Sherlock Holmes makes a curious video game debut in...Japan on December 11, 1986


Cast your gaze back to a most improbable day, December the 11th, 1986, a date which, according to the vast and frequently contradictory archives of video game history, marked the arrival of something quite extraordinary on the Japanese Nintendo Famicom. While the rest of the world was likely grappling with the existential dread of waiting five minutes for a dial-up modem to connect, the discerning gamers of Japan were being offered a slice of pure, unadulterated, pixelated deduction. The game was titled Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijō Yūkai Jiken. Which, for those of you not intimately familiar with the phonetic nuances of the Japanese language and the dramatic flair of Victorian crime, translates roughly to "Sherlock Holmes: The Abduction of Miss Earl." Or Countess. Or something equally aristocratic and prone to being kidnapped, as these things often are.

The core gameplay involved fisticuffs, Yngwie Malmsteenesque high leg kicks, and the painstaking gathering of non-sequitur clues and random conversations that made very little sense, even when painstakingly translated years later by dedicated fans with an excess of time and a shortage of other hobbies. It perfectly encapsulated the British detective experience, provided the British detective experience involved a great deal of pixelated pacing and questioning a man about his mustache for an hour and a half.

Holmes inexplicably barges into grand Victorian homes on the high streets in every city he travels to, and gets called on the carpet for it by the rogue's gallery of residents within each one. These homes have so many floors, so many staircases, so many bathrooms, that Downton Abbey would hang its eaves in shame. Accused of being a burglar and a thief, he proceeds to pocket any items he finds in the well-appointed houses that might assist him later in his investigation. Of course, this did echo Holmes' occasional willingness to break the law in the service of solving a case in the original stories. And his violin even makes the leap from the printed page for a pixelated appearance in the game.

If you ever wanted to explore the sewers of major cities in the United Kingdom, this is the game for you. On the flip side, Holmes takes in the fresh air in a picturesque park, a true English pleasure garden, in each metropolis. 

Sherlock Holmes for Famicom has perhaps the best NPC dialogue of any 8-bit title. "Face tomorrow and roar!" "Medicine is the water of life." "I've torn my trousers." "Oh, it's a UFO!" "Do you believe in God?" And these townspeople are unfailingly patriotic, if nothing else. "Long live Great Britain!" "Long live Her Majesty, the Queen!" "The Beatles are the best!"

Events will come to a head in a moldy castle in Glasgow. But the biggest mystery is, why would a British icon, equally beloved in America, only be brought to the Nintendo platform in Japan, and not in the West? Surely, Moriarty had a hand in such nefarious schemes!

All we know for sure is that children across Japan suddenly discovered a burning ambition to wear inverness capes and say “Elementary” a lot. A nation was gripped by detective fever, or possibly dyspepsia; it was the eighties, the two were easily confused. But the Japanese winter school break of 1986-87 was a cozy one for many, with a steaming cup of tea in one hand and a Famicom controller in the other, bridging the Victorian and Edwardian ages vicariously through the world's most famous consulting detective. Meanwhile, Baker Street Irregulars in the U.S. and U.K. could only turn back to their dog-eared Arthur Conan Doyle paperbacks, and grumble with envy.

Location: Japan

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