this is probably one of my favorite mobile games, and one of the few I've felt the urge to come back to - and I found it to be just as good as when I first played it in 2020.

the design is so vivid and interesting, with several scenes making wish I could see more concept art, and the story makes use of its time perfectly. it's short, but in a perfect length for the story it's telling kind of way. it spends the time where it needs to immersing you in the mood of the environment and fleshing out characters, while conveying Carmen's feelings of guilt and jealousy. obviously on a replay you wouldn't get anything new with regards to plot or characters, but I loved doing it just to experience the atmosphere again.

the main plot being more character driven and an examination of Sherlock's personal morality was great, and while I wasn't surprised that I enjoyed his dynamic with Jon, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed what they did with Mycroft. they did a great job humanizing him more and making him more sympathetic without detracting from the contentious relationship he has with Sherlock.

the only thing that really bothered me is that I feel like the solutions to cases were a bit too ambiguous. while I do like that you could follow the clues to different conclusions, and that Sherlock could apply his personal morality to the outcome, part of the enjoyment of mystery games for me is being able to actually solve it and know if I've come to the correct conclusion or not. so it was pretty unsatisfying that there wasn't a way to check it later. that said there was more that worked here than didn't, and I like that Frogwares is willing to take swings even if they don't all land.

also shoutout to the Death Note cosplay painting at the end, I nearly died laughing.