Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis - Remastered

[2.5/5] Although it's more refined than The Awakened (2008), I found this adventure harder to enjoy. It uses the exact same engine and art assets as that game and feels very similar to it, but the story here goes in quite a different direction. Setting the entire game in London is quite fun as well as the recreations of the famous buildings. But this game is just incredibly hard. Having now played three of these games, I'm starting to see patterns in what makes them this way. I have to assume these games have been translated into English and important details are getting lost in the process. Throughout the game I was met with puzzles and clues that didn't make sense or didn't have proper context. Holmes will mention something that I haven't discovered, or will say too little as if I should know what comes next. After spending time trying to work out what was required, I would eventually check a hint and discover answers that were nothing like what I had expected. It always felt as if the game expected me to know more than I did. It's all very convoluted (inventory puzzles are especially awkward, as you rarely know when you're supposed to use items to move things along) and by the end I just wasn't having that much fun. But there are things I appreciated here. Once again, Holmes and Watson are enjoyable to spend time with and this game in particular did a good job in including some real humour that made me laugh.

The good news first: the graphics are great, and the steering / controlling of the characters is much better than in the succeeding game "The Testament Of Sherlock Holmes", where Dr. Watson can become quite an agony, because he is always standing in your way. This issue is much better in this game. The not so good news: although the game has a 3D look, you can not use a controller. Now for the really bad news: the riddles really suck! I am sorry having to say this, but if you loose patience quite lightly, this game is no good for you! Example (SPOILER!): you're inside Tower Of London and the guard tells you that the combination to a coded lock has something to do with the ancestors of the owner of the lock. So you walk into his private place, and search for some clues, e.g. a family history, pictures, etc. But you will find nothing! It went around 2 hours(!) inside the Tower, looking for clues, until I gave up and read the solution in a walkthrough: you need to examine the outside(!) of the wall around the complete Tower area to find some cravings, giving you the code. WHAT??? Honestly: who would come up with such an idea? And this is just one example. There are plenty more of these badly constructed riddles. Luckely, I bought this game as a special offer for ony 2 Euros, so I can delete it without a financial loss, I am so thankful to GOG that they do these special offers every other week!

Coming from the old The Awakened game I wasn't expecting much of this game. So the first chapters surprised me. The puzzles were somewhat tough but fair. But then the weird logic started to kick in specially in the British Museum section. I had to make ample use of the hints and sometimes even the hints weren't clear and had to check a video walkthrough, so that says a lot about the clarity of the puzzles. I think the worst one is the one with the king coins. That made no sense whatsoever. The story doesn't help either. Lupin's motivations are ridiculous. Once again, all the British Museum section made no sense. How Lupin was able to prepare that sequence of puzzles without trouble cannot be explained. If anyone is still interested in playing this I would recommend to save often since there are game breaking bugs. For example in the Tower of London Watson was left outside of a room and when I wanted to leave the room I couldn't trigger the door because the game thought I wanted to talk to the Doctor that was just on the other side waiting. The next game in the series is the last with this style from what I understand. At this point I wouldn't recommend that anyone plays this and the previous ones. Beyond a passing reference they seem to be completely independent games and 0% of what happens influences the other games.

Off the back of playing Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened - Remastered, I expected this to be a similarly enjoyable, if janky, mystery adventure. Sadly, it falls short in almost every way. The plot and the vast majority of the puzzles feel awkward and out of place, as if they were inserted as nothing more than staples to hold the paper-thin plot together. And they aren't even good puzzles! Most of them are either jigsaws or awfully contrived maths problems (solving equations in roman numerals, figuring out ratios of ingredients in a recipe, etc.) It's also frustratingly linear, stopping you from properly inspecting things or picking items up until you've done some other (entirely unrelated) action elsewhere. If you enjoy abstract puzzles then you might find some entertainment here, but if you're looking for a real mystery to be solved you're better off looking elsewhere.

Sherlock Holmes: Nemsis is a point-and-click adventure game set in the world of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective, Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, Dr Watson. The game is set in London where you get to go up against your nemesis, Arséne Lupin, who is causing all sorts of mayhem around the city. The puzzles are challenging, so don't feel bad if you have to refer to a walkthough or use the built-in progressive hint system.. Overall, I thought the settings around London were very well done, and I enjoyed the story. Some of it was frustrating, but it felt good to get through the game and solve everything!