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In those cases, it's not that it "doesn't quite tell you" which is the real one - it doesn't even imply or insinuate which is the real one.
The post-case "analysis" or wrap-up (what there is of it anyway) just mentions what happened to the one you accused (depending on your choice of what to do with them), and there's often some moral judgement based on that choice - but this judgement isn't based on whether or not you picked the correct guilty party, but instead is based on how you "handled" the party you thought was guilty (and seems to assume that whoever you picked was actually guilty).
So actually your choices matter EVEN MORE in some ways, and there are consequences - REALITY ITSELF is altered based on your choices. In other words, whomsoever you choose to be guilty, is the one and only true guilty party. Never is there any doubt in your mind about this.
However, Sherlock does sometimes harbour doubts about how he applies the law. So while he's 100% positive the person is guilty of the crime committed, sometimes having said criminal arrested for his crime makes him think that perhaps he should have just let them go? It was only murder after all...
I can see this making sense but there's one issue that's bugging me. If the game doesn't allude to the truth in some way after the case is resolved thereby implying a certain outcome is wrong or has a negative result (like a good guy in jail) then there is no failure experienced by the player. If there's no failure involved and the player is free to believe whatever they want then it would seem silly to roleplay a detective whose purpose is to discover the objective truth. I like playing games to win or to at least get the best outcome possible. That's my opinion anyways.
Really appreciate the thoughtful comment but I don't think I'll be buying this game. Thanks!
The game is putting a heavy focus on morality, especially later on. "Best outcome" is different for different people and situations so while I partly agree with you, it actually makes sense they chose to solve it this way. Some cases are clear as day but you'll struggle with what to do with the guilty party. Some cases are more ambiguous.
What I'd like to see is stats about what percentage of people chose a certain result like in Life Is Strange, that could be fun.
And that is the fundamental problem with this game (you are far from the only one to think this, I agree with you for one thing) - instead of the player needing to step into the shoes of Sherlock Holmes, the whole Universe of Sherlock Holmes instead adjusts itself to be whatever the player chose as fact.
It's reflective of our degenerating society, where teachers are afraid to put crosses in red ink on assignments because "it makes the students feel bad" or "makes them feel like they failed".
Somewhat ironically, the game does actually take note of cases where you do something "wrong", as in asking the wrong person about something, asking the wrong question, or searching for the wrong thing. And as expected, this aspect really drives people nuts. To me, it reminds me of the old adventure game stock responses you'd get when you try to use an object on every other object... ;)
So the game has little hand-holding, a lot of instant feedback for performing wrong or illogical actions, then presents a number of choices, and then... whatever choice you pick is correct!
While I personally like that we're not presented with a really obvious INCORRECT or something, I still expected to at least read some implications that we'd made the wrong call - but this tends to occur based on the action (arrest vs let go for example) as opposed to who the guilty party were.
There was something similar in both Crimes and Punishments and The Devil's Daughter, after closing a case you saw how many people choose the same person as you and how many did the same moral choice. You even could change your decision at that point. I guess this time the intention was to let the player make his own decision and stick to it without the influence of others.
The game does tell you if you made the right decision, even though in a very hidden way – after every case you close, you get an amount of coins. I'm not sure about the exact number but I believe that you get about 30 of them if you arrested the wrong person and about 80 if it was the right person. There are also cases where you get an achievement for arresting the right person, so there are correct and incorrect choices for every case.
The previous games didn't tell you the right solution either, or at least not right away – after closing the case, you got the possibility to press a key and see if your solution is correct (green) or not (red) but there was a disclaimer that it could "ruin the experience". Apparently this time the game wants to make it even less obvious so the player is still uncertain of his decision (but the reward mechanism does reveal the truth anyway).
Now all their story writers had to write with two outcomes in mind, which didnt at all make them crazy, and not care at all -- but helicopter parents be very glad, because their kids be the best, and brought home trophy. Instead of fail.
Especially loved the story, wher the culprit was found dead midway through the plot, and Sherlock went into a cafee and started coming up with a blackmail scheme for the remainder of the case instead. You literally can feel the moment the storybook writer said - ah f*ckj it... ;)
That said - dialogues are still top - so they didnt employ nitwhits - they just drove out every ounce of enjoyment from writers, by telling them that plot development is forbidden, essentially.. :)
Probably the worst decision a studio who sports the tagline "we do story based adventures" ever has made. Aside from the last one, where they went Hollywood romcom meets turn of the century childlabor chimneysweeps with lame arms, and runny noses. ;)
- minus some of the vitriol and snark, but yes - essentially this. :) Still very enjoyable game, wonderfull (but empty) open world, good dialogues, nice character work and the main story has substance and meaning to it - its just that case design, is bad.. :)
The thing with the coins though is, that the reward doesn't always match the outcome. Or more to the point, sometimes your choice of what to do with a culprit you find changes the amount you get (although in the one case I'm thinking of, I don't think it's actually possible to get the wrong culprit anyway - I believe that's one of those where you always find the right person, but can then decide what to do about it).
And that part I actually liked - in that one case you received more for what Mycroft would consider to be the "correct" course of action, but that Sherlock Holmes (based on his character throughout all media) would generally NOT do (Sherlock would choose "justice" and as a result actually get less money - which makes sense in that case).
Actually, apart from the times we explicitly get paid from the police or from Mycroft (or someone else) - who is actually giving us this money?! And more to the point, if the amount is indicative of the "real guilt" (which I've yet to see confirmation on), then surely whoever is giving us the money would be more forthcoming about it ("sorry we can only give you 20 because it turns out the person didn't actually do it. We know, we tortured them pretty hard. Our state-of-the-art totally-not-corrupt police science has determined that guilty people always admit their guilt before we break all their bones, while those that only admit this afterwards usually turn out to be innocent because by then we've found the real culprit somehow").
Looking at it like "who is the criminal" is wrong, I guess?
The case with the elephant is a good example; I picked the lover as the guilty party and laid the murder on them, and their responses/the news articles after the fact reinforced the guilt, for the same reasons I picked them in the first place (callousness towards the victim and a clear motive), but I had no concrete proof they were the guilty party, or that there WAS a guilty party aside from the elephant. I had all the evidence before me and the clues of behavior from the people I'd questioned.
As for the achievements/money, I don't think so. The achievements seem to be based on picking particularly 'fun' things (like the one you get for being ultraviolent during the Vogel case, or the one for letting the elephant go free and saying nobody was a murderer) and not on a 'right' path. The money, same, I think you get more or less money based on how satisfactorally you investigated (did you research everything? DId you question everyone? Did you find every clue?) than on the ending you picked.
The amount of money you get is definitely based entirely on the ending, and not related to how thorough you were. The example I mentioned is proof of that, as it definitely happens in that particular case.
I believe for most cases, the reward in terms of cash is actually the same though.
As for the case with the elephant, on playing this through again, and on looking at the clues very closely, it actually seems like the lover is likely to not be the culprit. I'm basing this on the fact that they planned a trip away well in advance - so there's actually little to gain, and they could have eloped with Gilden still alive. The archeologist on the other hand was kicked off the project, so wouldn't have been able to continue excavating since he didn't own the land.
But of course the lover could have still done it due to stupidity, so it's not completely out of the question.
Of course I'm not 100 % sure how it works but I did try to save the game just before one of the final choices to see, how much money I get for one of the culprit, then loaded it again and chose a different culprit. And I didn't get the same amount of money (once I got 80, once only 30) even though I had all the evidence and it was the same game file. So it's probably not based on the investigation as such.
Also the achievement for the elephant is for letting him alive and I guess you get it whenever you choose an ending where the elephant doesn't die. At least I got it and I did choose a murderer (but Goliath was saved).
Yeah the achievements are a different beast entirely, as was stated above seems to be done for "interesting" things. Which is expected in a game where practically every clothing item is a pun (honestly they outdid themselves here - I can completely forgive any anachronism and other overall silliness if there are good puns involved. That and for some reason I found the pseudo-adidas ganster tracksuit a'la 19th century outfits to be really hilarious for some reason).