Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club Review

Nintendo had the world pondering the possibilities when it unveiled its ‘Who is Emio?’  campaign earlier this year. The creepy trailer had everyone wondering what this horror experience would turn out to be. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait long to find out, and I’m even more thankful that we didn’t have a multi-year long wait to actually get the game. I don’t think upon seeing the teaser that anyone would have expected it to be for a new entry in the Famicom Detective Club series, given that there hasn’t been a new entry in over 30 years but that’s exactly what Emio was teasing. And its blend of visual novel storytelling, point and click adventure, murder mystery and anime aesthetic come together to form something that’s right up my alley and a near perfect gaming experience. I know the gameplay of visual novels can be a hard sell to some players, but if you’re a fan of, or open to trying the genre, Emio – The Smiling Man offers an incredible murder mystery plot that will grip you and you’ll have a hard time putting it down until you solve the case of ‘Who is Emio?’ due to how engaging it is to play.

Emio – The Smiling Man picks up after the events of the first 2 games in the series, but don’t fear if you haven’t played those games just yet, you’ll be able to follow the plot of this game just fine. There are some minor references to events and characters that appeared in the earlier games that may be appreciated by existing fans of the series as well as knowledge of the cases that have been solved already by the detective agency in which you work but it’s certainly not a pre-requisite to have played them. Speaking of the detective agency, it’s almost instantly upon booting up the game that this new case comes sliding across your desk. Upon investigating a body at a murder scene, the way in which the body is displayed brings up talks of an old urban legend of the ‘Smiling Man’ while also matching the MO of a killer from almost 20 years prior. It’s up to you to gather evidence, interview those close to the case and people of interest to ultimately discover who the killer is and whether this case is linked to the murders many years ago and whether Emio is more than just legend. 

The gameplay of The Smiling Man can be summed up as visual novel meets point and click adventure game. It’s very true to its genre and how the previous games played close to 30 years ago but this entry does a lot to bring that formula into a modern era. The most notable of which being its visuals. You’ll notice almost instantly how great the presentation of the game is. If you’re looking at screenshots alone, you’d think the game looks pretty much just like your typical anime style visual novel. But upon playing it, you’ll realise that the character models aren’t just 2D renders in an anime art style, they’re actually 3D models that move around, display various expressions and emote in ways that bring a lot of life to the characters, the environments and the scenes the story portrays. I’ve played many visual novels in my time, but I can’t think of any that have the cinematic presentation that Emio – The Smiling man offers. I loved that the game was able to honour the roots of the genre and the franchise it’s come from while also taking this big leap in visual presentation to feel like something really modern while simultaneously maintaining what made the earlier games so great. 

The story itself though is one of the game’s biggest highlights. It quickly sets up a mystery and an urban legend that is super engaging and will have you invested in trying to get to the bottom of what’s really going on and wanting to also solve the murder case. You are a detective after all. And that’s one aspect where I found the game to have a real element of immersion. I found that when I began approach interviews, investigations and dialogue conversations as if I was in the shoes of the protagonist and as I were trying to actually solve a murder mystery, the game hit a whole new level of enjoyment for me and had me picking my actions with a bit more thought. I also really appreciated that the game doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. The Smiling Man is a tight 10-15 hour experience depending on how fast you may read or how experienced you may be already with this style of gameplay. Far too often in the visual novel genre, games stretch out the story unnecessarily, padding out the plot in an attempt to have a game that takes over 50 hours to read through. This is not that kind of game. The developers had a clear vision of the story they wanted to tell and they’ve executed it at a fantastic pace.

The game is pretty much fully voiced, though only in Japanese. I would have loved if the game had featured English voiceovers as an option as well as it’s very obvious the game was made with a lot of care, effort and visual flair, having an English option would have helped the immersion factor take another step up overall.

The game as a whole is incredible from a story and presentation standpoint. The only real negative thing to pop up throughout my playthrough was one aspect of the gameplay. You’ll find that occasionally some of the dialogue options are unclear in how they will play out, and there are numerous times throughout the game where the option needed to progress the story is so obtuse that I just ended up going back through each available dialogue or action option until the game progressed. This can often be offset by using the ‘Think’ option, as it allows you to get a look at the inner thoughts of the protagonist which does often contain a hint such as ‘I should head back to the office’ for example, but the path to take is occasionally not clear enough. This is more of an immersion and flow breaking problem rather than a game breaking bug, as it’s always able to be overcome eventually, but I still found it a little frustrating that the progression wasn’t smoothed out more in these scenes.

Overall, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is an amazing offering from Nintendo and a welcome addition of something more mature for their catalogue. It offers a tight and engaging story that fans of mystery stories are really going to get invested in. As I mentioned earlier, I fully get that this style of game isn’t for everyone, but if you’re a fan of visual novels or willing to try something new and perhaps out of your comfort zone, there is a lot to love here.

A Nintendo Switch review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.

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