A new game called Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club was released on August 29th exclusively to Nintendo Switch. Timingly, today is Friday the 13th! 😨 The game starts bright and delightful, but do not let this atmosphere fool you.
The protagonist here, which is the player, is a young detective at the Utsugi Detective Agency. The first case was a middle school boy found dead in a pump station.
The game is all about mystery, investigation, and character interactions. There is not much complicated navigation but a lot of focus and reading is needed since you are investigating. Treat this like reading a manga or novel.
As the game progresses, more interaction options will be added on the left side of the screen.
I encountered some dead spots such as going back and forth with the same dialogue, so I had to trigger something to create another flow of the conversation. For example, pointing to the grass or bike can trigger something.
Along with building the story is introducing new characters. So this is another detective with an attitude, haha. 😆
Cut scenes are triggered to make the story clearer. In this case, it is describing who is the entity behind the famous urban legend The Smiling Man, or Emio.
The face is described with a sinister wide smile. He was described as following people who are in distress or dread. He will then exchange a forever smile in exchange for their lives.
Details of the collected data will be recorded in a notebook. For example, the victim’s estimated time of death, apparent cause of death, etc.
Not gonna lie, I got bored because of lots of reading, 🥲 perhaps I was just used to RPG games, but I like the storyline so far coz it tickles my curiosity.
Even if the game is set to be creepy, it has funny moments just to counterbalance. Some characters have quirky and offbeat humor like Kamihara.
A lot of question-and-answer portions, so read through and through. I clicked on the wrong answer and nothing happened. So, I had to just guess the answer if I did not know the answer, haha. 😆
The player, me, can travel to places with suspicion just like the pump station. Looks like nothing to see here but I need to trigger somewhere or something to get a dialogue.
This scene of waiting in the shed for the bus to come just took me time to trigger things. I actually waited for minutes if the bus would really come, haha.
Luckily, I found the trigger and hailed a taxi. Another character added to the notebook as the taxi driver got a piece of information about found dead kid on the pump station.
That is it for most of the demo version of this game. Purchase the full version for 50 USD.
My review
The game has a nice storyline together with creepiness and curiosity. It felt like reading a manga, and if that is your liking, I recommend this game.
But in my case, I felt bored… maybe because it was an endless reading, and I think I accidentally fell asleep, hahah. 🥲 Nice art style, like those of manhwa/vtuber type. There is no option too for other languages so just English for the text and Japanese for the dialogues. I rate this game 8.5/10.
Thanks for reading! 🥰
📸 All photos are owned and taken by me, otherwise credited. Screenshots from Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. ©️jijisaurart
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