Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened PS5 Review. Just from the game’s cover art, the potential of this crossover between Sherlock Holmes and Lovecraft is nothing short of tantalizing. Equally so, some technical issues aside, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened takes that potential and makes it work beautifully.
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened PS5 Review – Thoughtful Combination of Two Beloved Fandoms
The game opens to John Watson walking into his flat to find Sherlock Holmes standing on Watson’s bed, contemplating an evidence board. The two go on a little walk to clear their heads. While on the street, Watson informs Holmes that a colleague requires some of his expertise in finding his missing servant.
So, Holmes and Watson make their way to the colleague’s estate, with an assumed runaway case handed off to Holmes by the sheriff. As expected, the deeper he investigates, the more this case looks like an abduction. While this case involves the pursuit to save one man, it ultimately grows into an investigation revolving around occult perpetrators performing heinous things to other human beings.
Before The Awakened, I had never experienced any of the Sherlock Holmes games from Frogwares. I would be lying if I said that the Cthulhu mythos hadn’t influenced my decision to take this review. However, while the mythos side of the game helps bring more compelling elements to the full experience, it’s Holmes and Watson that steal the show. How they interact with each other, with those around them, and with the peculiarity and inhumanity of the cases just takes the cake.
Unfortunately, the later chapters shorten the dialogue bits significantly, resulting in too many quips coming across as forced one liners. For most of the game, Holmes and Watson receive ample time to banter and contemplate. They just didn’t get their opportunities all the time, particularly at the end when the story reached its apex. This results in an overall okay ending but not a great one. Regardless, the journey there makes for a great time.
Sherlock On The Case
The core game experience sees you investigating crime scenes. At each location you visit, you get decent liberty to run around and explore, searching for clues as well as finding other smaller cases in the area. What strengthens this part of the game is that, even though the side cases start off isolated, they generally help you get more information for the overall main case.
To find clues and progress the case, the game asks you to dig into the maps as well as your findings to draw conclusions. Not only do you go find things on the map, but you also need to ask people for more information as well as investigate some evidence closer.
With some scenes, which move the story along, you examine entire crime scenes and use your findings to deduce what took place there. The best way to describe it is each focal point suggests a couple possibilities and you need to choose which one fits the bill. Other times, you use your findings to interrogate suspects. From your ledger, you choose which items to present to state your case. You pick them all and then test your verdict. If you’re wrong, the on-screen prompts clearly show where you got it wrong. This acts as a welcome give-and-take to the concept of brainstorming and progressing.
A Different Approach
The way Frogwares presents this gameplay loop is immaculate. I will lead into this by saying one thing that made this game special for me: It made me care about the game’s mechanics. This worked in two ways: First, Frogwares designed the mechanics so they’re easy to use. Furthermore, those mechanics allow generous degrees of freedom, such as interaction prompts appearing while still a fair distance away from you.
Second, Frogwares doesn’t hold your hand. Instead, it presents you with minimal directions as more gameplay mechanics unlock. Then, it requires that you use your journal and deductions to figure out how to handle the case. This approach worked so well for me simply because I’ve conditioned myself to just assume video game directions “since they’re all the same” and just play.
Here, I got stuck often until I started actually digging into my findings and the game’s journal, which includes guides for shortcuts, how-tos, etc. To continue, I HAD to dig into what the game wanted me to dig into by design. In my limited time on this Earth, the best content makes its own pace instead of trying to match your pace. That way, the content and the consumer meet somewhere in the middle, making it a more personal experience.
Bravo, Frogwares. With all your present hardships, you still presented a wonderful product. Thank you.
Sleuthing Sights And Sounds
Overall, graphic fidelity is pretty solid, walking that line between PS4 and PS5 like any game that releases on both consoles. Conversely, character animations come straight from late 2000s RPGs like Mass Effect; animation is stiff, and mouth movement rarely matches up with the spoken words.
Still, the venues all look fantastic. Each one gives the illusion of an open world when really they let you walk around districts instead of entire towns. This helps keep your focus consolidated without forcing you on a blatantly linear path.
Now, voice work is just sensational. Particularly, both Sherlock and Watson looked like they would sound both in physical presentation and that ever-looming expectation that comes from the books. Those voice actors absolutely nailed it. Equally so, the supporting casts also do a good job depicting their characters, matching pitch and energy to the scenario perfectly.
Probably the best audio work comes when the characters go to an enclosed place. Their voices were obviously recorded to perfectly emulate that confined space echo. There’s even a game section where you need to follow an echo in a series of caves; the game provides a visual prompt as well, but directional audio works wonderfully alongside it.
Sloppy Deductions
Unfortunately, Mr. Holmes’ journey into the Lovecraftian realm isn’t without its fair share of faults. One I came across enough times to matter is that some observation prompts don’t appear as they should every time. These come up as little green circles that you can examine further. When working properly, they appear from a rather generous distance of at least 10 feet or so from Holmes. Other times, they just don’t appear at all. Perhaps you have to inspect some evidence to make them all prompt the same way, but several had me searching the same places blindly for a good while.
Out of the eight chapters, chapter seven was the one that brought down the pace. Don’t get me wrong: I spent a good amount of time in each chapter, investigating and searching my way to verdicts. However, chapter seven has a long stretch where all you do is row a boat. In comparison to the rest of the game, it feels more like a weak attempt at gameplay variety. The intentions in that section are very clear and thoughtful. It just doesn’t work as well as the rest of the game. Thankfully, this part doesn’t penalize you. It just takes much, much longer than it should and feels somewhat disingenuous to the overall experience.
Apart from that, the technical issues were less intrusive. When going around corners or panning the camera around, some screen pop-in happens. It’s brief and doesn’t detract from the experience, but it’s there. Other times, the camera would somehow get caught on a piece of geography and zoom way out or zoom close up before readjusting as you moved. From a presentation standpoint, these kinds of glitches end up being endearing traits of games once the games become collector’s items.
Fantastic Use Of Source Material
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is a fine example of a talented development team doing what they do well. In the wrong hands, mixing Lovecraft with Sherlock could be like mixing water with oil, but Frogwares nails it beautifully. The several problems don’t get in the way of a great experience complete with thoughtful Sherlockian and Lovecraftian fan service.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is due out today on PS5, PS4, PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One.