Muitas melhorias em comparação ao anterior, mais puzzles, melhorias de mecânica, maior exploração do mapa com um mundo semiaberto, melhores composições de cena e uma boa construção narrativa durante todo o jogo, mas com um problema que diminui sua qualidade: a conclusão dos casos. A maneira abrupta que o caso se conclui, após todo um complexo processo de investigação pode deixar o jogador desapontado, independente de sua escolha. Poderia ter uma cutscene mais impactante para finalizar o capítulo.
Os casos não apresentam muita dificuldade, diria que possui um nível médio, e ao meu ver podiam ser um pouco mais longos (entendo que poderia ser entediante se fossem maiores, mas como eu sou fã do Sherlock, eu ia gostar) e melhores desenvolvidos em certos pontos.
O dublador do Sherlock Holmes teve um trabalho excepcional, ele deu vida ao personagem que pareceu ser um filme live action e não um personagem de desenho, não posso dizer o mesmo do dublador do Watson, mas não é ruim, porém podia ser melhor. O personagem principal, Holmes, é muito bem trabalhado, porém seu desenvolvimento não é tão notório, suas questões com a Kate parecem ter sido desenvolvidas apenas no final, apesar dos outros capítulos tentarem construir a relação das duas personagens. Além disso, faltou a cômica e fraternal relação entre o Sherlock e o Watson, este que teve pouca participação e tempo de tela no jogo, sendo que nas obras de Arthur Conan Doyle, os dois atuam boa parte do tempo juntos e se completam como equipe.
Dito isso, daria uma nota 7.5/10 ao jogo, me diverti com ele e gostei, mas senti que poderia ser mais, visto que teve um grande avanço em relação ao jogo anterior.

The gameplay is obsolete and stiff as hell, and some of the mini-games are frustrating to say the least (God, that temple section was a nightmare). It looks like they tried to make the game more appealing by throwing in a bunch of elements from different genres, but couldn't manage to do a decent job with any of them.

The cases and investigation parts are good enough to make it worth playing, though. I was always wanting to find out what comes next, and not all resolutions were as obvious as I expected. You have the freedom to choose the culprit based on the evidence you could collect, but the game does not show you the direct consequences of your choice. The case just abruptly ends without any kind of closing scene or cutscene. There are also some leaps in the plot that disorient the player quite a bit. For example, at the end of the first episode you find yourself in a completely different place being hunted by someone with no transition nor explanations about how it happened.

Maybe we cannot expect polished gameplay from such a small studio, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

This seems less popular than the previous entry, but I enjoyed it as well. It has a very strong Guy Ritchie influence which works in its favour, though some of the "discombobulate" moments became silly at times.

The more personal attachment of each case to Holmes' life, as well as an overarching plot, made it feel more personal. I really like the individual disconnected case approach, but this works to bring the character more to life.

The more open environments, bigger variety of puzzles, and (for me) more interesting and challenging scenarios than the previous game.

The downside: sometimes the mini-games and gimmicks became to much.

The Devil's Daughter, Frogwares' follow-up to Crimes and Punishments, tries its best to shake the formula up a little more, for both better and worse this time. Better, in that the parts of the previous game that needed refining or adjusting are improved and fixed.

Lockpicking, for instance, is a much simpler affair that hearkens back to Oblivion or the old Splinter Cell games in its design. The overarching plot is also given a lot more prominence this time around instead of being relegated to a barely-mentioned side note in the background of certain cases. This time, there is a clear and concise narrative that follows through gradually with each case until culminating at the final one.

The freeform detective work is still strong in this one, albeit perhaps not as vast as the previous game due to this one's truncated length. The individual cases all once again deliver compelling stories that are on par with or, in some cases, exceed those in C&P. The overarching plot is decent, although not as strong as the mysteries you uncover along the way.

As for the worst aspects of The Devil's Daughter, perhaps the most baffling one is the decision to recast Holmes and Watson with a younger voice and face model. They do a decent enough job, don't get me wrong, but both of these men are supposed to be pushing 60 in this canon, and yet here they are looking like grizzled gentlemen in their mid-30s.

The newest and perhaps biggest addition to the gameplay this time is also baffling: a semi-open world. At any time, you can leave your Baker's Street office and explore the surrounding area, which is surprisingly large, at least more so than I was expecting. What is there to do in this semi-open world, however? Well, nothing really. There are mini-games and colorful NPCs dotted around, but as far as I could surmise, none of them contribute much of anything useful or helpful. They merely exist for flavor. Mostly, it seems to just exist as a 'next-gen' showpiece of what can be capable, but beyond that, it contributes next to nothing, unfortunately.

There's also an overabundance of action scenes, in particular action scenes that involve QTEs. This could be fine if they were sprinkled with some variety or decision-making that leads to different case outcomes, but again, it seems to mostly exist for flavor and to spice up some of the mysteries.

All in all, The Devil's Daughter is a decent entry in the series, but not one that many would be clamoring to return to any time soon. For every great decision or narrative moment, there are a lot of things that it gets in its own way with.

Also, how Frogwares didn't get sued by Jon Hamm for using his likeness for Sherlock is the real mystery to me. It's uncanny.

6/10

Fever dream of a game. I played Devil's Daughter because it came bundled with Crimes & Punishments for $50 cheaper than either game on its own. Despite being bundled with C&P, it's actually a direct sequel to Testament, a game I have not played, in which Holmes and Watson have adopted Moriarty's daughter Katelyn.

Not that the chain of sequels and prequels really matters, because Devil's Daughter's biggest stylistic influence isn't either of its predecessors, but Guy Ritchie's Holmes films. Which is fine, if you liked them. Though I can't understate the uncanny valley effect of seeing C&P characters alongside Watson's Jude Law glow-up and Holmes's dangling suspenders.

I'm genuinely unsure if I enjoyed this or not, let alone how to rate it. There are a truckload more QTEs than C&P (including the entire final segment), but they play better. Cases 1 and 4 are good (or at least, good fanfiction of the Ritchie movies)--case 4 in particular I enjoyed far more than anything in C&P. The domino effect deduction was great fun, and it didn't overstay its welcome. On the other hand, case 2 mirrors Sign of the Four down to the racist elements, and the treatment of Alice is just awful across the board (at one point you can backhand her).

Mostly, I was left baffled. A sequence I can only describe as Assassin's Creed: Wiggins (featuring a "lung disease" meter) had my wife in hysterics. At one point, Sherlock Holmes is hunted for sport. There's a metallurgy rhythm game, a lawn bowls tournament, and a sewer platforming level. And the final case is... how do I even describe it. It's directed like a "journey to the centre of the mind" dream sequence, but for no apparent reason, because all the events are supposed to be actually happening. I felt like I was playing an improvised children's bedtime story. When the case ended abruptly after perhaps an hour, I turned to my wife and whispered, "What the fuck?"

Kdybyste si na dvou či třech listech A4 v bodech přečetli o čem nové případy jsou, jak jsou (vy)řešené, tak byste si řekli "jo, to je rozhodně cesta po vynikajícím minulém dílu a dá se na tom stavět, je to nesporně v tom nejlepším šestákovém odkazu holmesovek". Problém je však v exekuci jednoho každého z těch bodů; od otřesně napsaných dialogů po zakomponování herních prvků až po výstavbu jak postupovat. Předně je třeba zmínit, tentokrát to již není adventura ani náznakem. Chtělo by to být "narativním zážitkem s akčními vsuvkami v podobě miniher". Jenže chtít nestačí. Problém je, že pro samou přímočarost se to stylově až příliš odklání od předchozích dílů. S ryzími (jakkoli otřesnou technickou stránkou stíhanými) adventurami to nemá lautr nic společného. Horší je, že to nepokračuje ani ve vynikajícím "přehození výhybky" z Crimes & Punishments, kde bylo nakročeno k něčemu velkému, ale pár nedotažeností a drobností to sráželo.

The Devil's Daughter navzdory Unreal enginu vypadá hnusně a odfláknutě kamkoli se podíváte. Pohlédnete na stěnu na dobové plakáty a jeden je ostrý a druhý rozpixelovaný, že by se i VGA titul styděl. Chybí jakákoli umělecká vize, genius loci viktoriánského Londýna a cokoli nad rámec očekávaného "unreal standardu". Modely (i stěžejních) postav jsou zaměnitelné (dokonce doslova; v prvním a čtvrtém případu se opakuje stejný model/herec pro nesouvisející postavy), ulice Londýna jsou reskin, kamera si dělá co chce (v režimu pohledu třetí osoby je to takřka nehratelné kvůli navigaci "vrazím do všeho", v režimu z první osoby je zase divná výška usazení pohledu), dabing je unylý a bez špetky zájmu (v tom lepším případě; v tom horší na urvání si uší viz dcerka), časté glitche, životnost postav je znázorněna tím, že se všichni neustále komíhají a vypadají, že mají právě epileptický třes. Děs. Jenže to je u série v podstatě zvykem (s výjimkou Crimes & Punishments) a jakkoli by to vytrhávalo z imerze, tak dobrý příběh, dialogy a adventuření by to spasily. Jak tomu ostatně v sérii již nejednou bylo. Bylo, ale tentokrát tomu tak není.

Autoři se totiž rozhodli veškeré adventurní prvky zahodit do koše a zprostředkovat něco ve stylu tvorby Quantic Dream v nízkorozpočtovém podání. Dalo by se polemizovat, zda vůbec tvorba Davida Cage je hodna následování, ale to je vedlejší. Horší je, že aby to fungovalo jako narativní zážitek, musela by zde být alespoň nějaká filmová režie, zajímavé charaktery, dialogy, dabérské výkony a propojení toho všeho do soudržného celku s následky rozhodnutí. To tu není. Herní prvky však také ne. A tak místo rozhodování, používání předmětů či hledání důkazů pro dedukce na vás čeká nalajnovaný průchod, kde je vždy jasné co/jak/kde udělat. Ony veškeré ty prvky tu jsou, ne že ne, ale jsou vám neustále podsouvány závěry, stopy, lokace, otázky i dedukce. Nemáte tak pocit, že byste na něco přišli, ale že jen potvrzujete předvolby autorů.

Hratelnost se simuluje skrze nekoncepčně na sílu naroubované minihry představující mnohdy "úkony denní rutiny" (Cage, já vám to říkal) zatímco vás autoři posílají od čerta k ďáblu... Hned první seznamovací případ začne po úvodní dějové animaci (jak jinak) ve vašem pokoji (několik desítek vteřin), odkud se vydáte po dlouhém loadingu do čtvrti, kde máte najít budovu (otázka vteřin), prošmejdit a prokecat jednu postavu (minuta úhrnem), přesun na jinou lokaci s triem miniher (odposlech a dedukce) na pět minut, následuje echt zdlouhavá a nudná "zpoza krytu sleduj napříč městem týpka co tě nesmí vidět", abyste neusnuli tak je to proloženo třemi minihrami (vyčisti komín, ano logika do háje, sledujete na ulici někoho koho nesmíte ztratit z dohledu, ale odskočíte si vypulírovat komín), poté nasednete na kočár. Následuje další dlouhý loading, jste u budovy, kde zjistíte dvě zásadní informace (cca dvacet vteřin), následuje dlouhý loading zpět do Holmesova bytu, dějová animace rychlé zjištění informace v kartotéce, další dlouhý loading zpět k té budově, následuje cca pět minut dialogů a průzkumu, dlouhý loading do bytu před sledovačkou, v něm půl minuty, dlouhý loading domů, dvě akce v bytě (půl minuty maximálně) a dlouhý loading zpět do toho bytu, kde jste teď byli! Tam vás čeká minutová čmuchací minihra za psa, který umí otevírat dveře ve větší výšce než kam dosáhne. A takto je to tu pořád, žádná logika, žádný design. Bez nadsázky častěji sledujete loading než hrajete, grrr. Je to kvůli tomu rozkouskované a bez tempa.

Není taková celá hra, některé případy jsou dějově (když už ne dialogy a postavami) povedené, jenže vyznívají do ztracena, nemají dopady a postavy znenadání mizí a již se neobjeví; viz třeba nápad se Sherlockovým "dvojníkem" ze třetího případu... Výstavba dobrá, ale nic z toho není. Je tu pár skvělých pasáží, ne že ne, jakkoli paradoxně nejlepší je "indianajonesovská" puzzle pasáž z mayské pyramidy, kterou si však Sherlock pouze vizualizuje. A to tak přesně, že v ní může i zemřít. Nikdo nepřemýšlel a tak se lámalo přes koleno a roubovalo vše, co autorům přišlo na mysl bez ladu i skladu. Několik (málo) miniher není vyloženě zlých. Ovšem v rámci deseti hodin potřebných k dohrání je takových momentů málo (krom pyramidy stojí za zmínku sotva pár puzzlů a nápaditý i naléhavý úvod čtvrtého případu) a většina "stopáže" působí jako obstrukce k umělému natažení doby spíše než herně opodstatněná a scénářem zasloužená délka. Nejhorší na tom ovšem je, že z předchozích dílů dobře víme, že ve Frogwares to umějí výrazně lépe i záživněji. Tohle je pro vývojáře i sérii sice odvážný krok, bohužel však ne kupředu, ale hodně do strany. A co hůře; pořádný krok zpět co se hratelnosti a kvality scénáře týče.

Based, underrated detective game. Respects time period and players intelligence. I only played C&P before and I would rank them about equal. Cases still rely heavily on red herrings and unreal coincidences, but I have faith that logic is intact. You just need to pay attention. Not everything is put into your journal. I suggest writing down your own notes, because fun factor relies heavily on putting it all together yourself. Unfortunately it ends abruptly. One second you are finishing 3rd case, and the next you are seeing end credits after underwhelming finale.

This is probably the best way a Sherlock Holmes story could be translated into a game, or at least the best straightforward way. Walk through the city, find clues, combine them, talk to people, sneak around. I just can't shake off the constant feeling about the production value while playing. You walk through gorgeous places for five seconds, interact with many people for a minute and wonder how so much effort has been put into a world that's almost too full, an uncanny level of detail. Probably not a bad thing in itself, but it would've been more impactful if the game had been memorable.

After playing Crimes & Punishments as my first Sherlock Holmes game I was excited to try out The Devil's Daughter. Unfortunately, I was left mildly disappointed as everything here is a downgrade from the what came before.

The character models have taken a dip in quality and detail, which makes the performance issues all the more surprising. The game is no graphical powerhouse yet it would get jittery at times on my machine and even on an SSD loading times could get annoyingly long.

Poorly implemented action sequences are the bane of every adventure game that feels like it needs to do something "more", and that's no change here, unfortunately.

Some of the puzzles cross the border from complex into obtuse, which comes admittedly with the territory of the genre, but there are a few that seem at odds with the concept of being the ultra-logical Sherlock Holmes. As a character famed for their logical thinking, it was disappointing to have sequences where you are playing fantasy in imaginary locations with no evidence to support the detective's theories. Holmes is traditionally about attention to detail, not "I reckon this probably happened."

That's not to say the game is bad overall, but playing it soon after Crimes & Punishments puts in stark contrast how much better these games can be.