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Haiku Review

Great artwork and design.
Interesting story, but sad.
I need to finish it.

Haiku Review

Rocking is my biz.
Buzzing audio is downer.
More good than bad. Fun.

Haiku Review

Repititous play.
Nothing new to the genre.
Way overrated.

Haiku Review

Obtuse Quests. Neat Thought.
Expected much more, boring.
Yay, Superheroes.

Haiku Review

Laborious Play.
Clunky Controls. Nice Movies
Slow load times. Crashes.

Complete surprise on how awesome of a western/cowboy/story/rpg-ish game this was.

A fun game, with minor RPG elements, wonderful art style and visuals , albeit slightly repetitive gameplay and lack of character depth.

The first thing about this game is the amazing visuals. It is a pleasure to play simply to look at the environment. The detail to the characters, spells, enemies and background art is great. The voiceover of the characters is also very well done. All in all, the production and art, design elements are top notch.

The gameplay mechanics are well done - but the areas that could have been improved are the RPG elements. The gear and skills for each character are fairly irrelevant. It doesn't seem to be much of a stretch to say you could ignore all the gear and all the skills and finish the game without notice that you didn't use anything. They are merely small accents to your character - which is cool - but feels like it could have been developed more to make each character even more specialized and the party dynamic more rich. As it stood, I used the fighter all the time and only switched to the mage when I needed a box and the thief when I needed to swing (and maybe at least half the time I could just make boxes to achieve the same ends). This wasn't enough to detract from the fun of the game - it just had me thinking there was a lot of character overlap or lack of puzzle diversity to properly utilize each character more.

Leading to the "puzzles" - each level, each map was essentially always the same type. Eventually you get slightly different obstacles such as spinning boards, button pushing, but most of the time it was "jump, make a box, jump, make a box, (maybe swing)". More diversity in this area would have enhanced things. Same with the story. I don't put much weight into the story, but it could have also been a lot more interesting than it ultimately turns out to me. It was only 10 hours in length for me, and I don't play very fast, so expect others could go through even faster.


With that said, it was still a very fun game. Recommended if on sale for sure. I have bought the 2nd game (as a testament to the enjoyment of the first) and hope some of the things above are more fleshed out making it really what it could be. Then if things go well, onto the 3rd installment.

I got this game on sale for about $10 and was thoroughly enjoying the first case...a lot. Felt the game had great acting, a very interesting story (as I understand the cases in the game are all taken from actual Sherlock Holmes stories) and some neat puzzles that were neither too hard, nor super easy, and also were varied and integrated well with the object, challenge or environment.

Then I got to the end. And I'm not sure if this is the fault of the game or the actual story, but if you are feeling like you are trying to really solve the case - it feels like there is always something purposely left out that you have to make a leap of faith to make the pieces fit.

SPOILERS BELOW



An example of this is in the first case. You don't meet the killer until the VERY last action / location / person of the game. It is contrived. If you would have immediately searched for other sailors at the very start (if the game let you, which it doesn't) - you'd essentially have exactly the same amount of facts and clues to pass judgement on his guilt as you do at the very end of the game.


The main thread is the killer saw the victim kill a guy when they were both on a boat many years ago and disliked each other. The killer came to see the guy to ask for money since the (to be) killer was a down and out of work spearman and a fight broke out and death by the killer defending himself from the drunken victim ensued in the victims cabin.


You don't need *any* of the other facts you wasted your time on for the case as they are all superfluous. In fact, they are all there as a distraction. To me, that just feels lame. Even if you have all the facts at the end, you still need to make a leap in picking the right killer as it's never a fact/proven/known that the killer went to the victims cabin for money at the night of the murder until you pick a final conclusion. In fact, the fact that his pouch was there doesn't prove he was there ..at all. It's just as plausible that it was stolen as it was that he dropped it there - so why would we have to assume he was there instead of the other plausible (but not as perfect fits to the contrived story)?


It is noted the killer was poor and out of work, but in fact, everything the game / story relates to you about him would define him as an honest, hard working, non begging individual...he did a hard job at sea, never attacked, ratted on the victim when he saw him many years prior kill a man, never tried to bribe him, was trying to earn money (not beg) at the pub via armwrestling and was genuinely thrilled when Holmes lies to him about the possibility of getting a spearman job with 'Capt Ahab'. Also, although he disliked the victim, it was noted the victim lived in a fairly remote part of town and nowhere was it every noted/implied/hinted that the killer ever spoke to the victim any. Even if they both got drunk at the same pub - that gives even more reason why the killer wouldn't go to his far away shack to ask for a few silver coins if he had access to him at the pub regularly (and also more credence to the possibility of a stolen pouch). It's a leap. You don't get any of his story until the very last thing you do and even then - the more plausible answer (which is wrong) is for the other suspects to be involved.

When the case comes together and you see the conclusion after you pick the killer (who by the way comes to the address given to him by Holmes as the possible location to meet 'Capt Ahab' about some hard work), you wonder why killer (a supposedly honest, hard working sailor) would go beg for a few silver, then kill the victim instead of turning the other cheek and leave like he did many years ago on his boat. In fact, nothing shows him to be a violent person, and even one of the endings has him suddenly raging out with a fist fight..wha? For every fact given to you as a reason for the final outcome to have happened - you could come up with a set number of equally plausible counter actions that would have rendered the outcome differently. Sadly, none of the actions are tied to any real facts. The killer could just have easily not gone to beg for silver and the other 2 guys could have been attacked by the drunken victim and speared him. The killer could have also as easily ran away when the victim drew a knife on him and ran out the shack.

It's all too contrived and not based strongly on anything you actually do so makes it feel really shallow. I'm not sure this is the fault of the game or the story itself - regardless - the end enjoyment (or frustration) is there if you really think your going to be able to logically deduce the conclusion. There's just assumptions you'd have to make (which isn't very scientific, nor flawless) when you make your final decision that make the whole thing slightly more than educated guesswork. It's bound to be fun to read and say "ah ha!" when you read the ending, but it's not nearly as enjoyable if you are playing out the character and looking forward to the challenge when you are certainly not given all the pieces (or have to accept random actions unknown to you as what actually happened).

As far as my game played time - yes, i stopped after the first case. I read somewhere some folks also had issues with the logic on the 2nd case - and the desire to play any more cases vanished after the mechanics of the first played out. That would tend to speak volumes towards the value I found for the game if I stopped after the first case.

Could be tons of fun - just knowing the amount of logic leaps make it less so.

As a non-mechanic...found this game , espcially on sale, to be worthwile. It was enjoyable (although does tend to get redudant) and actually informative in a general sense. Learning some fundamentals about the workings of a car was neat.
Definitely an interesting game - and if on sale - worthwhile.

A dissapointment. It's not nearly as enjoyable as hoped. The idea of a lot of single file corridor fighting is more laborious and tedious than anticipated. The 1 shot deaths of your guys is unfun. The leveling / attribute system / weapon upgrades all feel insignificant and somewhat mundane. Getting a bonus to hit is just...boring.

Not worth the full price. Will force through some more missions to see if things improve and will re-evaluate the review in that case.