The BEST Professor Layton Game? - Pandora's Box / Diabolical Box Retrospective 

Don Paolo coming out of nowhere in every game in the first trilogy is so funny to me lmao. The fact he's just a nonsense villain and iirc we never find out his deal is just the kind of surreal humour I love. I am glad that he isn't the primary antagonist of each game though.

I think one of the saddest things in this game is the fact that Anton never even knew he had a daughter until she had been dead for years. They were never given the chance to meet, she grew up and died, all while her father never even knew his wife had been pregnant. And the game sort of just glosses over this, which is a shame. Sophia's letter even avoids the subject because she couldn't bare to break it to Anton that he never got the chance to meet his daughter.

The ending of Pandora's Box never fails to make me cry. Like, I know everybody always talks about Unwound Future, but for me, this ending just hits the most. I think it's because of the music. Iris is a beautiful track.

I enjoy the twist because it's not a "cheap cop out" as many people claim, it perfectly fits thematically into how Folsense is symbolic for greed (as you pointed it out), but also symbolic for refusing to let go of the past. Dropstone is founded by those that did move on, and it's so much happier and less miserable because these people simply let go. Anton and those residents that are alive (there are a few, the hotel bellhop, Olson who says he can barely see anymore, Joseph) meanwhile refused to let go, instead holding onto a world that has long passed because they were all too afraid of moving into a new one.

The fact that Folsense was named as a meaning of "False Sense", forshadowing the whole game...How did I NEVER REALIZE THAT AS A TEEN?!

As for the sword fight scene, the voice acting is so good too! In the entire game, but, "LAYTOOOOON!" from Anton always gets me

I played this one first before curious village so I had no context as to why Luke attacked Chelmey 😂 it was very funny to me as a kid

Great video. I personally think the remark about Folsense not being real was more metaphorical. I don't think there were any people who were entirely hallucinations. Especially as the Professor and Luke venture to the borders of Folsense where the gas doesn't affect people and everything is rather dingy and depressing which is what the real present Folsense is.

As much as the plot twist of the gas is insane and hard to believe, every Layton plot twist is equally mad. Everyone being a robot or, even crazier, having a replica London built underground, are insane as well. You can’t criticise the twist of Diabolical Box without also criticising the writing of the whole series. I love Layton, and while I love Unwound Future, this entry has always been my favourite, and I see it as highly underrated, and I’m glad to see it get some love :)

I mean, it makes sense that it didn't take that long. All the coding was there, they just needed assets, a plot, and more puzzles. And I'm sure they used some scrapped ideas for characters and puzzles that they planned to add to curious village

I've probably mentioned it in one of my other comments on this brill channel but Pandora's Box is my favourite too. The atmosphere, the music, the story and the characters all really came alive in this one, and, compared to literally every other game in the series, I think it worked so well to have a mystery that wasn't rooted in the past and relationships of the protagonists. If I could spend a day exploring anywhere from the series, it would have to be Folsense. On a slight side note, I work a lot with digital conservation of old photos and films, and I love being able to look at locations through the eyes of someone who lived 20, 50 or 100 years ago, especially when the focal point of the image is no longer there in today's world. I feel like Folsense was almost a giant living photograph that the characters could explore, and I'm super jealous of that, even though its absolutely fictional. I grew up in a commuter town too, so it was so cool seeing Layton and Co exploring a setting similar to where I lived, just about 50 years earlier. Cannot recommend this game enough, regardless of how mental the twist was. Thanks for making a vid on it and getting people talking about it again!

Personally it’s a close tie with Lost Future when it comes to which professor Layton game is better. I think Diabolical box has some better pacing and theme(s), while the story of Lost Future, without spoilers, is better in my opinion.

I JUST RAN TO GET MY DS BOX TO SEE IF THE TRAIN TICKET WAS THERE AND INDEED IT WAS WHAT THE HELL!? I bought this game in 2008 and just noticing this now its like finding a secret tresure, i'm obsessed

Folsense as a concept is something pretty unique and the setting of it is phenomenal. It's the truest rendition of a Ghost Town, but with the twist that you as the player are unknowingly playing as one of the ghosts.

im currently working on a little layton fangame with some friends with flora as our main character and we are trying to give her a fully fleshed out character arc so that she does not feel like the npc she has been through the first trilogy. im so excited and i cant wait to share the results with the layton fanbase.

20:39 I remember one the hamsters lines by heart. “Aw come on, I’m tired!”

I tear up every time I hear Sofia reading her final letter. (T_T) I haven't played every single Layton game, but Diabolical Box, Unwound Future, and Last Specter are my favorites. I enjoyed this retrospective very much.

just wanted to say how glad i am that you're keeping this series alive with your videos, especially with how sad seeing it fall into more and more obscurity has been :'( (esp with the latest entry and then level-5s american branch shutting down) i just recently bought pandora's box at a flea market since i never actually owned it myself and haven't played it in about a decade, so I'm very happy to see you making a video about it now. always love your thoughtful and funny analysis, keep those videos coming!

This is also my favourite game! I never thought that everyone is fake, just older than we thought. I haven’t played it since I was a kid but I distinctly remember a little girl character who mentioned that now she gets tired when she plays a lot faster which I always took after the game to be similar to Anton being surprised he got tired sword fighting. Dunno maybe I just don’t want them all to be our imagination either. Great video!!

Okay, I think Layton’s line about the residents having never existed in the first place MAYA BE a mistranslation. ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN! A lot of the residents talk about seeing things and feeling older than they appear to be. Ilyana admits to the men in the cast that despite her appearance, she’s “no spring chick.” Niles- who looks very much like a child- says that he can’t run around for very long anymore. This little boy then wonders if he’s just getting older. HMMMMM… We get a lot of these details about how the residents feel from giving them tea. Personally, I think there was a disconnect in the translation of the script. You see issues like this pop up a lot with translated media- most notably in games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, where you actually end up missing huge chunks of the story from improper translations. I think this game has a better translation team, but this one line is the biggest problem.

Luke! Stop that! That's his face! Also, I love hearing about these games again. Feels like seeing an old friend for the first time in a decade. Can't wait for more.

The puzzle where you had to fold the ticket in half was just so creative

Personally my favorite is Unwound Future, but I recently adapted this game into a D&D campaign and it’s going well so far!

really loved this video!! i don’t find professor layton content super often sadly but this retrospective genuinely brought a smile to my face and it’s amazing to see so many other fans keeping the games alive!! have binged all your layton videos since and i hope you keep making retrospectives for the rest of the series too (:

The music and atmosphere in this game is a major reason as to why this is my favourite in the series. Such a great game and then to follow it up with the lost furure, this series has too many brilliant entries. Really good overview and analysis, can't wait for the next one

The question that is unsolved and is bugging me till today is HOW TF DID DON PAOLO SHRINK TO COSPLAY AS FLORA!?

I’m pretty sure the characters’ names are pronounced German, because they look like it: Anton is the German name for Anthony, even Herzen means hearts (and funnily enough, if we attach the nobility “von” to the name, “von Herzen” means “from the bottom of your heart”, and is even correctly conjugated. (The H in Herzen isn’t silent, by the way.)) Just wanted to point that out as you were wondering. ^^ Then, Katia would sound like Katya.

Just watched the Curious Village video, so this was quite well-timed! Keep up the great work, I can’t wait to watch this! :)

I can not express how happy I am to find someone who makes professor Layton content

Personally this is my absolute FAVOURITE Professor Layton game-- one time during lockdown I was actually so engrossed in replaying it that I fell down the stairs and had to walk with a crutch for a while after 😅 The music is gorgeous, the animation is great, particularly in the swordfight scene, and even though the plot can be dicey if you read into it too much, it still really gets me emotional. And yes, I've cried at the ending every time I've played it. The puzzles are fun, even though I had to get my brother to help me with the mathematical ones (I have dyscalculia), I am also a huge fan of the slidey ones, and maybe it's bias because this was one of the first DS games I ever played and nostalgia is a key factor, but I think it has way more replay value than its descendants. Sure, if you know the twist there's less motivation to play it again, but the game has so much personality, and colour, and cool details that you could only notice the second time through, that it's just so worth it. God I love this game. Sorry for the text wall lol

26:42 "hats off"? A gentleman never removes his hat Voyan!

I really love your videos on Professor Layton, hearing your takes as you replay the games you already know from childhood is so nice. The recap of the game throws me right back into when I played it. I'd love to see more for the rest of the series! Like seriously these videos are so so good!

Your video on curious village is part of why I started playing through all of the layton games! Tysm voyan for shedding more light on these amazing games!!!

I'm so glad I found this video! This is probably my favorite series of all time and it's nice to relive the games through this recap. can't wait to watch your other videos

Heck yeah, I live for your Professor Layton videos. This series is severely underrated, more and more as time goes on, so it's really neat to see people like you keep talking about it!

I'm so glad to see you making a video series on these games in exactly this format and really hope you'll get around to completing it. Really thankful for being able to listen to you geeking out about those games. Like for so many others here, the Professor Layton games are a massive part of my childhood and I adore them to this day. Curious Village has one of if not the first plot twist in a story ever I remember having an emotional impact on me as a child and Azran Legacy, in my youth, had me pulling my first all-nighter ever the day I bought it, playing through about 80% of the game in one sitting. I personally tend to view Pandora's Box as my least favorite entry of the original trilogy, but I still like it. While I'm not as captivated by Folsense as you, I enjoy the game's initial changing of locations.

The twist being a gas leak always felt like a cop-out and hardest to swallow out of most the big Layton mystery solutions. Robots, a fake alternate future city made just to trick you, a high oxygen prehistoric grotto, all seem outlandish but feasible within Layton's whimsical exaggerated reality. But "mass hallucination" that's consistently shared between several people doesn't hold up very well on its face, plus it kinda creates an "unreliable narrator" problem in that you're straight being shown lies through most of the game, it's highly counterproductive to a mystery plot that's presented like a puzzle for the player to solve.

Makes me so happy to see content on Layton, it's been such a big part of my life for so long. I've lost count of how many times I've replayed them all but they never fail to bring me joy and all the other emotions that they carry in their stories. Especially Lost Future because uhhh yeah thats some traumatising stuff! Why first play through of Lost Future I finished it in the middle of the night and absolutely cried my eyes out! Pandora's Box is a big heavy hitter for me too, and the nostalgia aspect is huge as it was the first one I played that made me fall in love with the series. I hope the professor comes back!! Katrielle just wasn't the same, it was missing the heart

I really love your channel, I usually don’t find a lot of ytubers funny but your jokes have me laughing. It’s really nice seeing someone talk about these games, it brings back memories for me. When I was a kid and scared at night I would turn my ds on and listen to the last cutscene from Db lol

Absolutely loving the Layton series you've started; this entry was my favorite of all Layton games 🥰

god i so love that you've made this. professor layton is my all time favourite game series, mostly because its really the first series i played and got invested into when i was a kid. my mum always wanted me to trade in one layton game before i got the next one and i'm so glad i fought her on that cuz now i have the whole collection to this day. im so glad you're reviving layton with this video, i rarely get the chance to talk about how much i've loved this series with someone

SO GOOD. I still have fond memories of this game and watching your video made me recall just how much I had actually forgotten. I really hope you continue this series!

Please continue this series I love it so much I've missed Professor Layton so much I've just ordered myself a 2DS XL and copies of the games I'm just so excited to replay them

Thank you for your passion with this video. I appreciate it a lot. I am looking forward to your next video about the series because it my personal favourite of the series!

Love how you revise my favorite (childhood) games in a funny way. Thank you!

Thank you for your layton videos! I recently discovered your channel and just watched your retrospective on curious village and pandora's box,I cannot wait for the rest of the series!

I'm loving this series! Professor Layton was a big part of my childhood playing DS games (along with Animal Crossing), and it's great to see someone giving it the love and deep dives that it deserves!

Also my favorite game in the series, and the first video game to ever have an ending that touched me so much I cried. Holds a special place in my heart for that as narratives in games have since become a special interest of mine. Great video ❤️

I can’t wait for your other breakdowns! These games are amazing and while I don’t have my ds anymore I love reliving them through these videos

As someone who just played through The Diabolical Box for the first time. I love the mystery of the game and just the overall style. Now onto the next game.

I really enjoy watching your videos (the Layton ones especially)! The editing and your jokes are great, I laughed a couple of times while watching! Awesome job! Can't wait to see your retrospective on Unwound Future!! 💕🎩

I had to subscribe after you put the body discovery music over the Dr. Schrader cut scene. You're literally my hero. Time to binge all of your videos

I'm so glad there are other people who have this as their favourite layton game, to me this is just a more heart breaking story than lost future and the ending never fails to make me cry Loved the video so much, well done!

This is an amazing video I would love to see you go over unwound future. That game has so many great moments.

I just cliked on the video I'm so excited, I've been waiting for a new video of yours on this serie !!!

From what I remember, I actually enjoyed Mystery Case Files: Millionheir as a kid. Though I recall a lot of it was like an I Spy simulator. I'd also say that Club Penguin: Herbert's Revenge is worth checking out.

Just found your channel, very excited for the next part in this series! I started playing with unwound future and I’m excited to hear your analysis of it as well as the following prequels!

Cant believe this is just under 10k views!! you did an absolutely fantastic job!! cant WAIT for the unwound future, as a kid it was my favourite and I remember crying a lot in the end, but the plot itself somewhat eluded me after all these years :)

Please continue the series! Im highly invested now

Thank's for making videos for this saga, I have good memories from my childhood. Greetings from Spain man :)

The atmosphere in Folsense is unmatched. That music... 🥰

Thanls for these videos, it allow me to reexperience the game story and ambience without having to replay the whole thing, looking forward to your video about miracle mask and azran legacy to finish the collection

PLS CONTINUE THIS SERIES! Both videos to professor layton u made are awesome✨🙏🏻

Best vid I’ve seen in a while. Such an underrated series.

Seeing this on my feed made me smile wide, Diabolical Box was (and still is!) my FAVOURITE Professor Layton game, and the one that got me hooked on the series! 💕

Hi! I don't know if you'll see this, but thanks for this video. I'm now watching it for the second time and I can't wait for you to cover the third game, which is my favorite game of all time. This one's also really special to me though, and you really did it justice with this video. More than anyone else has done. Great editing, audio & a lot of the jokes made me laugh out loud. So thanks!

Subbed after watching your Layton videos thus far. Keep it up!

If i had to rank the Layton Games: 1. The Unwound Future 2. The Curious Village 3. The Miracle Mask 4. Pandoras Box 5. Azrans Legacy 6. Spectres Call Personally, the Unwound Future ro me had the coolest Atmosphere and great Plot (Man i love that Casino Part of the Game) and holy, the reveals, the atmosphere, everything is just amazing. Curious Village has all that Nostalgia, but also it feels so oldschool and chill, the Plot is great and the characters probably the most likeable in this one. I love the story of Randall and Layton, Percy and Angelas dedication to him, the bestiful city and the great characters in this one. Also every cutscene with The Maskes Gentleman is just so dope, his miracles really are something. This game is really amazing and i like the general idea of the plot, but everyone being an illusion realy left a bitter taste in my mouth, and felt wrong. Id rather have them all deaged like Anton, that would have been better in my opinion. Still a great game with amazing atmosphere and probably my favorite cutscene (along with the Casino scene from Future) aka the fight between Anton and Layton Azrans Legacy really felt so big and all the locations were really amazing to explore, it was something refreshing and new and i really enjoyed it. However i feel like the plot is a little bit too grand, the Aslanti really didnt feel all that amazing , and that its an actual mysterium completely, something fullbown hypernatural any mysterical in a way is something, i just didnt dig as much as the other games. Aurora was cool tho, and the games concept, atmosphere etc still were great, just not as good as the others. Spectres Call is honestly the one i remember the least. I need to replay that one.

I remember playing pandoras box before curious village and i was so confused why luke just ATTACKED THE INSPECTOR FOR NO REASON!

I love watching your videos on Professor Layton, I hope you will do the other games as well. I am especially looking forward to your views on Unwound Future as it was my first introduction to Professor Layton and the Puzzle genre ^^

Just recently finished this game after so long and I have to say…this game is way better then I remember it. The points you make in this video are really good and I cannot wait to see your views on unwound future!

I really loved this video. Hope to see more of this kind of videos :)

Honest the ost in this game is one of my favourites that you just walk around the town and it is calming but has a sense of sadness. I played this game so many times that during nighttime when I need to go to sleep and have school the next day.

amazing video. i loved the first three layton games, especially this one.

out of curiosity, will you also make the unwound future movie?

Thanks to this one-year-old video, I suddenly realize that I haven't finished Pandora's Box yet! I'm still hoping for a new Professor Layton game on the Switch, but for now I'm going into the storage room to look for my Nintendo 2DS. Thanks for the video @Voyan.

I still have to wtach the unwound future video but, I love these videos. I love talking about professor layton and listening to this is just amazing, thank you and please if you can make videos about the second trilogy as well

Great videos, I'm currently watching all of them in succession, (don't worry, I did already play the games). Some really vital and true points about the greatness of these games are being brought up here.

I think this one is definitely my favourite game. The ending especially when it hits you with that reveal, and the music, Iris by Salyu, then the credit images showing how things are winding down. Makes me tear up every time

Recently discovered your Layton videos and the rest of your channel, super good content! Hoping for Unwound Future vid soon!

I just discovered this series of videos today and wow I have never seen such quality takes on the Layton series since I played them way back in middle school. Can’t wait for the Unwound Future video! (Also where is it 👀)

Man, Iris (the end theme) is such a fantastic piece, that i just can't get enough from!

This is the only Layton game I ever played. Enjoyed it quite a bit as a kid. Remembered it recently when i picked up a 3ds (regretfully I’ve only used that console for a handful of hours) and was shocked at how expensive the games are now. Thank you for letting me relive my time with the game

This game is the one that got me into the professor Layton franchise. It holds a special place in my heart.

I... I'm crying. I'm crying? I forgot how b*tshit beautiful these games were. WHERE are your subscribers??? Your content is phenomenal, I can't believe I've only just subscribed. Looking forward to the next one! 💞

Love this Layton videos, love from Italy

Hey man. I took your advice and went back and replayed this before watching the video and boy am i glad. I played these all when they came out. Theyre all really great but i tpok an edible after work and before beating this and i absolutly bawled my eyes out at the end. It just got me lol

I’m excited for the Unwound Future video, this is becoming my favourite potential series

the inclusion of super paper mario music in this is making me so happy, my two favorite games :D

6:52 OH MY GOD !😭🤣 Oh man, I am an ultimate fan of PL, of DB, I played to the game maybe 6 times, enjoyed it as hell each time. But I NEVER thought about this and now I CANNOT ignore it ! You killed me !🤣🤣🤣 Anyway, thank you to talk about the masterpieces that are Professor Layton games. Personnally my fave Video Games licence of all time. And for me, Unwound Future supremacy. Forever and ever the best of all for me💚 Can't wait for your video on it ! 21:28 the music in the background... YOU HAVE TASTE BRO !

MYSTERY CASE FILES IS SUCH A FUN SERIES I USED TO BE OBSESSED WITH THOSE GAMES AS A KID

I was looking forward to this :)

To this day I can still remember the sense of dread I felt when as a child, the animation of Folsense taking back its original appearance played I hated the game back then because of that x) Even nowadays, trying to replay it gives me that feeling, as I'm interacting with these characters and this town and know the truth

Mmmm yeah this one hit me in the feels. Pandora's Box was the first Professor Layton game I owned, and I loved it so much. The soundtrack gets better every time I hear it, and the credits sequence reduces me to tears.

I loved these games. They are very likely my all time favorite. I still play through them occasionally especially while I am traveling around

Please continue this series 🙏🏻

The ticket in the game case, as a kid, this blew me away. I thought this was unbelievably cool

the flowerbed puzzle also stumped me. Luckily I redraw it on a book and show it to my math teacher. She noticed the quick logical way to solve it and finally I finish the puzzle lol

Fantastic video, can’t wait for the lost future video

32:33 "If you thought that curious village's plot was a reach, then this is a dislocation." Omg xD