When Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One went on sale, I got it and totally worth it. Should you get the DLC for this game, you'll feel like there's a new case every five feet (which makes you wonder what the murder rate is on that island). The premise is Sherlock lived on a fictional Mediterranean island for a year or two as a child until his mother died. Although he did not return with the intention of investigating her death, eventually he realized the circumstances surrounding it were suspicious. In between the major cases that help resolve the main plot, there are plenty of others that demonstrate life and culture of the island, like trying to assist the police force (and discovering its corruption) or discovering the tensions between the different ethnic groups. It's very immersive in that aspect.
What I did appreciate is the difficulty did raise from previous installments. Although you can still skip sequences, the game doesn't spoon feed you as thoroughly. There is still that "HEY! OVER HERE! USE YOUR INVESTIGATION MODE RIGHT HERE!" type of stuff, but it's much easier to miss clues. There are other added features, like it matters how you dress to make someone is willing to talk to you (and you also need to know which ethnic group and social class would know the answer to your question), reenacting crime scenes is fun because you need to pay really close attention to detail, and many cases didn't have any clear ending. The game itself also doesn't have a "true" conclusion. There are four possibilities, and what you choose greatly affects the final scenes.
I was somewhat confused about Sherlock and Mycroft. So frogwares has been making these games since the early 2000s and it seems they are all from the same universe. Because I've literally played two in the series I can't see how the brothers' relationship has developed, but it's very acrimonious here. I admittedly haven't read the books in maybe twenty years, but I remember they were very cordial toward each other. Mycroft I believed only showed up twice in all of Doyle's writings, and from what I remember he was somewhat lazy with not much ambition. So seeing Mycroft working behind the scenes as some sort of secret agent is really weird, as well as how much the two are fighting.
I have three complaints. The first is Jon, Sherlock's imaginary friend. Because the game takes place between Watson appears on the scene, the developers had to come up with someone who would be Sherlock's assistant. Jon is... a sort of coping mechanism for Sherlock that was born out of the death of his father at a very young age. Sherlock is perfectly aware Jon does not exist, yet he still insists on getting him his own bed or booking a hotel for two. Jon is a major component of the plot, but many times he didn't make sense. For example, he could see people attacking Sherlock from behind and warn him, which shouldn't happen.
The second is the game is trying to discuss injustice in the world whilst simultaneously being anachronistically fair. So for example, a black woman is the chief archivist at City Hall and I think a Turkish woman as the chief editor of the island's main newspaper. That probably would not happen in the late 1800s. I'm very positive it would not. But twice in the game you encounter crossdressing women who do so only because they say it's impossible for them to get ahead in the world due to their sex. (They also were horrible disguises because they made literally zero effort to hide their voice.) You can't really say women can't get anywhere and then also put them in positions of great power.
The last and biggest issue is the map. Here is a word for developers out there: I appreciate open worlds. They're fun. But they don't need to be so damned big. Although you can definitely feel the difference between the major districts on the island, whether it was the poor shacks in the miners' area or the Islamic architecture of the Old City, street to street was pretty the same thing. Every building and path looked almost alike and I was constantly pulling up the map to see if I had to go left or right. My advice is developers need to scale this down by a significant amount because instead of making a wide area with barely any noteworthy landmarks or detailing, you can spend your time on making every block look unique. Let me give a few good examples: Yakuza. Very small area, but holy shit did they jam everything in those few blocks. I memorized the layout very quickly so I wasn't constantly breaking my flow by pulling up a menu to see where I had to go. And it's not boring because there's so much in there. The advertisements on the walls, reading the menus, watching the idiot drunks... It's a very interesting place. Another great example is Arkham City or Arkham Knight. You can literally plop me down anywhere in those games and I would immediately know where I am because Rocksteady did not copy a single building in that place. Every single one had either a different awning, architectural style, or shops at the bottom floor. Arkham Knight encompassed the entirety of Gotham City, and honestly Gotham is probably about a fifth of the size of the island in Chapter One and still felt fucking humongous. Although it's great the developers want to show off how big the universe is they've created, in the end all it does is just make the player run longer to get from point A to point B. Unless you are willing to put the years into development like Breath of the Wild, the only game I've played that has a very large map that is still memorable, don't bother. Make it smaller but more interesting. It's possible.
There are other issues, like it's impossible to choose the right words from people gossiping, the battle system feels pretty clunky and there was no way to improve Sherlock's fighting, but those are minor. And honestly the other complaints I listed above were minor too. So I heartily recommend this game. It's quick and fun.
