Sherlock Holmes Chapter One Review

 "You see, but you do not observe."

This quote alone represents the multitudes of unsaid wonders that happen in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One. How fitting, then, that these same words appear in The Sign of Four by none other than Arthur Conan Doyle, the original writer for the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Frogwares managed to represent this same quote throughout a lengthy storyline, oftentimes forcing me to look back at everything and second-guess myself. How long I spent staring at my casebook trying to decipher what the right answer was is something I'm not willing to disclose!

Is his name Sherlock or SherHOT? Cause damn.

There are very few times in my life where I've finished a game, looked back at all of my accomplishments, and felt ready to dive right back in at everything I had left. One such case was when I played my favourite game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. After my second run—the one I actually beat the game on, after a year of its release—I dove back in for eight more runs, and even then I wasn't done consuming all of the content laid out before me. This is the same experience I had with Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, where immediately after finishing the game, I couldn’t wait to jump right back and finish all of the side quests, and see all of the possible endings and deductions. I even spent around an hour or more checking out each of the four different endings, just to experience all that I could of the game.

One thing I would love to point out is that despite the game being set in 1880, there were very few times where there were historical inaccuracies, and even when there were, they were only off by 10 or so years. This was surprising, given how many pop-culture references there were in the game—something I loved. It is honestly easy to put into words how much I love Sherlock Holmes Chapter One. But first, let us retrace our steps, and start from the beginning.

The beloved Sherlock Holmes, easily one of the most iconic characters in history, makes an appearance as his young self, trying to deal with the troubles of mental health and trauma. Young Sherlock returns to his hometown of Cordona—an island on which he spent part of his childhood—with his best friend Jon (not to be confused with John Watson). His return to Cordona is motivated by a desire to revisit his mother's tomb. 

Insanity ensues shortly after the game begins. Your first case is given to you as a challenge by your friend Jon, which swiftly becomes deeper and deeper than anticipated, before Sherlock is facing a murder mystery right before his eyes. Of course, as the young, ambitious detective, it is your duty to solve everything and select the pieces of information that fit into the complete narrative to bring down the baddies of the story.

As such, it is your job to investigate each of the crime scenes intricately to make sure that you have every piece of information, all of which gets gathered in one of the tabs in the main menu that tells you what you've found and what to do next. It will be your job to make sure you catch the right perpetrator and make them pay for their actions. Will you be right? Only in-depth investigation will tell.

That is the main gameplay loop in the game, and I won't lie, I don't much care for puzzle games, and seldom do I find a puzzle game that truly tops the list of some of my favourite games. This is only further accentuates the sheer success and pleasure that it is to experience Sherlock Holmes Chapter One.

Sherlock and Jon are expected to gather evidence through many different means. One of the many ways you will be attempting to gain your knowledge is by interacting with the crime scene. Sherlock will be able to interact with objects such as bodies and items, and you will be shown how many clues you must find to be able to move on from that particular object. Each area also has a magnifying glass that lets you see if you've gathered all of the evidence on that particular spot.

You will also need to use Sherlock's capability of disguise to appear as if you belong in a different social class. This is due to the fact that Cordona is very classist, and if people perceive you as a different social class to them, they will dismiss you. This also works in favour of allowing you to dress up and change how Sherlock looks!

Certain NPCs are crucial to some quests; you can present them with pieces of evidence you've written down or items you have found to get more out of them. This may lead down deep rabbit holes of evidence that solves a case!

Sometimes you will also be asked to search the archives. Now, don't go making the same mistake I did and search the police station archives only! There are a total of three areas you can search for these: The Police Station, Cordona Chronicle, and the City Hall! You need to cleverly pick out what information belongs in which archives so that you may find the file you need.

And last, but not least, the Mind Palace. Sherlock will keep in mind all of the hints that he has received throughout the cases and be able to make deductions by linking together the hints. This will oftentimes lead to new information in the casebook that will let you further the case.

Although all of these might sound boring on paper, they provide for some of the most fun gameplay I have had in a while that didn't involve fast-paced or hard combat. I found that I had the most fun when I really tried to put myself in the shoes of not being able to fail once, and thinking, overthinking, and rethinking each of my actions to make absolutely sure that I made the right choice.

There are very few combat sequences in the game, and most of them are actually optional. The Bandit Lairs are a great way to get money, but not something that is ever necessary to finish your cases, and the ones that are obligatory for quests can actually be skipped by an option in-game.

That isn't to say that the combat wasn't fun — au contraire! Although I thought the mentality of not being able to kill the bandits would get tiring (even though it isn't necessary, Jon will just nag you for killing), it actually added a lot of fun depth to the combat that I didn't anticipate, and I ended up actually appreciating having to be careful with each of my shots.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is as fun and as long as you allow it to be. Although the main storyline takes place over four main cases, there are dozens of side quests that let you further develop your understanding of Sherlock and Jon's friendship. Apart from that, I can't recall a single side quest (or main quest, for that matter) that I found boring or wished to move on from. Each side quest was as fun as—or sometimes even more so—than the main quests.

To truly appreciate the masterpiece that this game is, players really need to give it the time and love it deserves. Completing only the main storyline won’t give you enough time and information to care about Sherlock and Jon as much as you should. And—due to really trying to avoid spoilers for the narrative, given that is the game's predominant purpose—it is important to keep a keen eye for all of the small hints that Frogwares leaves players, to further understand the beauty behind it all.

There are very few complaints I had with Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, and each one of them subsequently got blown away by all of the great things that the game has. Although some animations—like opening doors normally instead of slamming into every single one headfirst—felt like they were missing, it was wonderful to see all of the budget going into making the game feel more in-depth with everything, so as to make sure that none of the aspects in the game felt lacking.

I definitely feel the obligation to give massive props to Alex Jordan for the portrayal of young Sherlock Holmes, and the absolute depths of emotion he put into the character, and to Frogwares for the fantastic game that they delivered. It is undoubtedly a must for anyone that finds even a mild spark of interest in the game.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One goes down as one of my favourite games of all time, and this is not a title I like using lightly.