Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments Reviews
Overall Crimes and Punishments serves as a deliberate, well put together mystery game. It serves as a great change of pace from the shooters and action fodder out there now and that will undoubtedly follow in the coming months. Unfortunately, lack of a cohesive story, feeling of being on a set, and the overall vapid nature of those sets lead the game to a somewhat boring end.
Over the last decade, Frogwares has been steadily eliminating the impossibly bad elements from their games, and what remains is the closest anyone's ever come to an authentic Baker Street experience.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes And Punishments is a perfect example of only being able to recommend something to either fans of the source material or of the genre of games. It's neither amazing nor terrible, but will satisfy anyone interested.
Overall, this is the best Sherlock Holmes game we've encountered and a very auspicious debut for the consulting detective on Switch. This is far from a lazy downgrade, with developer Frogwares presenting a full-featured and compelling experience from start to perhaps-too-soon finish. It looks great and plays brilliantly, with only occasional annoyances and some weak (though thankfully skippable) puzzles to knock it down a peg. The fact that the game is willing to allow you to get it wrong means it feels less prescribed and inevitable as other titles in the detective genre, and that's quite refreshing. A little ironic that it took one of the form's oldest characters to finally land such a novel approach.
[C]lunky controls, frequent and time consuming travels between areas and the ability to literally skip through all of the challenging sections are real setbacks to what could have otherwise been a very enjoyable game.
Poor voice acting and obnoxious back tracking let it down – but this is still on the right side of the law as far as we're concerned.
Smartly written dialogue, strong voice acting, and terrific graphics help make up for some technical flaws as well as a couple cases of that would offer little challenge to Sherlock Holmes. A must play for Holmes buffs, but it's somewhat slow of pace so action seekers would be wise to look elsewhere.
It's a must play for series fans, and a great choice for anyone looking for a deeper take on the genre.
Mini-games are hit-and-miss and frequent loading screens frustrate, but there's a lot to like about this latest series of detective adventures with some immersive cases and a decent production quality.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments is not without its issues, but it is loyal enough to its source material and the adventure genre to make it worth a look if you're a fan of either. Just don't expect any of the high-octane set pieces of the Robert Downey Jr films or the ingenuity of the Cumberbatch show.
While the narrative is a bit disconnected, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments uses the short story framework to its benefit, keeping each of its cases focused on pure, thrilling detective work.
So, so much effort has gone into this. But sadly, to little entertaining result.
A confident reinvention, despite the obviously low budget.
Each of the cases offers a unique and interesting story, and discovering what happened at each location is fascinating. While constantly pressing X to examine what seems like every object in a room becomes tedious it is easily offset by eureka moments that pop up every so often. The environments you explore are great but are unfortunately not helped by ropey visuals and a slew of technical issues. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments' greatest achievement is how guilty you feel when you punish an innocent person – even just being able to get it wrong is a superb idea.
This is a game that will make you think and it will show you lots of pretty pictures and scenery whilst doing it. Unfortunately, the combination of all the technical issues makes Crimes and Punishments an imperfect game. However it is still a playable and thoroughly enjoyable imperfect game.
It's difficult to find a detective game where you can actually solve a mystery how you want to. In Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments the deduction board gives you this ability, which ultimately leads to a number of different conclusions to each case. You can also enjoy a great sense of satisfaction as you make a plot revelation. Visually, Sherlock Holmes is brilliant, from the detailed crime scenes to the realistic facial animations. The clunky gameplay, frustrating mini-games and inconsistent voice performances do detract from the overall experience though.
At the end of a case, the player is given a rating, either highlighting their compassion or their steely sense of justice. They're also given a breakdown as to how other players resolved the case and the option to find out if they identified the right suspect. Your enjoyment of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments will depend on whether you want to be guided on a series of baffling murders or have the great detective be fallible.
Crimes and Punishments is the best Sherlock has been, but it's just short of great
All-new game mechanics, first-rate graphics, and involved sleuthing make Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments a great adventure game.
A great example of how player choice can shape a gameplay experience. Most cases offer a variety of conclusions