Adventure Gamers - Forums

It is that time again y’all, new year, new retro game that I’ve never played. This Time It’s The Testament of Sherlock Holmes. Frogware has made it where it is now available to purchase and play on the PlayStation 4 and I got it for 50% off so $12.50. I am currently downloading and will let you know what I think as I play. From what I can tell certain people absolutely love this game and others don’t like it very much at all.

For anyone that wants to join me feel free, as always my review consists of my thoughts as I play and my score can either go up or down depending on how I’m enjoying it. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to complete games that I do reviews for even if I start disliking them as was the case with gray matter and a few others.

The first couple days might be slow going for me because I have to uninstall a dishwasher and fix a small leak then install the new one on Thursday and Friday

I played for about two and a half to three hours toda, got through the introduction and the first part of the first case. The story is very intriguing, I’m not sure about framing it through children reading about gruesome murders though and the kids voice acting is atrocious.

The voice acting for holmes and Watson is pretty spot on though and the puzzles are pretty clever and somewhat hard and obtuse especially cracking the safe. My wife and I figured it out but there was really no context clues of how to solve it other than guessing in around about way till we figured out what the rules of the puzzle was. The graphics are good enough for when the game came out at the time and the murder scenes are actually pretty gruesome. I like the deduction board and using Holmes equipment but even that was not really explained and I just fooled around till I figured out what I was supposed to do, like mixing the chemicals. I am glad the game keeps a journal of everything that was said though bc sometimes the voice acting is a little hard to hear and it’s easy enough to go back and read and remember what was said exactly, for some help in the deduction parts.

So while I like the puzzles some of the context clues of what to do are non existent, for another example the lock picking Mini game, I really wasn’t sure how I was supposed to bend it because the interface didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

Over all though so far I’m enjoying my time with the game and will give it a solid 8/10

Will follow your progress with interest. The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is among the better of Frogwares’ Sherlock games imo, in my book second only to Crimes and Punishments and a little bit better than vs. Jack the Ripper, Nemesis/Arsene Lupin and The Awakened. And much better than the other games in the series that I’ve played, which is all but Chapter One and the latest remaster of The Awakened.

Don’t remember much about the game in detail though, only some scenes and the basics of the story. Think I played it on the PS3 or Xbox 360 back when that generation of consoles was relatively new or at least current.

The only other Sherlock Holmes game I have played in the series was Crime and Punishment and I greatly enjoyed that game, but deductions are my favorite part for sure. I enjoyed that you could get things wrong and keep the game moving forward, although there is something to say to the linear progress of the deduction boards in this game as well with more traditional puzzles.

I started day two with three places to visit and I began with the jail. I felt the game took a slight step back here because the puzzles were not all that hard or interesting and the convoluted way to get the prisoner out of prison made me kind of roll my eyes. I didn’t appreciate the fact they made Watson look like a complete moron. The voice actor for the prisoner was so over the top and cheesy, how Watson couldn’t tell that it was him and not O’Sullivan the guard was ridiculously convoluted. The prisoners puzzle box made sense in the locker “story wise” but Jenny the pregnant girl’s puzzle box did not as far as being a puzzle in this game world. you can tell it was just thrown there as an extra 5 minute road block and it was not very hard, or interesting. matching colors in a sequence. But I rather have some puzzles than no puzzles.

I then ventured to White Chapel and have gained access to the morgue where I have stopped for the day. I did investigate the graveyard and verified that the Rope and the black paint came from the graveyard and one of the murderers of the bishop was a grave digger.

Overall so far for day two I’d give it a 7 out of 10. The voice acting and dialogue is very Hit or Miss to me, especially the prisoner, he was so over the top that it made me groan a bit. I did enjoy some of the banter back and forth between Holmes and Watson, but like I said I didn’t appreciate the developers making watson look like a complete moron in this chapter.

I played more with my wife when she got home and finished all of day two. The deduction board in chapter 2 was very finicky to me because I knew he had been poisoned with the Opium but a lot of the choices were really similar. Also it took me forever to find the clothes in the tree at henrys house. the two puzzles in Henry’s room were both good although the wife and I brute forced the lock box on the last combination. Playing as Toby the dog was fun but started to wear out its welcome near the end. Also they keep calling Henry a young man but he looks like a child to me, so for him to fall into hot molting lava was a bit much. Also took me a while in the Opium den because we are halfway through the game and this is the first time I ever had to combine items in the inventory. so that kind of threw me off.

Voice acting continues to be hit or miss but overall I enjoyed chapter 2. Puzzles were fun enough, I got a lot of the pieces to the Small mystery figured out, but I’m not sure how it all connects together yet.

7/10 overall for day 2.

diego - 04 January 2024 12:06 PM

Veovis - 04 January 2024 10:41 AM

Will follow your progress with interest. The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is among the better of Frogwares’ Sherlock games imo, in my book second only to Crimes and Punishments and a little bit better than vs. Jack the Ripper, Nemesis/Arsene Lupin and The Awakened.

I beg to differ. I’ve written essays on the matter over the years, so in short, I believe that “Awakened” (original from 2007) and “Arsene Lupin,” especially with their second releases where they improved graphics and incorporated a 3rd-person view, along with “Silver Earring” as the most “Sherlockian” story of the series, are the best games. “Awakened” and “Arsene Lupin” are both highly original games story-wise, with some clever and well-executed puzzles. I felt that later games were better in the technical sense but had less true gameplay, which culminated in “Crimes & Punishments” which eradicated object use and inventory puzzles, transferring all the challenge to the “deduction department” (which is fine, as it’s a preference for some players, but not mine).

Yeah, both The Awakened and vs. Arsene Lupin are great games that imo get less attention than they deserve. The Tower of London section of Nemesis/Arsene Lupin may be my favorite of the complete series. The game as a whole is a brillantly designed puzzle-fest, only marred by a few of what I thought were really bad puzzles, most of them in the British Museum section of the game iirc. Many years later I particularly have bad memories of a silly/badly clued safe puzzle and one involving arranging coins with pictures of British regents.

The Case of the Silver Earring I have less love for though. The story is there and really fits within the Sherlock universe, but gameplay wise the game suffers from pixel-hunting problems, some badly clued puzzles and a couple of timed ones too. And that “puzzle” involving getting past the guard dog… What were they thinking. An early an somewhat promising entry in the series, but ultimately a pretty bad game imo.

I for one enjoy the deduction component that got more prevalent in the series starting with vs. Jack the Ripper I guess. I seem to like that game more than most. Very cleverly written around the of course well-known Whitechapel murders, that occured the year after the first Sherlock book was published by the way. But there’s something with Testament and C&P that for me put them a tiny bit ahead of all three games that came before, albeit being different gameplay wise. But all games from The Awakened to C&P are great.

I don’t like the direction Frogwares have taken with the gameplay and the characterization of Sherlock in the games from The Devil’s Daughter onwards though.

other thing I forgot to mention is while the controls work with the ps4, they are very finicky to say the least and a lot of time is spent battling on which hotspot to highlight. They are not terrible but could have been a lot better.

We played a good bit more today. Started day 3 by going to the newspaper office, where there were a lot of puzzle boxes. My wife cracked this safe code to the hidden room within like 5 minutes, it just made perfect sense to her and I was confused until she slowly explained it to me on how she did it. We also had to do another deduction board, which I think was actually the weakest one bc the way the game tried to explain what you’re supposed to do, but it didn’t make a lot of sense to us, which resulted in a lot of trial and error until we got it right.

After the office we went to a judge’s house where there was even more puzzle boxes and we got through all those relatively quickly, except for the Roman numerals one which we think was an error in the puzzle design because we solved it to the parameters of the puzzle but the game wanted it another specific way. The story is picking up and they are are trying desperately to make holmes the bad guy and Watson is starting to believe it. I feel like with a bigger budget to ramp up the tension this could have been more believable but for what’s there it is not completely terrible.

Overall day three for us was like an 8/10 because we really enjoyed 90% of the puzzles and the story kept us engaged.

Seeing this thread made me realize I haven’t played any of the Sherlock Holmes games but I’ve always been curious about them. And seeing how you’re enjoying the story and puzzles made me in the mood for a good old cozy detective game which I haven’t played in ages. Now I thought about playing this one as well, but upon looking at this thread and doing a quick search about the series, it seems Crimes and Punishment is the better place to start? So I’ll probably play that one and if I like it then I’ll move on to this one

danigar - 08 January 2024 10:54 PM

Seeing this thread made me realize I haven’t played any of the Sherlock Holmes games but I’ve always been curious about them. And seeing how you’re enjoying the story and puzzles made me in the mood for a good old cozy detective game which I haven’t played in ages. Now I thought about playing this one as well, but upon looking at this thread and doing a quick search about the series, it seems Crimes and Punishment is the better place to start? So I’ll probably play that one and if I like it then I’ll move on to this one

I think Crimes and punishment is the better game overall easily, but there is something very Charming about this game and its jank. I mean the testimony of Sherlock Holmes is nowhere near a 5 out of 5 game for me, but it’s a solid three out of five and a very cozy adventure. we are both really enjoying it, for what it is.

Don’t worry I have not forgot about my playthrough and review it’s just my wife is actually obsessed with this game because she loves the puzzle boxes and likes the story. So we only play together.

But since I had some free time and I have been obsessed with sherlock lately. I am trying Sherlock Holmes and the rose tattoo from EA that came out in 1996.  I thought about after beating Testament I would start a retro review of this one. But now I’m not sure, so far the game has not catched my attention like I was hoping. The voice acting and the dialogue is Top Notch but I just do not like the puzzles. I feel like all I do is walk in circles asking the same three characters questions, to bypass another character, blocking a door. Than rinse and repeat. For instance in the hospital as Watson i had to get past a Troublesome nurse. that puzzle was cute the first time but then as Sherlock, I had to basically do the same puzzle again with a slightly different way of getting past her, but it was just like we already did this once. In fact the only puzzle that I did find mildly interesting was convincing lestrade that the prisoner was not crazy by using Watson’s Dr. Skills. another issue I have with this game is sometimes I feel like watson is supposed to be used as a hint guide if you’re stuck, but sometimes you actually have to use him, to solve puzzles and it’s not really clear when I should click on him and when I should not for spoiler reasons. Also having to right click everything instead of just being able to use an object is a little backwards to me and the pixel hunting is very bad. Does the game ever offer any other puzzle types? Right now I am investigate mycroft’s apartment for notes, so I’m pretty early on in the game, enough where I won’t feel too bad, if I abandon the game, if it doesn’t get better. Does it get better? What do y’all think of it?

Well the wife and I spent the last four to five hours beating the Testament of Sherlock Holmes and we both liked the game but neither loved it. The puzzles got progressively worse, even the Box puzzles were a let down.  Several times we were able to brute force our way through without actually knowing what we were doing. That happened twice near the end of the game on the diffuse the bomb and the Russian lock puzzles. The broad Strokes of the story made sense but the details kind of fell Apart, for instance I don’t actually know what the priest and his nephew had to do with the whole story kicking off at the beginning. Who was in it to expose holmes as a villain and who was actually on the right side of the law, as far as the reporter and some of the other minor characters go? I also thought they made the prince that was trying to take the throne too much of a moron. Plus I never been big on a poison that can do whatever a writer needs it to do in the present moment. You need it to control their minds okay, you also need it to make them raging Killers also okay i guess… there are bones of a really great story in here, but what we got was just barely serviceable. The animation throughout the game left a lot to be desired, but we always enjoyed Watson and Holmes interactions with each other.

Overall I think I would give the game a 7/10 or 3/5. the game kept our interest throughout and I would recommend the game on a sale. wife enjoyed it a bit more than me though, and gave it a 8/10 because she loved a lot of the puzzles, especially at the beginning and in the middle.

I hope you all enjoyed reading along with my playthrough and if y’all have anything to add please feel free.

Mike the Wino - 14 January 2024 11:37 AM

Thanks for the review, Jdawg!

As of this morning, it’s on sale for $1.99 on Steam. I bought it for the same price on GOG last week, but it’s back up to it’s regular price there now.

Also, Crimes and Punishments is currently $2.99 on Steam…

Thank you I appreciate it Mike