I played this game when i was a kid, and i always had a strong appreciation for it, fond memories of a comfy adventure game, even if i’ve never been a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes franchise (not a big fan of the Arthur Conan Doyle texts, and definitely a strong hater of everything related released in the past 20 years). Actually, during all this years i thought this game was widely considered a classic of the genre, holding a similar reputation as other non-sierra/lucasarts gems such as Broken Sword or Beneath a Still Sky. So i’m actually pretty surprised to see that there are no reviews for this game on this page. Hell, actually there are practically no reviews or video-essays for this game on youtube, only your typical walkthroughs. So i’m actually discovering right now, that this game is actually pretty obscure even within the adventure games community.

Serrated Scalpel is a great point and click adventure, based around some of the most typical crime fiction tropes, but they work just great if that’s what you’re looking for. Puzzles work on a regular logic (no moon logic type kind of bullshit), there are a couple of mini-games, and tons of places to explore. The story is overall pretty linear, but if you divide that storyline into segments, there’s tons of freedom within each segment to explore places in different orders, so the game does a fantastic job in giving that sense of exploring 19th century London. The game is visually pretty but anyway i’m a sucker for retro pixel art.

Gabriel Knight fans should definitely check this one out, and of course, point n’click fans in general.