I'm fairly certain, that I saw this on the Jimquisition before, but then forgot all about it. So it hit me a like a truck full of bricks, when I just played through both games recently.
'Sherlock Holmes - Crimes and Punishments' is one of the best adventure games ever made. Its ambitious in that it developed the adventure (puzzle solving) formula further, made it approachable for a much wider, and younger audience, made you feel intelligent, when solving riddles, without the nudging in the game, that at the same time ensures, that less attentive players get tunneled forward in the story progression. It solved the issue of "did I get all clues" in adventure games elegantly - and without it feeling that the game has dumbed down. It has an intelligent, cynical main protagonist, clever writing, and a proper supporting cast. It cuts out unneeded filler, like traversing - it knows, what its doing.
Then they changed publishers - and along came the successor - "Sherlock Holmes - The Devil's Daughter", and pretty much ruined everything that the predecessor got credit for getting right. Within the first one and a half hours, you have a token black character (who is also a baddy - maybe), in Victorian London, who also acts as a love interest for Watson - and you just know that the new publisher had insisted on putting in for diversity's sake. Sherlock (now of course completely redesigned to be a Guy Richie movie trope) all but berades a little boy, just so he can be depicted as "edgy" and "a rough bachelor" - then lets the player decide with their first on screen action, if the boy - who turns out to be Tiny Tim from the Dickens novel, just with a lame arm - not leg, and also missing his parents, has a sickness, or just has cried, based on his swollen eyes - with completely no context whatsoever, and Watson (a medical doctor) standing by silently in the background - while the player makes his "choice" which also has absolutely no impact on the game at all. Then all of a sudden starts acting super sweet to the child, because someone told the dialogue writer, that would be PC. Then Sherlock gets to meet his daughter, on vacation from her boarding school, and greets here with a denigrating - 'no you cant know what case I'm working on, its not age appropriate'. Shortly before the game moves you into a Assassins Creed like chase sequence also moving through houses and onto roofs, where one of Sherlocks street urchins, has to literally "sweep a chimney" (gov'na) in a quick time event, to get onto the roof, while the game architecture clearly isnt build for such sequences. And then Watson tells Holmes and the player that Holmes' Daughter isn't his real daughter, but Holmes then tells him, that she never can know this, and Watson must not tell her, because Holmes would loose her - at a random doorstep, shortly before entering a new - unrelated location.
To reiterate. The first game was clever, with an intelligent plot treatment and a very well developed supporting cast.
Now you basically 'got' what happened from the players point of view. But why - why?
Well, in a game about clues - the developers left one in the game. In the "open world section" that pretty much the game didn't need, no less. And its fucking heart breaking.
If you need a little help:
The clues revolve around Holmes, being an intelligent, cynical - and often a tiny bit inappropriate character in the first game - with an interactable telescope in his flat in Crimes and Punishments - pointing at a scene that kind of alluded to this character design winkingly.
To the second game (the eighth one in the series), having the telescope there. But not interactable. So the first thought that comes into mind (especially after watching the intro sequence of the newer game), is - that of course they took it out because of political correctness reasons. It doesnt help, that the first line of Watson standing in front of the telescope - after the player gains character control is - "Quick Holmes, we've got to help that poor boy 'Tiny Tim' (from the intro)".
So that lingers in your mind - with you after a while not thinking about it anymore - until you stumble upon a scene in game - where people are kind of acting strange for no in world reason at all (why hasnt got the painter a painting animation, in a game thats all about detail?), and all of a sudden you see a telescope, that suddenly can be interacted with. And it sports the character you saw through it in the first game. Hidden in the open world portion of the game - in plain sight.
I swallowed. Then recorded the video.
The video shows you basically the intro sequences of "Crimes and Punishments" and "The Devils Daughter" one after the other. Lets you get a sense of atmosphere and plot quality in both games, shows you the interactable telescope in one, but not the other. And then jumps you to the scene, that was put in by the game's developers as the resolve of what the frack happened to the game under a new publisher.
'Sherlock Holmes - Crimes and Punishments' is one of the best adventure games ever made. Its ambitious in that it developed the adventure (puzzle solving) formula further, made it approachable for a much wider, and younger audience, made you feel intelligent, when solving riddles, without the nudging in the game, that at the same time ensures, that less attentive players get tunneled forward in the story progression. It solved the issue of "did I get all clues" in adventure games elegantly - and without it feeling that the game has dumbed down. It has an intelligent, cynical main protagonist, clever writing, and a proper supporting cast. It cuts out unneeded filler, like traversing - it knows, what its doing.
Then they changed publishers - and along came the successor - "Sherlock Holmes - The Devil's Daughter", and pretty much ruined everything that the predecessor got credit for getting right. Within the first one and a half hours, you have a token black character (who is also a baddy - maybe), in Victorian London, who also acts as a love interest for Watson - and you just know that the new publisher had insisted on putting in for diversity's sake. Sherlock (now of course completely redesigned to be a Guy Richie movie trope) all but berades a little boy, just so he can be depicted as "edgy" and "a rough bachelor" - then lets the player decide with their first on screen action, if the boy - who turns out to be Tiny Tim from the Dickens novel, just with a lame arm - not leg, and also missing his parents, has a sickness, or just has cried, based on his swollen eyes - with completely no context whatsoever, and Watson (a medical doctor) standing by silently in the background - while the player makes his "choice" which also has absolutely no impact on the game at all. Then all of a sudden starts acting super sweet to the child, because someone told the dialogue writer, that would be PC. Then Sherlock gets to meet his daughter, on vacation from her boarding school, and greets here with a denigrating - 'no you cant know what case I'm working on, its not age appropriate'. Shortly before the game moves you into a Assassins Creed like chase sequence also moving through houses and onto roofs, where one of Sherlocks street urchins, has to literally "sweep a chimney" (gov'na) in a quick time event, to get onto the roof, while the game architecture clearly isnt build for such sequences. And then Watson tells Holmes and the player that Holmes' Daughter isn't his real daughter, but Holmes then tells him, that she never can know this, and Watson must not tell her, because Holmes would loose her - at a random doorstep, shortly before entering a new - unrelated location.
To reiterate. The first game was clever, with an intelligent plot treatment and a very well developed supporting cast.
Now you basically 'got' what happened from the players point of view. But why - why?
Well, in a game about clues - the developers left one in the game. In the "open world section" that pretty much the game didn't need, no less. And its fucking heart breaking.
If you need a little help:
The clues revolve around Holmes, being an intelligent, cynical - and often a tiny bit inappropriate character in the first game - with an interactable telescope in his flat in Crimes and Punishments - pointing at a scene that kind of alluded to this character design winkingly.
To the second game (the eighth one in the series), having the telescope there. But not interactable. So the first thought that comes into mind (especially after watching the intro sequence of the newer game), is - that of course they took it out because of political correctness reasons. It doesnt help, that the first line of Watson standing in front of the telescope - after the player gains character control is - "Quick Holmes, we've got to help that poor boy 'Tiny Tim' (from the intro)".
So that lingers in your mind - with you after a while not thinking about it anymore - until you stumble upon a scene in game - where people are kind of acting strange for no in world reason at all (why hasnt got the painter a painting animation, in a game thats all about detail?), and all of a sudden you see a telescope, that suddenly can be interacted with. And it sports the character you saw through it in the first game. Hidden in the open world portion of the game - in plain sight.
I swallowed. Then recorded the video.
The video shows you basically the intro sequences of "Crimes and Punishments" and "The Devils Daughter" one after the other. Lets you get a sense of atmosphere and plot quality in both games, shows you the interactable telescope in one, but not the other. And then jumps you to the scene, that was put in by the game's developers as the resolve of what the frack happened to the game under a new publisher.
Last edited by notimp,
