I can not say I have a strong history with Shelock games. In fact before this one, I had only played a single title before: Shelock Holmes: The Awakened. And while I did enjoy it, I also found myself disappointed with how hard it cagey it was with the details of it’s Lovecraftian influences so as to leave literally nothing to let the player decide if the cultists were just crazy or if they were also on to something.
So when this game came out, I will admit, I was skeptical. The promise of occult mystery to face the world’s best detective against was tempting, but then to be blunt, I had fallen for such promise before. I held off, only to get the game in a humble bundle. Now, as I walk away, I find my expectations not met in the slightest, but not a bad time despite this.
Story: You are the great Sherlock Holmes, and you are bored out of your mind. So when a young boy shows up asking you to help him find his missing father, you jump at the chance to put your mind to use! Come Watson, the case is afoot!
From this rather generic point, you will guide homes to solve a connected series of disappearances, culminating in a manhunt hinted in the opening video of the game with Sherlock as the prey. How it will end is up to you, but this is only the first of five cases you will solve before you finish the game. These cases vary greatly, though usually someone has turned up as a body along the way, making for some pretty varied writing happening here. From simple abductions to absolutely fantastic stories about ancient curses, this game will cover the ranges. However, once you solve one case, you are basically done with it since there is absolutely nothing to connect the individual cases to each other at all.
But that is not to say the game is disconnected. Rather the entire thing wraps around Sherlock’s adopted daughter Katie paying him a visit from school and (against Sherlock’s wishes) a budding friendship she has with the detective’s newest neighbor, Alice. In addition to the above cases, Sherlock will spend his time trying to figure out just who Alice is and what she is really up to. It is actually a very simple side-plot for the most part, but it is indeed the glue that keeps this whole title together.
7/10
Graphics: This game is actually pretty impressive in the graphical department. The world you will be playing in looks absolutely stunning as you see the various locations in the dirty yet bustling 19th century London lovingly crafted to show off as much detail as the engine could muster. Add to this some straight-up beautiful lighting work and the world truly shines.
Nor are the characters that populate it bad looking either! Nothing was spared to put this game together, and it shows both in cutscenes and when wandering around on your own. The only issue I could give the graphics is some of the facial work. Like a lot of games, this isn’t always “quite right” especially when up close, but it is still better then you might expect a video game to show you. And even that limit is pretty much in the first half hour or so of the game, as if the developers figured out how to make the emotional expressions work better as the game goes on.
8/10
Sound: You are not going to get a lot of music in this game, which makes a lot of sense considering the nature of it. Most of this game will be spent in investigation, and so it makes a lot of sense to leave the ambiance of the place being investigated so that you don’t miss any audio queues as well as video ones. But that is not to say there is nothing here. You will get a few tunes as you play, mainly ominous tones when things get dark or to set the energy when dealing with a specific sequence or two, but it still sounds good for the most part (and the end credits song is an absolute treat).
And much like the game’s visuals, the sounds are simply awesome for what they are trying to present. From your own footsteps across grounds that would produce it to the grating noise of iron fences moving around to even machinery and electric current, this game sounds pretty realistic. However, this is not likely to stand out beyond simply recognizing what you are hearing.
What will stand out is the voice acting, as it’s actually pretty good, particularly Sherlock himself. In fact the main cast all sounds very believable, with even side characters sounding about right. Although in this case I have to make a very specific complaint: Katie.
It’s not exactly a secret that child actors are usually bad, but considering the level everyone else was reaching, Katie stands out particularly badly, especially during the last scenes of the game where she gets particularly cringe-worthy. Thankfully, her parts are fairly limited so she shows up, drops a few lines and leaves for a good length of time most of the time, but when she shows, you notice for the wrong reasons. ..oof…
7/10
Gameplay: The Devil’s Daughter takes place over the length of 5 individual cases Sherlock will have to solve. Each case will involve traveling to the related location and investigating the area/interviewing people to find clues about the case. These clues will then be stored in Sherlock’s mind where you will draw connections between them to make him deduce what they mean and ultimately build your case of what happened, who the culprit is, and what you should do with that information. And this is the part of the game that really stands out. You can potentially choose the wrong outcome, and the game will not stop you from putting the wrong guy behind bars, so you want to think carefully before you draw your conclusions.
Unfortunately if you choose the wrong culprit, you have to live with your choice as the game will still simply call the case over and if you want to go back, you have to do it from the beginning again. Thankfully, this doesn’t really have a strong effect on the game itself as the cases are pretty independent of each other. It’s more about the individual case endings and if you are satisfied with them.
And in addition to the usual detective work, this game is also very familiar with mini-game style analysis and situations, ranging from playing a dog smelling a trail to stealth sections to balance beams requiring you to maneuver your movement and look controls to keep your balance tight-rope style (side note, its these events that quickly remind you this game was designed with a controller in mind by placing icons for your mouse and keyboard so you have to keep them in circles like you might expect to do with thumbsticks on a controller. Although choosing one might be taste as I have to give the game credit, they made it work amazingly well with the keyboard and mouse despite where their design was built), and good old-fashioned quick-time-event sequences that are actually kind of amusing for why they are happening. (On that note, case 3 is bar-none the best one.) This is one of those odd games where you could say it’s mini-games but at the same time manages to do so right for the most part. If it has a real issue here, it’s how it handles the fact that not everyone has the patience for these kinds of things. If you are having a hard time or just don’t have the patience, you can simply skip just about any of these moment, but this also greatly reduce the time you spend with this game.
7/10
Bugs: I don’t believe I ran into a single bug playing this game. It ran perfectly smooth, except for the opening video, which I do not understand… cause it IS a video.
Overall: I can not call this game a great game, but I can call it a good one. It has no issue telling you what you need to do, but what you get out of it is on you to figure out, making for a much more unique way to handle criminal cases. It also has no issue using lots of mini-games/QTEs, but does so in a way that keeps things interesting, but it understands these are not for everyone and will allow you to skip what is holding you back for better or worse.
In the end, its definitely a game with some weaknesses, but one fully aware of them I just wish the game had a better way of handling them.
Score:
7/10
Requirements:
- Intel i3 at 3.6 Ghz or AMD FX series quad core at 4.2 Ghz
- 6 GB RAM
- NVidia GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 7790 with 1GB VRAM
- 20 GB hard drive
- Windows 7 64 bit / Windows 8.1 64 bit / Windows 10 64 bit
System Specs:
- AMD FX 8350 (8 cores) running at 4 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- NVidia GeForce 960 GTX with 4 GB VRAM
- Windows 10
Source: Steam
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