Welcome to EXPlay, (Explain & Play) the review series where we care not for scores but tell it how it is when it comes to every game we get our hands on, whilst also taking the time to include some lengthy gameplay, to give you the reader, the chance to shape your own impressions and views whilst watching and reading.
In this explanatory review, we’re covering Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club by developer Nintendo:
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club: (The Explanation)
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is the third entry in a series of visual novels that originally released for the Famicom in 1988 and 1989 respectively. Both of the games, Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind recently saw a revival in 2021 on Nintendo Switch as they were faithfully remade with updated visuals and feature Japanese voice acting with English subtitles and text.
The third game in the series is made in the same way as the remakes and revolves around the characters of the previous entries and the Utsugi Detective Agency. You play a young man who works at the Agency alongside his friend Ayumi Tachibana and his boss Shunsuke Utsugi. Your character and his boss are called out to help with an investigation into the murder of a teenage boy, Eisuke Sasake. The circumstances of Eisuke’s death is rather shocking as his body is found with a paper bag over his head and a smiley face drawn on it.
Although the police can’t share too many details on the active investigation, one of the lead detectives does reveal that there are similarites in the case with another series of murders 18 years ago. However, the previous murders, all the victims were teenage girls and they were strangled by hand, whereas Eisuke was strangled with a cord. What the cases do have in common, however, is that they were all strangled, and were made to wear a paper bag with a smiley face on their head.
The paper bag detail was never revealed to the public by the police in the previous murders, leading them to believe that they could be a connection between the cases. Unfortunately, there is not enough for the police to work with and then there is the Urban Legend – Emio, AKA The Smiling Man, that had parallels to the MO of the previous and current murders. Cue in the Utsugi Detective Agency to investigate where the police can’t.
The main gameplay loop of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is to visit different locales and interview people to see if they know anything that could be relative to your case. You have a number of different ways to engage with interviewees, you can Call/Engage to get their attention, you can Ask/Listen to ask them questions, and Look/Examine to see if you can learn anything by observing them or by looking at something in the area that might open up a new line of questioning.
If you find yourself stuck (and you will), you can think to yourself which may give you a hint on what you need to do next. Maybe the interviewee said something relative to the case but it didn’t open a new line of questioning. If you try thinking afterwards, your character may think about it afterwards and then unlock it as an option when you go to Ask/Listen again. Other times while thinking, you may be given the idea to use your phone, or try calling the interviewee again to get their attention if they are lost in thought. When in doubt and you seem to be stuck in an area, the good old “Stop, Breathe, Think, Act!” will help point you in the right direction.
Each chapter in Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is played out over the course of an in-game day. You usually start each chapter at the Utsugi Detective Agency and then head out to a location to investigate. After learning all you can in the area, your notebook will be updated and will contain everything you have learned thus far in the game. Towards the end of each chapter, you will return to the agency to review your findings of the day to see if you have learned everything you can. On some chapters, you will also have the opportunity to investigate as Ayumi and sometimes as Utsugi as well. When reviewing notes at the end of these chapters, you will have to do so as the main protagonist and compare your notes with the other characters as well.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is not a fast-paced game, especially at the beginning. For anyone who has played any of the three-part demo for the game, you will know that it can be rather slow going, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. “Haste makes waste” as they say and it is very easy to miss a minor detail that could become important later. While the murder investigation can feel tedious at times. the element of the urban legend – The Smiling Man, helps keeps things eerie and interesting.
As the investigation unfolds, the story expands further and becomes even more complex and engaging. There is obviously a deep connection between the current day murder and the serial killings of 18 years ago, but what? And what does Emio have to do with this and just how old is the urban legend? did the murders inspire the legend or was it the other way around? We could tell you but that is something you will have to find out for yourself.
Wrapping up this review now, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club starts off slow but it is only to lure you in. The more you investigate, the more you become involved and want lo learn more about why Eisuke was murdered and why Emio has supposedly returned. As I mentioned in me review for the previous Famicom Detective Club games, I am not a big visual novel fan but those games had me hooked from beginning to end and Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is no different. An absolute must play for visual novel fans and purder mystery aficionados.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club: (The Gameplay)
Game Specifications:
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Category: Adventure, Simulation, Other
No. of Players: 1 (Single System)
Release Date: August 29, 2024
Price: $49.99
File Size: 5.4 GB
Nintendo.com Listing
