in which this review was written really pulled me in. Great job explaining some of the games major and key details. I really enjoyed the comedy you put into the story aswell. I am really entised by your words and want to buy the game even more.
It be an intangible quality that pushed it so high. Everything I've read about sounds good, but everyone I talk to says amazing. It just doesn't add up.
According to Wikipedia, all versions work, including the bundled version with Sega GT.
Do you know if this game works with the backwards compatibility on the Xbox 360? I remember playing it on Steve's Xbox and loving it.
I never really thought much of the process of turning a book or other media into a game, but this and your other post about that are fairly interesting. I think the biggest challenge, as you highlight here, is maintaining the same "universe" while keeping the game as a whole balanced. I think that has been what has plagued most movie-to-game or book-to-game transitions as anything. -Aaron
The style of cel-shading on this game makes the characters look like Killer 7. Or vice versa I suppose.
if you kneel in a gate room(the ones that take you from castle a and castle b) they take you to the next gate room. Hint card 4 reads "Lower your eyes in front of the gate.You will find guidance there.
Great review. I've heard about this game so many times but I never seem to come across it when the time is right.
As for the DC games coming to xbox, I recall reading shortly after the Dreamcast started to go downhill, MS started courting a lot of the personnel and the original xbox ended up being connected in many ways to Sega. I think I remember they picked up some of the designers from Sega and even ended up bringing over Peter Moore who was COO at Sega America until he went over to the xbox division of MS. After Peter came over, the Sega connection got stronger than ever.
#loot for the chest
s to search for hidden doors - likely you weren't every actually stuck
you can type a number before hand, because each search is pseudo-random (chance+your wisdom, I think), so you may have to do a few.
ex - 15s searches all adjacent squares for secret things 10 times.
I seem to remember that most of the initial post-DC games (JSRF, Monkey Ball, Billy Hatcher, Panzer Orta, Shinobi, etc) were actually DC projects that had development moved to the new consoles instead of games actually created for those consoles in mind. Also they seemed to put their most graphic-important games on the most capable console at the time.
Still a great game. I expect it will be such forever.
I didn't really mind they changed Frog's (Glenn's) manner of speech. I found it a bit inconsistent between how he spoke as a human being, then how he spoke as a frog, and if you got the ending where they are all sitting around Lucca's house, he's back to speaking like he was as a human again. I have yet to explore the new content... and despite your warnings... It's not like I have anything else better to do with my time -.-;
And with regards to the entity talk, I have not poked around at it but... if I had to guess, I would say it is an allusion to reality, and the player is the entity...
Yes, it just struck me when writing that line that all the plot elements were "of Time."
It seems that they tried to introduce all the new stuff at the beginning of the game, and ended up with a game that (for the first half-hour) didn't much resemble Sands of Time.
Great game for me, because it is not the typicall game you play all days, this is more than others, has an extra poin with the art work, seems bored for someone, but if you want originality, this is the correct game.
Not really... though it's been like a year and a half since I played the original. They both do have these annoying puzzles where you have to move a giant block through a bunch of small blocks though. Hard to describe, but those always made me angry.
Does one have better puzzles than the other?
You almost convince me to go out and find it. I hate the idea that all my favorite games from the eighties can be remodeled, though. What to do?
This game takes place after the first, but there's no required knowledge needed to enjoy Diabolical Box. A few of the characters carry over besides the Professor and Luke, but they barely touch on things from the first game. I'll get into this in my full review, but they're basically the same game with different puzzles and a different setting, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Well, this game was a deception for me, I played Neverwinter nights some time ago and I don't really like it, I was expecting more action and less table RPGs (or card rpgs or whatever you call it), but KOTOR was even worst, with the slow battle and the "click just once and the computer will battle for you" thing, and TO ROLL A DICE TO DECIDE HOW MANY DAMAGE YOU WILL INFLICT! holly cow, I can't imagine a Jedi and a Lord sith saying "hey let's fight but first lets roll this dice and if I win you will receive a powerful attack, Ohhh! I make 20 points it's a critical, come on! raise your head and show me your neck, cause this will be a hell of an attack", it just don't make sense, the amount of damage and the critical thing should be based on accuracy, speed, the power of your weapon, your own power, (in case of slashing, piercing or crushing weapons) enemy defense, enemy speed, enemy armor and enemy weakness or strongness against specific kind of attack and magic attacks, but I think it's ways easier to program the whole battle schemes just basing it on a stupid dice roll, well but that's just my opinion. But please don`t take me wrong I love REAL turn based rpgs like the classical Phantasy Star series, the classical Evolution series, the Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2 and lots of others, I just don`t like the ones that doesn`t make any sense.
P.s.: Sorry for poor English.
This is one of my favorite games of all time. It's the first RPG I played and the turn-based battles really had me hooked, as well as the humor. I've played through it enough times to know the first hour by heart!
I had heard lots of good things about Prof. Layton but was never really interested until reading this. Would you recommend staring with this game or with the first?
I actually read that line the first time and thought it was a misprint with him re-writing "in time," then I thought about it and had a good laugh.
You can play Pacman Games.
Hey Paul,
Great review.
I loved this line,
"Therefore the Prince decides to voyage to the Island of Time, travel back in Time, to kill the Empress of Time before she creates the Sands of Time. Of Time."
"of time."
Good stuff. :)
Also, it's funny you mention that you were slightly disappointed up until about 35 minutes. I played this game a few years ago and only made it about to the Crow miniboss and never went back to it. Maybe if I had given it another 30 minutes it would have hooked me. I wish I would have had this "first hour" review back then!
Hi,
For what it's worth, I find the story brilliant -- but to get to the point where you understand why, and why the princess saving thing is a complete deception, you will need to complete the game. Oh, and there's an excellent reason why World 1 is where it is, as you will discover!
The way in which this review was written really pulled me in. Great job explaining some of the games major and key details. I really enjoyed the comedy you put into the story aswell. I am really entised by your words and want to buy the game even more.
Thank you!
It be an intangible quality that pushed it so high. Everything I've read about sounds good, but everyone I talk to says amazing. It just doesn't add up.
This is one of the BEST games on the 360. I don't think any other game immerses you quite like this game. It sets a standard.