Happy Friday, everyone. Over break I got some new import games for Christmas— three of them, in fact. We’re going to look at one today: Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijō Yūkai Jiken.
As I’m sure you’re aware, the new Will Ferrell movie Holmes and Watson was released to theaters over break. It was bad. Really, really bad. Since I’ve had the displeasure of seeing a terrible Sherlock Holmes movie, I thought maybe I should take a look at a terrible Sherlock Holmes game. The most notorious of them all? Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijō Yūkai Jiken.
Developed and published by Towa Chiki, Sherlock Holmes (I’m just going to shorten the name) was released for the Famicom in 1986 and was obviously based on the famed literary character of the same name. Like many Japanese imports in my set, the development history behind this game is virtually unknown. All I do know is that it was made by Towa Chiki, who would later go on to make A Week of Garfield. I can’t comment on that game as I haven’t played it, but it appears to have been universally panned upon release. But this has to be better… right?
You play as Holmes himself and the plot of the game is that the Royal Family’s daughter has been kidnapped and you need to rescue her. First, the basics: the graphics are pretty bad. The characters and backgrounds don’t have much detail, and it looks like they hired a colorblind painter. Seriously, it looks like Holmes is wearing Barbie pajamas. As for the music… it is awful. The two notable tracks are the overworld theme, which has way too many high notes that I swear I began losing my hearing, and the building theme, which is an annoying 10-second loop that repeats forever and will be burned into your brain for all eternity.
The game looks bad and sounds bad. Is the gameplay any better? Well, the object is to explore England to find clues to lead you to the location of the kidnapped daughter, and this is where the game’s biggest flaw comes into play. It’s not at all apparent where you are supposed to go or what you’re supposed to do. You go around looking for clues, but nobody you talk to gives you any. For some reason, in the buildings or parks you kick people to get them to talk to you, but all they say is stupid, nonsensical dialogue like, “I wanna be like Sherlock Holmes” or “Don’t kill me” or “Are you satisfied with current society?” The closest they get to giving you any useful tips is when they say, “You must examine everything”. Thanks, that’s very helpful.
By the way, do you know how you talk to people in this game? You kick them. No, really, you get them to talk by kicking them. In the overworld you can kick them to get money from them. The most famous detective of all time is a thief! Unfortunately, the hit detection in the overworld is horrible. You have to be right next to them in order for the kick to even register. This wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t damage Sherlock Holmes by touch. I guess anyone would try to hurt someone who was trying to steal their money.
So, you are almost completely on your own here. That wouldn’t be so much of a problem if anything gave you even the slightest indication of where to go, but nothing ever does. Sometimes you can get hints that you need a magnifying glass, but nobody ever gives you any indication of where to actually find one. Because you don’t know where the magnifying glass is, you could be completely helpless in regards to finding where you need to go and actually getting anywhere in the game. It reminds me of a certain other Famicom game featuring a Japanese celebrity… but we’ll get to that another day.
By the way, you have a health bar in this game, but it’s almost completely insignificant. Why? Because you can potentially lose all of it in seconds. Like I said, civilians hurt you by touch, and sometimes if you walk into the wrong house you can die instantly. There’s no way to know which house will kill you except trial and error. That is totally unfair, because if you die, you go back to the main menu. No extra lives, no continues, nothing.
There are some shops in England where you can buy potions. But why? If you enter a certain house you can have your health restored free of charge. That’s like getting a Sprite at Five Guys for $3 when you can get it for $1 at the McDonalds down the street.
You can also get weapons, like a cane or a pistol. These are actually very useful weapons, but you have to use them quickly because some enemies will try to shoot you and dodging the bullets is next to impossible.
I understand what Towa Chiki was trying to do with this game. They wanted to make you think like Sherlock Holmes—a detective. But not giving you an indication of where to go beyond a broad “search everywhere” message was not the way to do it. The people don’t tell you anything, and there’s absolutely nothing in the way of clues of where to find the actual, you know, clues. Plus, Holmes kicking people to get information and steal their money: What was Towa Chiki thinking? There were many text-based Sherlock Holmes games where you actually talk to people instead of hurting them, and they actually give you clues of where to go and what to do. If you want to make an action game, Sherlock Holmes just isn’t the right subject.
Before I got my hands on Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijō Yūkai Jiken, I never had an objectively bad game in my library, even in my North American section. But that streak has ended. The graphics are ugly, the music is deafening, the hit detection is terrible, the trial and error is not intuitive, the concept is misguided, and the lack of continues only adds to my fury. Do not buy this game, even for the typical 99 cents. The only mystery that needs solving now is who gave the go ahead for this piece of garbage.
Rating: 1/10
Featured Image art by Kaio Scott