Sherlock Holmes The Devil’s Daughter Review

There is something delicious about thinking you’ve tried every type of genre of game going, then finding a new one that had passed you by without even knowing it. When i sat down to play Sherlock Holmes The Devil’s Daughter, it honestly started out as an evening of, “I’ll just try the first bit then carry on playing Uncharted 4.” 3 hours later, i was STILL playing Sherlock Holmes and Uncharted was completely forgotten about!

Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying this game is better than Uncharted, because it’s not, it’s just the devil’s daughter is just so damn captivating! It didn’t even start out too well either.

As a complete novice to the series, I had flapped about in frustration in the very first 5 minutes of not knowing what i was supposed to do as the game has no thought to give you a tutorial or hint at what’s needed to progress.  A youtube walkthrough was needed just to get an idea of where i was going wrong, and again an hour later. For example, my dickensian, slightly weird, possibly camp Sherlock, had found all the clues in one scene, but i’d simply not clicked on the back of a piece of paper to confirm what i could already see, that being it had a bit of glue on it nothing more.

In a way this not giving you much help at all is the draw and fascination of the game, as you really DO have to sleuth it out with the contents to figure out what you need to do.

The near superhuman Sherlock with his almost superhero powers, engages in time slowing observation mode, to check out the people or places he’s in. You have to spot a certain amount of “clues” to progress. Some of these clues give you choices, ie is a young boys arm deformed through illness or a disability ? With all of your choices though, once the decision has been made it’s final! This sets up massive amounts of pondering for the player knowing your choice could make a big difference. When you get to the end of the first case of five, your game save is wiped so you can’t go back to change anything either!

To make a conclusion you have a sequence where you have brain neurons floating around as though you are inside Sherlock’s brain, and you string together the clues you have gathered to draw an outcome.

“The voice acting, even with dodgy London accents, was actually very good”

Apart from all this sleuthing, the game also is wonderful in that there are many many game mechanics to keep the player involved. Mini games appear pretty much just the once or twice, like a couple of stealth sequences, balancing while crossing a rooftop, picking locks, chase sequence, and just general exploring.

The only real drawback the game has is that it has appallingly long load times where you have to endure a close up of Sherlock in a horse drawn carriage as he gets from one place to another, and the lack of facial animations. The latter would have made a big difference considering it’s such a important part of the game to talk to other characters. Everything was a bit stiff.

The voice acting, even with dodgy London accents, was actually very good, and the game at times lacks a sense of melodrama other more accomplished games sometimes overuse. However the Sherlock Holmes narrative, propels the player to yearn to keep playing just to satisfy the need to find out what’s about to happen. It’s simply superbly written just like the very novels the game is trying to recreate.

It’s a real shock to the system at how different in pace Sherlock Holmes The Devils Daughter is compared to today’s all out action games. The pacing here is slow, very very slow, but then being a good detective is not about rushing things, it’s about making informed choices and to trust your instincts and your detective powers.

The game is also just a small amount of polishing away from being considered triple A standard. The only niggles that bring it down are eminently fixable with more time and money and do not in any way shape or form detract from core of what makes this game superb in its chosen genre, that being, a victorian detective game.  

If you want to be transported into the world of 1800’s England, with more top hats, moustaches, and lords than you can count, then fill your boots and sleuth your little heart out as Sherlock Holmes does exactly what it says on the tin.

It’s utterly refreshing that games like this are still being made and the gaming world is all the more enriching, diverse and varied because of it. With more time and money this could be something very special in the future indeed, my dear Watson.