To start off this review, I want to say that I only played this game because I had a free month of Xbox GamePass, and Microsoft was running an event for the month that would give you a reward if you played a GamePass game for 30 minutes every day. I had looked this game up and saw it was a simple and easy 100% achievement completion so I figured I would kill two birds with one stone.

While I initially enjoyed the game at the start, I found it quickly began to get tedious and annoying to play. While I greatly enjoyed the investigations, clue searching, analyzing and interrogations, all of the "action" sequences and quick time events really bogged down the game. I found myself quickly dreading the next escape, chase or infiltration event because the clunky and poor controls made them more irritating to play through then fun.

Nothing in the game is overly difficult. Your casebook pretty obviously tells you what to do, where to go and what to look for. When investigating for clues, the game makes it clear that there are more clues to find or that you've finished either through text prompt or the camera de-selecting whatever item or group of items you're looking at. Forming deductions isn't difficult either - each clue only matches another one and you can try every combination until two of them match. You can even skip many of the puzzles, although this voids some of the achievements. I would have appreciated a little more difficulty to make me have to actually think about who committed the crimes instead of the game handing the answer to me on a platter.

I enjoyed the story very much for the first half of the game. Each of the cases felt unique and interesting, with very different environments, people, scenes and events. Unfortunately I feel like they completely mishandled the overarching story in chapter 3. The first few cases included very subtle hints about where the story was going to end up. Nothing too concrete but enough to get you thinking. And then all of a sudden in chapter 3 they completely gave up on subtlety and decided to smack you in the face with what was going to happen. When the final chapter happened I was already expecting the majority of what was going on simply because they had decided to show me so much information.

At the beginning of the review I mentioned that I played through this game for free. I'm happy about that because if I had paid any money for this game, I would be extremely disappointed. The fun and enjoyable evidence collecting was marred by the frequent and tiring action sequences, the controls are clunky and while initially strong, the story was ruined in the middle of the game. I could only recommend this game if you can play it for free or extremely cheaply and want a quick and easy achievement completion for your system. It's not worth playing for any other reason.

I first learned about these Sherlock Holmes games a few years ago & I've been hooked since. They scratch that itch for playing detective & this series is sort of a comfort food of gaming for me, the Baker Street theme makes me feel warm & cozy. With Devil's Daughter, Frogware shook up the formula to interesting results.

The most obvious change is the general world design. Holmes and Watson have both been redone, with new voice actors as well. Gone is the more traditional, stuffy Sherlock in exchange for a Sherlock that feels more like the modern artistic renditions of the Victorian hero. Watson has a hipster vibe & Holmes dresses more like the Cumberbatch version. Luckily, you can still change Holmes' clothes and he's got the suits seen in the past games to wear. Watson doesn't really play much of a role in this game, he accompanies you to a few places, but he isn't as ever present as in past titles. Baker Street and London also look a lot grittier, like they went through a Guy Ritchie filter, and you can't visit the Bookstore that's been a staple of the series. I also never remember hearing that Baker Street theme I enjoyed so much.

The next big change is the gameplay. The Sherlock games were never known for their action scenes, but Devil's Daughter tries to change your opinion on that. Be ready for lots of quick time events and balance beam mini-games. All of this new action doesn't take away from the solid mystery work either. Every case has a lot of sleuthing, puzzles and compiling clues involved, the last case not withstanding. And if you have trouble with puzzles, they give you a skip option, which I used at least once. Of all these games, this one does have the most AAA feeling to it. With the action mixed in, it feels more like it was made by the LA Noire team.

Like Crimes & Punishment, this game is rather short. There's only 5 total cases to crack and each one probably has an hour or two of content. They are all engaging, but I still wish they went all in and gave us a few more cases to play. Each one is self-contained and takes you to lots of neat locations to see different aspects of life in London. There is an overarching story about Sherlock's Daughter coming to visit. It's actually his adopted daughter, and we learn from Watson that Holmes was responsible for her father's death, but the rest is left in mystery. There's also a new lady who moves in next door who strikes Sherlock as an odd sorts. My guess was they were building up a love interest, I was wrong, very wrong.

The final case isn't a case, but a mission wrapping up this overarching story. It also adds in some sorta supernatural vibes which was odd when the rest of the game played it pretty straight. We learn who Holmes' adopted daughter's father really was, which after they revealed it, I realized I should've seen coming, but the twist got me.

All in all, I enjoyed this game. Some people said the added in action cheapened it, but I don't feel Frogware over did it, and they still have the solid detective game base they've perfected over 8 games. The fact this is game 8 may also show Frogware was getting a little tired with making Sherlock Holmes games and wanted to change it up, especially since Devil's Daughter is the last one we'll have for a while now that they're working on a Cthulhu game.