Sherlock Holmes Chapter One Reviews
This is easily my favourite game of the year. I haven’t been this captivated by Holmes since I began reading the original works by Doyle.
An island full of riveting mysteries, stuck with some truly awful and jarring combat.
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is a big story-driven game with familiar characters, captivating cases to solve, and a big open island to explore. All the fantastical stuff aside, the team at Frogwares treats Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work with utmost respect, and for that we are grateful.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Sherlock Holmes Chapter One takes the series in a completely opposite direction of its predecessors, souring its potential in favor of adding gameplay elements that pad runtime and take away from the investigations. Fans of the series may find some joy in getting to experience the original content or solving clues the hard way, but I was certainly not one of them.
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is a good (re)starting point for the famous detective's video game saga. The mysteries this time are a bit easier, but there are many more contents than usual thanks to the new open-world approach even if the new features would have used a little more development. All in all, the new direction of Sherlock Holmes is definitely the right one and we're eager to see where it will lead in the future.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is a very competent adventure game that offers a great experience of varied gameplay, very well elaborated, charming characters and a plot that seduces from the first moment. Undoubtedly a highly recommended title for fans of the saga and adventure games or deduction games.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The idea of Sherlock Holmes essentially investigating his own origins is an intriguing conceit, though that’s really only a small element of Sherlock Holmes Chapter One. The invented island of Cordona is a great backdrop for commentary on the late Victorian British Empire in all its excessive and tone-deaf glory, though again, those considerations are secondary. Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is, at heart, a collection of large and small mysteries to be solved, the chance to inhabit the mind of a legendary polymath and play detective with a wide and deep arsenal of tools and toys. Although the series is still bogged down by its fiddly mechanics and the pace can move too slowly for us fidgety gamers, Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is far more ambitious in scope than its series predecessors and may represent a new, high bar for the franchise.
Personally, I’d say that Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is one of, if not THE, best game from Frogwares so far. It takes the open-world and immersive quest gathering aspects from The Sinking City and brilliantly combines them with the charm and quirky nature of Sherlock Holmes. Although the performance isn’t perfect at launch, it never impacted my enjoyment of the very interesting story, intriguing cases, well-written conversations, and wide variety of missions. Having to be mindful of what you wear, who you talk to, and what you talk about, makes you feel like Sherlock himself, it’s a level of immersion and interaction we’ve not seen in any of his prior adventures.
Sherlock Holmes Chapter One might take the franchise in an awesome new direction with a really nice island to explore, lots of fun mysteries to solve and some good production values as an overall package. The game lets itself down when it comes to the clunky quest diary and the nonsensical system of having to pin items of importance in order to make conversations and even items appear in the world that should have already been there. The game's lack of handholding is by far its biggest strength but by adding so many pieces of ambiguous evidence to a mystery and making you pin the right one so items appear in the game world becomes frustrating to figure out what to do when you get stuck and have dozens of items to pin to see if you get a response out of people.
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One deviates little from the established Frogwares detective game template, but that doesn't stop it from being a compelling adventure and perhaps one of the studio's stronger games overall. It's got a meaty and intriguing core story, loads to see and do off the main path, and some swerving cases that will take some serious sleuthing to come to the right conclusions — I'm not sure what more you could really ask for from a game like this besides that tried-and-tested trifecta, except maybe a little more polish. The lack thereof doesn't hurt the game too much, mind, so if you enjoy solving crimes while being really, really, really ridiculously good-looking, this mid-price mystery should definitely find its way onto your wishlist.
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is an attempt by Frogwares to kick off a new more action-focused franchise with much younger protagonist, but if they hope to keep a captive audience around Frogwares ought to make the experience of stepping into Holmes’ shoes much more engaging and enjoyable than what’s presented in this game.
With a strong narrative and exceptional investigation mechanics, Sherlock Holmes Chapter One manages to one-up its predecessors. Sadly, it also doesn't reach its full potential, though we can hope that future titles are more in-depth.
There are a lot of things to admire in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, and when it works, it all comes together in a fantastic new way. Unfortunately, there are far too many instances of clues that perhaps made sense to the team that made it, but not the player. Just when you start finding your stride, a roadblock appears as you struggle to figure out your next steps. The jump to an open-world setting ultimately feels unnecessary and adds to the confusion. Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is not a bad game at all, but the experimental gameplay feels like a missed opportunity that a sequel could perhaps refine.
A lot of the issues with Sherlock Holmes Chapter One can be resolved with updates. The performances issues can be ironed out, John's obnoxious behavior can be toned down, and an improved hint system could remove the frustration of being lost during a case. With a few tweaks, Sherlock Holmes Chapter One could be an interesting open-world twist on the detective genre. As it stands, the game at launch still needs work before Sherlock Holmes can fully embrace his role as the greatest detective of all time.
Technical issues and an excessively padded out plot makes Frogwares' open-world rendition of its Sherlock Holmes games a disappointing experience.
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is a pleasant tale of origins and investigation, which continues frogwares' extremely intimate and introspective approach to the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The game often stumbles upon the narrative errors of its predecessor, not sufficiently delving into some crucial ideas in the epilogue of the adventure.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is a decent game that will convince many players - especially Frogwares fans. The developers did not disappoint in terms of plot, side missions, or the city design itself, and if it were not for the illusory choices and frequent stuttering, the final rating would be much higher.
Review in Polish | Read full review
This Chapter One is rather a success and stands out as a beautiful adaptation of the universe of Sherlock Holmes, bringing an interesting story on the youth of the hero while mixing more or less explicit references (gameplay mechanics, aesthetics of the heroes, dialogues ...) to other representations of Holmes.
Review in French | Read full review
Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is perhaps my favourite Frogwares title. By expanding and spacing out the objectives at the player’s leisure, it creates an open-ended feeling of choice that had me coming back.
I had fun with Sherlock Holmes Chapter One. I was able to look past its shortcomings and frustrations, and pretty much got into a routine of skipping combat entirely because I like what Frogwares are building here. The game is rough around the edges like the younger, brasher, lead character, so there’s work to do for Chapter Two, finding the right balance with what worked well before, but there’s a structure and promise here with some very exciting potential indeed.