This was the first game from the Sherlock Holmes series by Frogwares that I got. I played it when I was around 13. By doing a second run a few weeks ago, I can say that this game still holds up nowadays (2025 at the time of writing this review).
The graphics have aged well for a 2014 barring a few texture glitches. This is even more impressive knowing that this was not a game made with a very high budget. The voice acting is also very competent. However, some buyers may want to know that this game is not dubbed in any other languages than English and translations are provided in subtitles. This is not an issue for me as I always usually play in English, but this may surprise some players who are used to the dubbing of previous Frogwares games.
The atmosphere of the 19th century England is very well translated to this game. The environments are also quite detailed and feel alive.
The gameplay, while simple on the surface, is very enjoyable. The game is divided into multiple cases. You explore each crime scenes which can be further examinated in your notebook. Contrary to previous games of the same series, the notebook has indications related to the interactions required by items. You interview several characters and then make deductions.
While I had to use a walkthrough when playing older Frogwares games, the puzzles did not feel arbitrary or obtuse. I only had one puzzle from which I did not find the solution without looking up online (without spoiling anything, it is the "Director's Safe").
This is however not a perfect game. First, while the relatively pain-free puzzles may be a strength, it is a rather unchallenging game. It is also quite short: you will likely finish it in less than 20 hours. However, this game is often on sales nowadays so it can be somewhat excusable.
It is possible to select a "wrong" conclusion at the end of a case but your decision has no impact on the following cases besides a few nods at the beginning. Some "right" conclusions seem also a bit convoluted and more circumstential than anything else.
There are also a lot of traveling, which would be less annoying if these loading screens were less long.
Despite these minor flaws, I enjoyed almost every minute of this game and I highly recommend it.
Verdict: 8/10
Technical information: I played this game on Slackware 15 with Proton-Sarek 10.15. Playing with DXVK was fine and I did not encounter any graphical issues except for noticeable aliasing (I am playing on a 1080p screen). For curiosity sake, I tested the game a few minutes with WineD3D and the performance absolutely tanked in some environments. However, I encountered a few random crashes without any specific triggers. You may also want to change a few parameters in the configuration file to allow more VRAM usage and better shadow resolutions but the game is still playable without changing these.
Please note that you may need to use the DirectX 9 mode on Windows with some AMD GPUs to avoid some flickering. You will easily find how to do this in this game Steam discussions and guides and in its PCGamingWiki page.
