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Sherlock's darkest case begins.
Story:
Yet again you're placed in the shoes of the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. Set after the events of Jack The Ripper, Sherlock and his trusty companion Doctor Watson are faced with their most disturbing case yet. After the Bishop of Knighstbridge is brutally murdered with a poison that drives a person to the brink of madness, Sherlock has to find the origins of the sinister poison.
I don't want to really go in depth of the storyline as not to spoil it, but trust me it's an engaging tale. There's plenty of plot twists and turns that really make you wonder who is the mastermind and why they're doing this, however there's some issues with the plot. First of all, Sherlock is very cold in this game, to some this might overkill (it makes sense why he's the way he is in the game) as he's just insanely rude and cocky.
Also there's just like the other games there are characters that are written in a way that really dial up the cheese factor when they speak and deliver some lines. However it's very welcome to lighten the tone after a lot of the disturbing moments in the game and there's definitely chuckle worthy moments in the game.
Graphics:
Sherlock has finally gotten the HD facelift after three games that looked pretty much identical. Visuals are definitely a pleasant upgrade, but still very rough around the edges. There's a lot of environments that have made a return, like Whitechapel, Baker Street (duh) and there's some returning characters. It was very awesome to see the locations get their face lift and look really good, not to mention all the new and varied locations like a Mill, Steel Factor and a few others I don't want to spoil.
As I said however the game is definitely still very rough around the edges. There's a lot of very rough textures and the game does look very blurry when looking at certain items or buildings. The characters models while look decent when switched to HD, have one big problem and that's the lip syncing. It's downright horrible, sometimes they won't even move their lips when talking which makes everyone look robotic.
Audio:
I'll begin with the voice acting, which has seen a significant upgrade from the previous game. Everyone brings their A game now, but even then it's not without issues. When characters speak in an accent they again really ham it up to the point of parody, there's one character that's basically a trope of the mad scientist which really kills the tone, but it kind of has a weird charm to it.
The biggest problem is the soundtrack which is simply not good. The music is downright obnoxious and when you're stuck in certain moments it's really harsh on the ears. It's not all bad, but the tracks that don't make you bleed from your ears, are just incredibly forgettable, which is disappointing considering how good the previous ones were.
Gameplay:
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is just like the Versus Trilogy from a gameplay perspective. You collect items to solve puzzles and comb over crime scenes to find clues that will lead your investigation forward to new locations as you try to get closer to the truth.
In Jack The Ripper the game primarily focused on doing detective work and this time around the game has reverted back into more of a puzzle focus with slight detective work. The game is basically identical to the previous games in the games. You got to a location, look for a clue that will open up another location.
The game is also again allows you to choose from a few different gameplay perspective. Just like the other there's point and click, FPS and now they added in a Third Person perspective, which sucks so bad that it might as well not even exist. I again recommend going FPS mode as that one feels like the most refined way to play.
So let's begin with the puzzles as we're back to them being the most important aspect of the game. They range from pretty easy and fun to solve to so insanely difficult, that you will break down and ask for a walktrough for help. Unlike the other games where I resorted to a walkthrough once or twice, here I did it multiple times.
It's also because finding items has turned into a massive pain. Items blend into the background so well that you won't be able to find them without being incredibly thorough in every location you visit. The series fixed this with the point of interest mechanic which was introduced in Jack the RIpper and returns here, however it has turned into a useless waste.
Basically the way the game works is that it won't highlight anything unless you're in a very specific radius to spot that item and sometimes you have to look at something which will then allow you to pick up an item you need. For example you explore a kitchen and on the counter there's a bottle of oil, which you can't pick up. You have to spot the location of where you use to be able to pick it up and that leads to many incredibly tedious backtracks to do puzzles.
The actual puzzles are a very mixed bag. There's quite a few ones that require doing detective work to solve and those are the highlight of the game and then there's one that are so absurdly obnoxious like shifting around numbers or colored balls that just require a lot of patience and kill the pacing of the game.
Also if you intend to play the game I highly implore you to look up a patch in the community hub as there's a bug which will crash the game as soon as you or the game tries to save your progress. It only saves after each level and trust me redoing long and unfun puzzles is a pain so fix the game before diving in.
Verdict:
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is a decent sequel to Jack The Ripper which is carried by it's engaging and disturbing storyline. It's not bad by any means, as the gameplay is just as fun as the previous titles with some good puzzles, but when the game gets tedious, it's incredibly tedious. I do recommend it however, just for that story.
Final Rating:
7/10
Pros:
+ Deeply engaging and disturbing storyline
+ HD face lift of locations is very pleasing to explore
+ Some really fun puzzles
+ Great voice acting, especially from the two main leads
Cons:
- Soundtrack is incredibly mediocre
- Certain puzzles are way too difficult
- There's quite a lot of pixel hunting
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