Ill stop being a broken record soon (about sherlock chapter one anyway - im just starting the next game and WILL be blathering about it lol)

If you do want to play a be-sherlock simulator? Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is worth checking out. Or if, like me, you like detective games generally (i recommend Judgement by the way if thats your vibe), id also say pick this up because the freedom to make wrong deductions and decide outcomes is quite the unique choice and its interesting to see. Many detective games can give you a case to solve (and as a story nerd id like to solve them thoroughly and correctly). And they'll hold your hand to some extent because u generally do Need to solve the cases to continue the game. Now, SHCO does to an extent hold your hand, with the typical gameplay tools and by providing eventual paths To Progress the cases in some direction depending on how many clues you find and deductions you put together in the mind palace. But because most of the cases have areas you can be wrong and progress, or pick from multiple viable options to decide what happened, and just the fact you decide the final outcome for that accused... fascinating. It means the case writing is interesting enough you do guess to yourself who did it, and regularly change your guess based on evidence, and theres no obvious BAM for sure guess (in contrast simpler detective shows like some cdramas i love often have easy to guess perpetrators once you learn the writing pattern). When i saw this game's reviews, people seemed mixed on this particular feature of the game. Since it means theres many points where you feel either theres no True perpetrator and the game changes it, or you feel theres no power to determine the Truth.

But i think... partly thats the point. Verner (lol) wont shut up about his opinion of many things possibly mattering more than the truth, and in true frustrating fashion you are JUST as aggravated as Sherlock is by the difficulty in Absolutely being sure of the Truth. And that frustration, and experience, is hammered home in the very final decision of the game: deciding the answer to the main question you started this journey for. You can pick any of the answers. You'll get its own ending. Sherlock will be certain he deduced the truth. Or at least, as certain as you Or him can be... when any 4 of those scenarios might be the truth as far as you can tell. Sherlock's shaken, and maybe he isn't convinced of the truth being certain any more than you are... but he does DECIDE on an answer to live with. He is unsure whats true, but picks one of many possible truths and gives himself closure with it. A very relatable though painful experience pretty much everyone does in life at some point.

And i think thats a big reason they designed so many cases that way. Its not that the game's whole story is unfirm, or the cases stories are inconsequential. No. Its just that the point is in the meaning you take from a world you can never fully completely be sure of, how you pick what to base your life on when you can only be sure of your own reasoning. But no mattwr how much you wish to control life by understanding it, you can never fully understand it, never fully know everything. Ambiguity is part of life and life is impossible to fully control. The cases are like that so you feel like Sherlock, trying desperately to nail down a firm reliable truth to make sense of a messy stressful uncontrollable world.

So like. From a story perspective? The choice serves the game's themes and point well.

From a detective game perspective? Its very fun if ur trying to feel like a detective, to get some stories where you actually turn over your guesses and contemplate and feel you need to really delve in the clues thoughtfully, if u want to draw the best conclusions u can.