The stories of Sherlock Holmes have always intrigued me, from reading his stories growing up to enjoying the adaptations on the TV over the years. Being able to enjoy the character across different mediums of entertainment has been thrilling but my passion for gaming always felt a little left out of the Holmes fun. That ended with the excellent ‘Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishment’ which delivered a truly inspired adaptation of Mr Holmes and Dr Watson’s adventures for the first time. When I learned that a sequel, The Devil’s Daughter was being released I was expecting more of the same. Sadly however, this time his adventures are not quite the stuff of legend to enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF_d44z2k5w
On paper, The Devil’s Daughter reads like the perfect sequel after the groundwork by Crimes and Punishment managed to get so many factors right but it is very clearly right from the opening case that somewhere along the way, the developers either got carried away in ideas or simply lost what made the last game so much fun as a fan of Sherlock Holmes. Instead of a fluid and slick game that puts the player firmly in the role and world of Mr Holmes in Victorian London, The Devil’s Daughter is a mess of various ideas that feel forced and shoe horned in and for the life of me, I am unable to understand why they messed with a winning formula.
Each case is a mini episode where Holmes and Watson either happen upon or become involved in different situations requiring Holmes to use his detective abilities to solve the mystery and find the guilty. Anyone familiar with Telltale Games will appreciate the episodic feel to the cases, each with their own story and characters and with a good couple of hours of gameplay to each one. As you play through each case there is a main plot thread which will unfold via character interactions once Holmes returns to 221 B Baker Street. These moments never overpower the story being told in each case but do tie everything together quite nicely to tie everything you do in the game together.
The point and click style returns as the main gameplay mechanic but whilst before it was a natural system for how you need to investigate a scene to gather clues, this time round it just felt clunky and tedious at times. At a crime scene or new location you simply have to interact with everything to find possible clues, some will be obvious and some will require a good search to discover. Also returning to the game is the boosted sense modes that can be activated with the bumpers which enhance either the observation skills for finding clues or a detective mode that almost serves like the detective mode variant in the Arkham series and can help Holmes piece together clues. They can be an asset but will also feel rather out of place but if you are stuck in a location, these can often help highlight that final clue needed to move on and you will need to find all the clues in a location before the game will trigger the next step in the case. This can feel laborious at times and being stuck in a location simply clicking on everything in the hope of finding that last clue, even though you may have already worked out for yourself where you need to go next is one of many bug bears I had with this game.
But for me by far the worst change since Crimes and Punishment are the mini games that have been chucked in for good measure either with the intention of adding some filler to the gameplay or just to try and add an element of action which more often than not simply falls flat. In the opening case there is a moment where the player will take control of one of Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars, tasked with following a suspect for Mr Holmes. This led to a twenty minute feast of pointless and eye rolling mini games that utterly broke the game experience. If you have ever played an Assassin’s Creed game and hated the follow a target missions, then you will appreciate why this sticks out for me. What should be rather crowded Victorian London streets suddenly become very empty as the suspect constantly stops every 30 seconds to check to see if he is being followed, forcing you to dive into cover. Then you all of a sudden have to by pass police standing in the street or dogs by finding a short cut around them for no other reason that to simply inject some false sense of action sequence that always feels out of place. This is then all topped off by the random need to shine the suspect’s shoes in order to blend in. Yes, there is a shoe shining mini game thrown in for good measure and you must do it correctly or you will fail. But even if you do fail, you simply carry on following the suspect so the whole mini game is pointless but not as pointless as if you do complete it successfully, you only end up shining one show anyway.
It is that level of head scratching mystery of why these mini games were put in where they are and the sheer number of them that just comes across as farcical at times more than they entertain. On streaming the first case the reaction from those watching went from laughter to questioning what the hell was going on. Everything outside of searching for clues becomes a mini game eventually. If Holmes needs to ease drop on a conversation, despite being less than three feet away, a mini game of using both controller sticks to keep to icons in circles is triggered and last for two minutes only to succeed and hear a short line of dialogue. The same game is also used for when Holmes having to navigate across a beam and in order to keep his balance you have to again, use the thumbsticks to keep two icons in the circles. They are simply annoyances to the gameplay which if used only a few times would be acceptable but to have so many just comes across as lazy designing.
The list of annoyances grows further as the animation for Holmes feels stiff and clumsy which some of the mini games actually highlight even more such as if Holmes is in a chase or being chased and connects with scenery and you have to repeat that chase. The voice acting is borderline atrocious at times with some very ham delivery of dialogue lines and exchanges between characters that feel wooden and almost telephoned in. It is all so very noticeable and could be forgivable if not for the other list of annoyances that blend together to add to the mess The Devil’s Daughter is as a game.
I was really disappointed in this title after really enjoying Crimes and Punishment. This feels like a brain storming meeting by the developers got out of hand and every single idea someone had was given the OK. If they had simply stuck to what worked in Crimes and Punishments and focused on telling good Sherlock Holmes stories via the cases it would have been a far better experience. As it is, it simply misses out what was such a winning formula for a Sherlock Holmes game and resulted in being a mess of ideas that counter each other instead of complimenting them. The problems with animations and voice acting stand out more than a piece of paper found on the floor that simply says “I am a clue”. The game still allows the player to deduce the outcome of a case based on how they interpret the clues and this could mean getting it very wrong or very right but it is a result that will stand. The case stories despite venturing into a supernatural world at times can be enjoyable if it was not for the mini games that stall and break the flow of the narrative.
Sadly Sherlock Holmes The Devil’s Daughter tries far too hard to incorporate too many gaming mechanics when it already had the best delivery system for a Sherlock Holmes game. I would recommend Crimes and Punishments to those looking for a solid Holmes gaming experience but if you can see past and put up with the nonsensical and poorly executed mini games and average voice acting, The Devil’s Daughter does offer some good puzzles and crimes to solve.
But it does not take Toby the bloodhound to sniff out why this game is such a let down.
