Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter

Unfortunately I should have looked through a few more reviews before buying and save myself the trouble. Sure, the scenery & environment are beautiful and the stories interesting, but for me it was a huge step down after Crimes & Punishments, which was excellent. What bothered me the most were the timed puzzles. If you're a fan, don't mind my review and go for it, you'll love it. But for gamers like me who absolutely hate timed puzzles, this was an absolute nightmare. Of course not all of the puzzles are timed, but already during the second case the amount of timed vs. not timed mini-games and puzzles is increased so much, that I simply gave up after finishing the second case. Won't for sure continue with the game. I prefer logical/crime games and puzzles for the possibility to sit back, relax and take some time to thing everything through before proceeding and I don't want to be chased around by the game with a ticking time clock on the screen. I don't mind one or two such timed puzzles if they make some sense, but the amount in this game is just horrible. Aside from that I wasn't really fond of the changed looks and characterization of Holmes & Watson compared to the previous games - it just didn't feel right. Also disappointed that an option of 'incorrect character portrait' was introduced without having the chance to go back and correct it right away. In a game without an option of manual saves this creates tedious repeats of multiple scenes when you have to reload from an autosave the game itself did much earlier. I'm looking forward to the next game in series, hoping the developers will go back to the quality of 'Crimes and Punishments' for the game and remove all those awful timed puzzles and bring back the original characters of Holmes and Watson.

“The Devil's Daughter” has the core mechanics, which I liked, from “Crimes and Punishments”. You can watch somebody closely and make observations. And you can use clues to make deductions and reach conclusions. You can still draw the wrong conclusions which will lead to solving “a case” wrong. To make everything better, everything makes sense if you use logic and really think about it. So, at its core, the game is solid and fun. Unfortunately, the developers insisted keeping stupid mini puzzles all over the game that, with a few exceptions, only make it more tedious without real contributions. The difficulty settings don’t make the game harder, just force more busy work. Fortunately, a low setting even gives you the option of skipping those useless puzzles. Rating: I recommend the “Waterboarding” DLC! https://pixelloot.com

Trust me - if you play devil's daughter first before you play crime and punishment, it will seem as though the game company improved the game (from devil's daughter to crime and punishment) when they released crime and punishment... if you play the games in this suggested order, i promise you the game series will be very entertaining. why? Because the first game Crime and Punishment was excellent, the 2nd game "Devil's Daughter" is a step back. Playing it out of order fixes this issue.

I have a problem with giving this game a mark. On the one hand it is expanding ideas of its predecessors and you can certainly like some of the cases. London is finally an semi open city. On the other however it ads mechanics that are simply never used or wasted. While playing it you can almost fell the fact that it was either cut in development or publisher forced devs to finish the product on time losing some of the original ideas. Best and most visible example of this is strange and meaningless ending. Buy only if you are fan of the series. If you are new to the genre, I strongly recommend previous entries, especially “Crimes and punishments”

Very polished and fun game (AAA quality). Every puzzle and mini-game is different and the story is engaging. I see other reviews compare it to other titles of the series, from which I only played Crimes and Punishments, but Devils Daughter quality is on a different level. Highly recommend.