Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club

Nintendo and MAGES defy all expectations, delivering a grim murder mystery filled with heartbreaking characters and a tragic narrative that stands among the visual novel genre’s best. Hopeful just as much as it is haunting, Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is a monumental feat of storytelling from Nintendo’s long dormant adventure series.

Emio - The Smiling Man is the ideal episode to introduce a new Nintendo detective game to modern audiences, enriched by the fact that this saga had never been published outside Japan. Sakamoto reconfirms himself as an excellent writer of captivating, well-connected graphic novels, designed to flow fluidly through the player's thoughts and ideas, continually adding and removing new doubts, possibilities and seasoning a salad full of ingredients to perfection.

The story is well-told, with a tight cast of memorable characters that help deliver the tale really well, in addition to limited animation during scenes to keep you entertained, and a hefty payoff with an epilogue chapter that helps tie everything up neatly. I’d certainly be down to check out more games in the series, whether that’s the older ports on Switch Online, or possible future entries down the line. If you get a chance to check out Emio, whether you’re into visual novels or not, I think you’ll enjoy your time with it.

Even with the pacing problems, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is the best entry in the series yet. The puzzle-like investigative gameplay is straightforward, doing just enough to challenge the player without overwhelming or being too obscure. It all complements well with the excellent but a bit unique storytelling. This tale is not for every Switch player, being a bit too dark at times, but it is highly rewarding for those it appeals to.

A visual novel rated 17+ that will appeal to fans of the genre and the Famicom Detective Club series, and will be able to capture the general player audience with its story and visuals.

Most notably, Emio establishes a surprising amount of heart and sincerity in its brief runtime. Strangely, though, it achieves very little in the way of thrills or chills. More a small-town crime procedural than a dark murder mystery, players will find their best experiences driven by a genuine care for these characters and how they process the impact of tragedy in their insular community rather than sensationalising their trauma for our entertainment. The serial killer thriller lurks on the furthest edges of this story, only ever coaxing the player along with the threat of its darkly exciting carrot. This long-awaited entry in the Famicom Detective Club series is clean, well animated and voiced, and has some seriously good visual novel writing. Despite this, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to recommend this to fans of either detective games or visual novels unless their backlogs are running low.

Is there anything I really liked about Emio? Sadly no. I can tell you that the artwork is nice, and the animation can bounce between stiff and puppet animation. The music is just nice elevator music, but I don’t really have any strong feelings towards it. It’s cool that its voice acted, even if I don’t speak Japanese. But I really wish I had more positive comments for the overall experience. This just did not land for me at all and that’s okay, it’s not going to be for everyone. I have observed online a plethora of praise for the ending, and its animated epilogue, so it’s divisive to say the least. I don’t think I am going to be the only person letdown by the edgy promises from the reveal. Just because something has dark themes like mental illness and domestic abuse doesn’t suddenly make it a great commentary on them. Games such as Mother 3 and Captain Rainbow being left unlocalized compared to the cavalcade of embarrassment in Emio is probably the biggest mystery this game has. Hopefully you’re left with a bigger smile on your face than I was.

Loved it alot. And it's much better than the previous remakes. Not that previous remakes were bad ****'s recommended to start with missing heir first, but you can start with Emio if you want.

It’s really hard to rate this game... because this is *not* a game. There’s literally zero interactivity. It’s essentially an anime where you have to press "A" from time to time to advance the story. But it’s really good. The story is REALLY good, it’s a nice dark murder mystery with some mild horrific elements, and it works really well. The twists are tasteful, the characters are well written. Also despite this game not being a game, the fact the story is told from the point of view of the player and the fact you have to act to advance the story does something to immerse you in the story that a regular anime wouldn’t. I had never played visual novels before, I have no idea if that’s standard to have so little interactivity but I ended up being engrossed in the story and forgetting the slightly annoying quirks of the game. Indeed, the game expect you to press the buttons (mostly asking questions) in a very specific order. Most of the time this order is somewhat logical (once you get used to it) but sometime’s it’s not, and you will find yourself trying every combinations several times before realising you have to use an action you’ve never had to use so far or that you need to ask the same question a few more times even though you thought you were done. So yeah: if you like crimes and anime give it a try, it’s short enough and it’s really well witten. However if the lack of interactivity or the slow pacing (because the question order will slow down your progress ) bug you... maybe you should avoid it.

A little disappointed; I expected more after all the hype, but in the end, it's only talked about because it's a Nintendo game. There are many other better visual novels that no one pays any attention to simply because of the genre they belong to. The final chapter somewhat redeems the rest of the game in terms of its rather weak story.

So, the game begins nicely. Throughout we do a lot of investigation work, lots of details to remember, interesting plots to follow. And then the ending happens and you're left wondering why did I even do anything I did previously. There is no interaction on the main character's part during the ending and we're left to suffice with a 5 minute short film which disregards all of our investigations before. :/

Flags are hard to understand and game progression is not smooth. The conversation is unnecessarily long and slow-paced. Boring because incidents don't happen very often.