After playing this game almost three times over now, I'll admit to being enthralled. I am 100% biased, and unashamedly so. The memory of my first playthrough will sit with me until the next game, surely, and its beautifully fitting ending haunts me even now.

Every aspect of this remake is a vast improvement on the 2006 original and 2008 remaster of the same name. The Music? Haunting. The voice acting? Impeccable, and more often than not horrifying (in a good way). The gameplay? So much more refined and interesting compared to its predecessors - and even improved from its implementation in Chapter One. (For example: the white on white indicators were hard to see in CH1 - but the green ones of TA stand out and telegraph intent better.) The game is almost three times the length of its original and has significantly more relevant-to-the-main-story side-content overall. (When I mention side-content here, I am NOT referring to the DLC side quests - I am specifically referring to the self-contained stories within each location that feed into the overarching narrative.)

But how does The Awakened stand on its own? It is a perfect game for ME. Frogwares knows their audience and it's my belief that they've got their catering down to a fine art at this point. So, if this recipe for a game sounds great to you, you're going to love it: Heavy narrative focus, lots of walking and collecting things, solving puzzles that are designed to intrigue rather than frustrate, PRETTY visuals and ambient sound design, a gratuitous amount of literary and pop-culture references that are not necessary, but are greatly appreciated by a book/cinema nut - AND SHERLOCK HOLMES. Frogwares adores the Doyle-Canon and their passion for that original source is absolutely second-to-none in the industry. The best part is they're also not afraid to dig into non-canonized Holmes stories and draw from the cream of that crop.

I really appreciate their attention to detail, their tiny idle animations, their character design choices, their art direction for each area, and their VA direction/casting choices. I wouldn't have considered myself a fangirl before this game, honestly, but this thing has absolutely shattered my expectations, and I simply cannot wait to see what next chapter they've got planned for Young Sherlock, but you better bet your bottom shilling I'm gonna be playing the crap outta that installment too.

Obviously this is a winner for me. I don't even care if this destroys my credibility as a reliable reviewer. I need Frogwares to make more of this stuff, because this stuff is my kinda stuff. 10/10