Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments dazzles visually, but disappoints with murky conclusions to its cases.

All-new game mechanics, first-rate graphics, and involved sleuthing make Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments a great adventure game.

Evidently, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments isn't about rights and wrongs so much as it is about interpretation and judgement. Being right all the time is a fitting tribute to Homes' monstrous ego, and it's also an interesting premise for a detective game - a more effective one than it might initially seem. However, the lack of character development and some lacklustre supporting players result in a feeling of detachment from a game that only excels if you are invested in it. That's a shame, because there was potential for Crimes and Punishments to be a truly great detective game, instead of just a mechanically sound one.

Rough around the edges, and some bad puzzles, but this is an atmospheric detective adventure that actually lets you do some detecting.

Crimes and Punishments is the best Sherlock has been, but it's just short of great

A great example of how player choice can shape a gameplay experience. Most cases offer a variety of conclusions

So, so much effort has gone into this. But sadly, to little entertaining result.

At the end of a case, the player is given a rating, either highlighting their compassion or their steely sense of justice. They're also given a breakdown as to how other players resolved the case and the option to find out if they identified the right suspect. Your enjoyment of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments will depend on whether you want to be guided on a series of baffling murders or have the great detective be fallible.

Poor voice acting and obnoxious back tracking let it down – but this is still on the right side of the law as far as we're concerned.

Overall, this is the best Sherlock Holmes game we've encountered and a very auspicious debut for the consulting detective on Switch. This is far from a lazy downgrade, with developer Frogwares presenting a full-featured and compelling experience from start to perhaps-too-soon finish. It looks great and plays brilliantly, with only occasional annoyances and some weak (though thankfully skippable) puzzles to knock it down a peg. The fact that the game is willing to allow you to get it wrong means it feels less prescribed and inevitable as other titles in the detective genre, and that's quite refreshing. A little ironic that it took one of the form's oldest characters to finally land such a novel approach.