Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter

Overall, Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter is a great game. The cases are captivating and many of the minigames are a lot of fun.

Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter introduces new and interesting elements capable of making Sherlock Holmes a more human and charismatic character with some welcome additions in gameplay too, like the new first person mode. It's still got some of the series known defects though, like low-detailed characters and bad animations, while load times can often be exhausting.

Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter delivers a gratifying story-driven experience, interwoven into an authentic representation of 19th century London. With great voice talent behind its cast, the game manages to form engaging inter-character relationships. While the game is held back by its level design and some unintuitive mechanics, it provides a consistent depiction of a mystery-filled London.

The abrupt endings, forced action sequences, and extensive load times mar an otherwise fun adventure game. The topnotch writing, and fascinating hook of Holmes struggling with a real issue are buried beneath these problems.

The story here is enjoyable and the ending has some legitimately tense moments, but almost everything about it feels like it could have, and should have, been better.

A promising follow-up to C&P let down by its insistence on badly designed set-pieces. [Aug 2016, p.78]

The game isn’t without its issues, the load times are borderline ridiculous at times and there’s no tutorial so you’ll spend most of the first act scratching your head in confusion. All non-crime solving elements are mind-numbingly boring, but the game overall fills a niche in the gaming world that we don’t see done nearly enough in most games. When you’re bored doing laps on a circuit or shooting foes on the battlefield, take some time out and pick up The Devil’s Daughter. As a crime-solver, it does alright.

This title offers a typical Sherlock Holmes storyline and an easy completion, but its issues turn this into a mediocre affair rather than the elementary experience that you would expect from Holmes himself.

A better presented package overall, Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter is a small step forward for the series, but still in serious need of polish and a greater level of cohesion between its disparate parts. Fewer mini-games and more sleuthing would have been preferable and played to the game's strengths. As it is, The Devil's Daughter is a solid Sherlock yarn, but one that falls well short of greatness.

The Devil's Daughter feels like it never misses an opportunity to take you out of the game. Maybe if it weren't supposed to be a Sherlock Holmes game that wouldn't be as much of an issue, but if you're going to borrow from such an iconic character, it would make sense to at least try to get more of that character's essence right.