Now that I've finished

[Peregrine]

Now that I've finally finished the game, I have to say, it wasn't too bad. There were some infuriating parts that I had difficulty getting past due to insufficient prompting, rather than the difficulty of the puzzle, but that's not uncommon in this series.

From a purely technical perspective, this game shows a lot of progress compared to other games in the series. The ability to actually go out into Baker street, and walk the streets of London has been greatly expanded. They've come a long way. It looks great.

Character style is probably the most distracting departure from the series. I generally preferred their older portrayals of Holmes and Watson. They were a lot more in line with what I imagined from the books, and drew clear inspiration from Peter Cushing and Nigel Stock's portrayals. There's nothing wrong with these new portrayals in and of themselves, except that they seem to be interlopers.

I've read that this is supposed to be a new incarnation of Holmes and Watson, and doesn't necessarally share any continutity with the other games. But the atmosphere and playstyle do not change at all to match the younger portrayals of the characters. It's the same Baker Street. It's the same, albeit improved atmosphere. And with the adoption of Kate, it seems to be a direct followup of the events in Testament.

Obviously, from a design perspective, they probably reused some of the assets they'd developed on previous games. But it's like you go to the old Baker Street you're familiar with, only to find two young dudes and their uncanny valley daughter living there. Who are these guys? Where are Holmes and Watson? Are they a new incarnation, or are they the same characters we've seen before? The similarities in atmosphere and the followup on Testament plot points make it difficult to separate the two portrayals.

And while I appreciate that they tried to blend many of the puzzles into the plot better, rather than just throw a bunch of puzzles around for no reason other than to have a minigame, the puzzles themselves seem to have suffered for it. Alice's lock box being the only intricate lock box I recall, compared to them being seemingly everywhere in previous games. Still a fun little puzzle, but the only one in the game. The lockpicking segments looked more like actually picking a lock, like a few lockpick puzzles in Testament. But they became rote throughout the game. The lockpick puzzles in Crimes and Punishments might not have had any similarities to lockpicking in real life, but they were fun little puzzles once you got the hang of them.

On the other hand, the introduction of some non-puzzle like mini games wasn't entirely unwelcomed. I actually kindof enjoyed the lawn bowling minigame. I'm not joking.

I can't blame them too much. They tried some new things, and some of them worked, and a lot of them didn't. Keeping the character profile segment and deduction mechanic from Crimes and Punishments was a strong choice.

If I may offer some suggestions for future games, though, as much as I'd prefer a return to the earlier styles, if you're going to make a new incarnation, go all in, and make a new incarnation. Make the Baker Street flat different enough that it's not too unsettling to see new people in it. Don't borrow continuity from previous games if it's not supposed to share any continuity with previous games. Keep trying to blend the puzzles with the plot, but not at the expence of the puzzles themselves.

I also liked their adaptation of "A Case of Identity". It was a pretty good adaptation of the origional story, and I always hated how in the origional story Holmes didn't have the decency and respect for Mary Sutherland to tell her face to face what happened to her boyfriend. I was actually able to have Holmes tell her in person, instead of sneak around and manipulate her through her stepfather.