#devil's daughter

W: Miss De'Bouvier seems like a lovely woman. Don't you think, Holmes?

H: She already took Katelyn's interest, and now yours too, Dear Fellow?

W: Oh, don't be so dramatic.

I'll bet a fiddle of gold against your soul 'cause I think I'm better than you. 🎻

The Devil Went Down to Faerûn.

And if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold,

But if you lose the Devil gets your soul.

A project I've had in mind for quite some time, and I'm quote proud to show it off! The Devil Went Down to Georgia has always been a favorite song of mine, and I thought it would be really interesting to have a Bardic showdown between The Devil Raphael and his own daughter.

NICO ROBIN - THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER

Put this on your wall

Drew my fave character from the Puck webcomic ya’ll should check out cuz I said so. 

Enjoy!

Ever since I watched the show Detective Conan, I’ve always wanted my sharp mind to the test and solve gruesome murders.That desire was only heightened by reading the adventures of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous fictional character: Sherlock Holmes back in Year 8. The idea of emulating the greatest detective in the world was what drove me to study criminology and helped train my keen eye to the minutest detail. 

For a good long while, my one desire was to throw on a deerstalker cap, have a Stradivarius violin sitting in the back corner of my room  and exclaim: ‘The game is afoot!’ to a doctor friend. 

So when video games were released that encapsulated that feeling of being a master detective, as well as the Victorian setting of the time, I was hooked. Being able to deduce everything with just a quick glance and arrive at awesome conclusions? Yes, please!

Frogwares has come a long way in terms of their Sherlock Holmes titles. Many of the early titles were focused on one huge case that spanned the entirety of the hours spent on it. Holmes would traipse from one corner of London to the next in order to unravel the dastardly villain behind it all. That all changed with Crimes and Punishments where players could enjoy a myriad of shorter cases that allowed players to arrive at their own conclusions. So, eager to try my hand at actual crime solving instead of sitting on the couch and letting the playable character solve it all in several long drawn out cutscenes, I dusted off my PlayStation 4 Pro to enjoy a romp around London before I jumped into the much more open-world interpretation of my favourite detective in his younger years. 

Lo and behold: Sherlock Holmes and the Devil’s Daughter.

While I enjoyed the first three cases of the game, the latter ones felt much too rushed. Despite the strong opening, I was disappointed at how quickly the intrigue petered out. From a narrative standpoint, it was also disheartening to see how little the cases tied together. Yes, there was an overarching arch but the writers only touched upon it with small snippets rather than letting them breathe or have Kate (Moriarty’s daughter) be more involved rather than shunting her off to the sidelines.

It would have also helped if Holmes was more receptive to communicating with his adopted daughter instead of ignoring her wants and needs. For much of the game, he is constantly reminded by Watson that Kate deserves the truth. This also plays into the ending as well, which falters a little due to how little Holmes has interacted with Kate throughout the game. 

Still, the whole deduction business was very much in keeping with the great detective. The way he would file away certain clues and then make deductions in his mind palace was a sight to see. I also liked that the players had the options to select certain choices when it came to evidence. The most important aspect from the books was that preconceptions could colour or bias a deduction. Rather than come up with a hypothesis and pick and choose what evidence to neatly fit into it, it was far better to use the evidence to formulate the circumstances and motives.

Fittingly, the gameplay was primarily focused on solving cases although there were occasional diversions such as lawn bowling or navigating one’s way through a secret Mayan temple within the confines of Sherlock’s mind. While these had their own intriguing problems to solve, they were more or less a gimmick to provide something fresh and different to the formula that was mastered in the last game. 

My experience with the Devil’s Daughter was still, however, marred by the technical limitations of the platform. It was clear from the outset that the game wasn’t terribly optimised for consoles. There was quite a bit of screen tearing and suffering through long load times (after getting acquainted with much faster speeds on the PlayStation 5). Worse were the janky movements from Holmes to Watson and the inexplicable lack of instructions for new functions. While tutorials might have bogged down the pacing, they would have made certain puzzles a lot easier to deal with. 

As it always the case, the Sherlock Holmes titles from Frogwares are not triple-A games. That doesn’t mean, however, that they are not enjoyable. 

These grumbles aside, my time with Frogwares attempt at changing up the formula before heading back into the distant past, was still a detecting feast for my Sherlock loving heart. Here’s hoping Sherlock Holmes Chapter One will bring a breath of fresh air to the franchise whilst still balancing the a-ha moments with as much style as possible.