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
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