Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is a decent remake of the original 2007 game, with some parts of the latter that have been adapted to make its narrative fill the role of sequel to 2021's Chapter One.
Sadly, though, The Awakened rarely reaches the heights of its predecessor. Whereas Chapter One's more open ended design allowed for more choices, opened to the possibility of mistakes during investigations and presented some great side quests; The Awakened's linearity strips the gameplay of all of these elements and dumbs down investigations to mere trial and error sequences that sometimes become frustrating to navigate as the solution might be clear in the player's mind, but cannot be applied in-game as not all objects have been interacted with or because the game forces you to follow a logic more complicated than it should be to reach the solution.
Despite this, not everything is to waste. The game's story is very well written with especially the protagonist duo shining through it, the game runs great and Frogwares' admirable knowledge and respect of the Lovecraftian mythos is present throughout the whole adventure, even if sometimes is a bit too shy to show itself compared to a game like The Sinking City.
It's also important to note how it is clear, by playing the game, how Frogwares is capable of much much more and how The Awakened's shortcomings are mainly due to the absurd situation the developers found themselves in while making the game in Ukraine in the midst of the Russian invasion that affects the country since the 24th of February, 2022.
In this sense, the fact this game even exists is a miracle and yet another proof of the absolute spiritual strenght and will power that the Ukrainian people have shown during the war. One can be certain that Frogwares will come back to the great standards of Chapter One once the war will be over, hopefully with a victorious Ukraine.
Sadly, though, The Awakened rarely reaches the heights of its predecessor. Whereas Chapter One's more open ended design allowed for more choices, opened to the possibility of mistakes during investigations and presented some great side quests; The Awakened's linearity strips the gameplay of all of these elements and dumbs down investigations to mere trial and error sequences that sometimes become frustrating to navigate as the solution might be clear in the player's mind, but cannot be applied in-game as not all objects have been interacted with or because the game forces you to follow a logic more complicated than it should be to reach the solution.
Despite this, not everything is to waste. The game's story is very well written with especially the protagonist duo shining through it, the game runs great and Frogwares' admirable knowledge and respect of the Lovecraftian mythos is present throughout the whole adventure, even if sometimes is a bit too shy to show itself compared to a game like The Sinking City.
It's also important to note how it is clear, by playing the game, how Frogwares is capable of much much more and how The Awakened's shortcomings are mainly due to the absurd situation the developers found themselves in while making the game in Ukraine in the midst of the Russian invasion that affects the country since the 24th of February, 2022.
In this sense, the fact this game even exists is a miracle and yet another proof of the absolute spiritual strenght and will power that the Ukrainian people have shown during the war. One can be certain that Frogwares will come back to the great standards of Chapter One once the war will be over, hopefully with a victorious Ukraine.