Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter

Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter is a very "queer" game. Seldom was there a title that could either polarize or disappoint its audience.. This short review will contain minor spoilers, so read this at your own discretion. Frogwares initially showed with their teaser trailer what would succeed the superb Crimes & Punishments. You had all elements from the previous title, added with a beautiful scenery of the Victorian Era London and a promising plotline. Being one of the buyers that initially got it on Steam, I was at first pleasantly surprised: You get to play through 5 different cases, which, according to Frogwares and the game itself are all connected and will lead towards a shocking conclusion. Well? That's mostly wrong. The verdict you give in those cases will only affect one specific branch of dialogue with a specific character. Now to the main issue with this title: It feels half-baked - and not like a soft cookie half-baked. The first case is vast - it gives you options to find clues with the reliable dog Toby or gather intel via Holmes's Baker Street Irregular Wiggins. The game also features slight QTEs and sneaking segments. All is fine and dandy, until you get to play past the first case. What follows are cases that are halved in length and content. Also Toby and Wiggins? Never get to use them again. You will revisit a plethora of places again and each case just feels too short. One case is also from the Doyle canon, but you will be disappointed as you find out how short it is. What about the puzzles? They are satisfying, you get to choose between two settings and fans of earlier SH titles will find some enjoyment in DD. Some are actually pretty annoying, especially the last one. So what is the verdict? I would say that Sherlock Holmes fans might want to check it out, especially for that price. Fans of great stories might want to play the older titles, or just wait for Frogwaresto release Crimes & Punishments on GOG. Better luck next time!

This game is lovely. Rich realistic villages and environments, nice soundscape of barking dogs, mumbling npcs, clinks and clanks. This is not a glossy depiction of the dickens ideal, its gritty, grimy, moldy, the npcs are dirty, have thick accents, the roads bad. The story is engaging, or rather... stories. Like the tales of Sherlock Holmes come to life, only new ones. Unlike other reviewers I enjoyed the guy ritchie take on Holmes, Im here for entertainment purposes not to maintain some status quo of Holmes stereotype. The relationship between Watson and Holmes is relaxed and realistic. I was a bit shocked during gameplay to see Holmes leave the house in his undershirt, all sloppy, and to even go visit a Lord dressed like that. It wasnt until later I discovered his wardrobe where you can dress him appropriately for the occasion. All good adventure gaming so far. Right? This could have been an easy 5 star game, if it let you play. If it didnt govern all aspects of your game, from what you can explore, to actions, to interactions. If it had included more flavor text, let you manipulate the environment, touch things, grab more objects, open drawers and so on. Instead, each landscape has a few 'hotspots' of actions. If you dont activate them there is no progress. Gorgeous landscapes where you only interact in 3 spots is not fun. some hours in the game when I realized I wasnt exploring or playing but only following a graphic novel with mini games. There were story choices to be made but it was in your face, heavy handed at the very end and you werent given time to really feel for it. often you fight the interface just to work the game. there are clever mini games where you link clues, or go into holmes sleuth mode, but once again its railroaded with big icons saying 'use skill now!' like a bratty spoiler. if the devs had just let players.... play. let them explore, make mistakes, go wrong ways, BE holmes this could have been great.

Disclaimer: I only finished up to the second case. I couldn't take anymore after that. Also, there will be minor spoilers ahead. So starting off, coming off of Crimes and Punishments Sherlock is noticeably made rougher, a bit edgier, and his accent is toned way down. His portayal has been heavily adjusted to fit a much more standard protagonist mold. The b-plot running through the game is already wildly out of character for Holmes having an adopted daughter. The man is known for shutting romance out of his life because it distracts from his detective work. This is not a family man and again, they play this relationship in the most stock way. However, video games aren't necessarily expected to have great writing. So how does it play? Well, for about half of the game it's pretty much Crimes and Punishments again. Which is good, because the detective mini-games are as solid as they were in that game and the actual system for drawing conclusions to cases is as great as ever. But- that pales in comparison to the half-hearted, derivative, semi-action dreck the rest of the detective gameplay has been shoved aside for. In the first two cases you already have: - A sequence where Wiggins is tailing a suspect as if Assassin's Creed never went out of style. - A sequence where Holmes must dodge rifle fire by way of a cover system that feels like it's out of a PS2 game. - Holmes and Watson taking cover and advancing on a suspect in a setpiece that would generously be compared to a Telltale action sequence. This comes to a peak at the end of the second case, when after you've collected enough clue that it's incredibly obvious who the culprit is, you're launched into a mind numbing flashback containing something like seven character action game-tier puzzles. I am not joking, these would not feel out of place as filler in something like God of War 1. This is not a Sherlock Holmes game, this is half of a Sherlock Holmes game with a potluck of very outdated action game fluff.

Disclaimer: I have not even finished the first case. Counterpoint: That is because I can't, because this is an action game, not a point and click. If you don't have good manual dexterity, don't buy this game. You can skip the action minigames (which judging by my experience in the first case seem to have replaced any interesting logic puzzles), but you cannot skip action sequences in the story.