Sherlock Holmes The Awakened

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: Review code provided by the kind folks at Frogwares)

Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is a Graphic Adventure originally released on PC in 2007, with a remastered version on PC releasing in 2008 adding a few more features, and a port to mobile devices in 2013. Ukrainian developer Frogwares has since moved on to release numerous other Sherlock Holmes games, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective arguably becoming the developer’s bread and butter.

More recently, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine still raging on, Frogwares opted to put on hold their plans for a new project and instead return to this old classic, completely rebuilding it from the ground up, retaining only the basic premise and overall plot from the original. This new version of Sherlock Holmes The Awakened was released in 2023 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.

The framing of this game’s story has Holmes facing off against another literary legend, Cthulhu. Or more accurately, Holmes faces off against a sect of cultists worshiping the Lovecraftian monstrosity who are seeking its revival. This is perhaps for the best – Holmes’ logical deduction seems better-suited to uncovering the crimes of mortals than deciphering the machinations of otherworldly threats designed to defy all logic.

The presentation in this game is mostly pretty good, though not without its faults. The 3D environments are detailed and feature some nice lighting and shadows in some places. Unfortunately, the character models do leave something to be desired, and the game’s overall performance on the Nintendo Switch is not great, with the framerates dropping noticeably at times. These visuals are backed by a nice subdued cinematic soundtrack and some excellent voice acting.

When it comes to the gameplay, I feel like The Awakened is overly-complicated, pushing numerous game mechanics on the player without properly explaining how they work or fit together with one another. Mind palaces, pins, “imagination”, mental portraits… I’m no stranger to these terms, but even after using these mechanics in the game, I’m still not entirely certain how they all work, save for through trial and error. Even when I feel like I have a fairly good idea of what happened, I’m often unclear how to demonstrate this in the game’s systems, and sometimes I have a missing element needed to progress that the game has no intention of directing me toward.

That’s another issue – while this game has multiple difficulty modes, even the easiest difficulty mode found me repeatedly getting stuck and needing to seek external help to continue. It’s bizarre that at any given time I could have multiple pop-up messages telling me about this or that feature within the game, yet none of me telling me just what it is I’m expected to do. It feels like I’m being overloaded with information, yet denied the most useful and pertinent information.

While much of this is a design issue, there are also problems with bugs in this game that I hope get patched quickly. At one point I found myself stuck, glued to one spot without any way to continue unless I fast-traveled to a different location or booted up an earlier auto-save. At another point, an item I was observing gave me no further details until I looked at it repeatedly. And I can’t begin to count the number of times Watson’s insistence on following behind me resulted in him blocking my path and trapping me in a corner.

It’s a shame that Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is filled with so many frustrating issues and overcomplicated design choices, because all of these issues clutter up and fill with frustration an enticing detective game with an intriguing story. I do still think that more skilled fans of the genre and especially fans of the Sherlock Holmes mythos will enjoy this game, but they will definitely want to steel themselves for the issues this game brings with it… and perhaps see if they can find an online guide or message board to consult when they inevitably get stuck… repeatedly…

tl;dr – Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is a remake of a classic PC Graphic Adventure detective game that has the legendary detective tracking down a series of crimes committed by a cult of Cthulhu worshippers. It’s a delightful and well-told story in a detective game that holds a lot of promise, but that potential is heavily marred by a glut of overly-convoluted gameplay mechanics and frustrating design choices. Sherlock Holmes fans may still want to give this game a try, but only if you’re patient enough to deal with the frustrations that come with the fun story.

Grade: C

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Worst Port/Remake

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