Game Review - Sherlock Holmes Chapter One

Game Review: Sherlock Holmes Chapter One by Frogwares
Score: +5/-6

"In this story-driven detective thriller, a young Sherlock Holmes struggles to prove himself as he navigates an exotic, dangerous island in the Mediterranean to investigate the mystery of his mother’s death."

+1 Compared to previous Frogwares Sherlock Holmes titles, there are many more investigations in this game -- and this discounting the location-hunt quests that are not really investigations.

+1 The overarching main quest "A Mother's Love" and the mandatory but separate cases in between, are interesting and satisfying. The ending of the main quest was also well done with the dialog, scene direction, and music.

+1 The optional quests are very short and most are quite simple, but there's a good variety and in general are quite satisfying.

+1 Probably the key achievement in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is to demonstrate that an open world game can have interesting things to do that are not just tasks involving fetching and killing. Many games struggle with this and end up with boring, repetitive quests even for their non-repeatable tasks.

The map design is quite good and feels like a real city.

• The randomly generated population is decent but it's really odd to see armed criminals in masks strolling down the street, even in affluent areas.
• +1 There isn't the same need to explore every nook and cranny for loot, and in a way that is really refreshing.
• Just like real life, when you walk city streets, there is no reason for you to search around every corner or alley because not everywhere is interesting or relevant to what you are doing.
• In this way, their open world plays better than other games that try to pack exploration incentives into them when ultimately it is just a waste of time.
•  Nowadays it's common to have loot tucked around remote edges of the map to reward players for otherwise going there needlessly. Instead, encourage players to go somewhere as part of something more worth their time, such as an interesting investigation. Direct players to only what is interesting and reassure them that there's nothing worth seeing where they weren't directed.
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion did this very well: If you did every quest, you literally went everywhere and talked to everyone. You didn't miss a thing.

-1 The eavesdropping "Gossip" minigame is just a trial-and-error guessing game.

• You don't really know enough to choose the proper words to keep so you have to just repeat it again and again until you get the three correct words or phrases. Meanwhile the actors conveniently rerun their conversation over and over for your convenience.
• Under "How to Play" they even tell you: "Memorise the correct words on each attempt in order to win". Winning through sheer trial-and-error repetition does not make for a satisfying game.
• Once you know one or two "correct" phrases, on each successive iteration you could try to select what you think are related phrases, but this doesn't really speed it up more than just blindly accepting every phrase and remembering the outcome for the next iteration.
• Eavesdropping in other Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games (e.g., in The Devil's Daughter) used a minigame which simulated concentration to pick out relevant conversation, and that felt superior to this trial-and-error.

-1 The combat concept is interesting -- basically you incapacitate someone and then perform a takedown -- but the implementation feels terrible.

• You have to run away until an opportunity presents itself to shoot something that will incapacitate the opponent. Meanwhile, several of them are closing on you and shooting at you.
• Why can't you just shoot them in the leg or arm? Won't that incapacitate them briefly? But that is apparently inferior to shooting off their hat, and you cannot attempt a takedown on them.
• And without an appropriate distraction they are invincible in hand-to-hand combat.
• Shooting them elsewhere can apparently kill them resulting in less of a reward but when you do shoot their body parts they just shrug it off.
• If you run out of things to shoot or cannot get the enemy positioned correctly, you can use your magically refilling snuffbox to throw out a cloud of incapacitating mist.
• For all this extra effort you get a puny reward for making arrests. And kills are worth as much as skipping combat -- meaning, no reward and therefore worthless.
• If the gimmick is that Sherlock has some code against killing, why is he carrying a gun?
• Instead, they should have:
• Focussed on stealth - sneak up on a target and do a takedown, with or without some quick time button press sequence
• If revealed, then allow harder melee quick time sequences to incapacitate someone in hand-to-hand, instead of enemies being outright invincible unless you have temporarily shot something to give yourself an advantage (which is the current system in the game).
• Shooting enemy weapons to disarm them would feel better than shooting off hats or vials of flammables they are conveniently wearing.
• Focus on hand-to-hand, either unarmed combat techniques or "gentlemen's" weapons such as a cane. Did they forget that Sherlock Holmes has hand-to-hand combat training?

-1 When your imaginary friend Jon asks you to do something you can receive a monetary reward... From whence did it come?

-1 Poor directions.

• For example, when you walk near a "All Ghosts Gone" poster at the Silverton Docks, Jon mentions it and a quest is automatically added to your journal. The poster is now in your journal and it mentions a location - southern pier of the Silverton docks. There is a "search location" icon for this clue. Instead of going to the mentioned location, you actually have to click the poster on the overland to trigger a dialog first. The same poster you already have in your journal. If you do go to the southern pier of the Silverton docks, nothing triggers there to let you continue the investigation. The evidence to be collected is already there but you cannot interact with it.
• Sometimes when you are investigating a location, your investigation will add another objective that has to be pinned as the actively tracked quest, but there's little to no indication of this. Eventually you get stuck and resort to checking your journal, and that's when you realize they didn't get you inspect something (even though it's clearly visible and looked really important) until you looked at something else first, got that new task, and went to pin it so that you could perform a contextual action.

-1 You are sometimes directed to locations you don't have access to yet, and there is no indication of this or how to access it, so you might instead think you are in the wrong location.

• For example, when you collect all the coins for "In For a Penny" (from the DLC), Jon alludes to a good location for all the coins. But depending on when you finish the quest, you may not yet have access to the room at all so you have no idea what he's talking about and the game doesn't give you quest markers for locations.
• Another example is when you need to go into the prison cells at the police station for one of the Child of Cordona tasks, but unless that is presently unlocked by another quest, you can't actually get past the gate or the guard.

-1 Jon, the imaginary companion, felt extremely annoying and his chatter dragged ruined the enjoyment of every investigation and activity.

• He constantly calls you by the feminine nickname "Sherry".
• He berates you when you repeat one of the game's intentionally trial-and-error minigames or when you try something that seems perfectly reasonable but doesn't happen to be exactly what the developers want you do do. Who thought having a companion constantly insulting you was a good idea?
• During cases he sometimes has something to say, but typically it is inane and/or uninteresting.
• On location hunts Jon offers nothing useful but when you do find the item he is quick to claim credit, e.g., "WE found the treasure".
• Over time his presence and chatter just become increasingly irritating and insulting.