Emio: The smiling man is the 3rd installment of the Famicom Detective Club series. I played the 2 original Switch remakes as they were the first time the series had been available in English. Emio: The Smiling Man is an entirely new game for Switch over 30 years after the originals. It’s surprising for that but also that it was a simultaneous release. It perhaps illustrates a change in strategy that has been taking hold since the Switch launched, a Nintendo that targets a global audience. Emio: The Smiling Man I would argue is not an especially accessible game for a general audience though. It’s very uniquely a product of Japanese culture but as with the 2 remakes Nintendo decided to embrace that unapologetically. This also has the benefit of less to localize. Only text and maybe a few backgrounds were likely changed. The game is fully voiced with Japanese being the only option. I suppose for the Japanese savvy/comfortable fan this probably just works, but it’s not really something I would have imagined even 10 years ago. Even the localization doesn’t go too hard. Concepts like “sempai” are left untranslated as it’s assumed a anime-familar audience is probably the most likely to pick it up.
Also interesting was the way it was marketed. It started as a vague marketing campaign for a Nintendo title using the title Emio: The Smiling Man that appeared to be a horror games and was curious rated M. This is unusual for Nintendo who has only publish a handful in their long history, and none to my knowledge were first party. It was then announced that this was part of the Famicom Detective Club which itself was also very surprising as nobody expected a sequel. As it turns out Yoshio Sakamoto after producing the remakes decided to give it another go. A sort of labor of love I guess and they apparently gave him creative freedom with it.
The game itself like it’s predecessors isn’t much of a game. The story unfolds via conversations and you’re really just picking one of a few options to continue advancing the conversation. It often degrades into trial and error but there’s no penalty for failure so it’s not much more than a pure visual novel. Unlike the previous ones it’s easier to figure out what you need to do and you generally have fewer options so it’s less frustrating. Scenes use Live 2D like the remakes. At least from what I remember these seem to be improved from the remakes. The detail of the 2d art and backgrounds is great. The game looks fantasy overall and makes use of the technology and the overall presentation with voice acting and music is very good. The plot has a lot of twists and turns but is satisfy to experience and stays quite grounded. Versus something like Ace Attorney characters have personality but they aren’t single note nor are they dialed to 11. It carries the emotions and gravity of something a little more serious though it weaves some lightheartedness throughout. I thought the conclusion was satisfying but they specifically leave out some details which are covered in a epilogue. This comes with a warning that it deals dark content and they aren’t wrong. Some of it is heavy for games in general, let alone something from Nintendo. It’s never overly graphic but it’s uncomfortable.
It was a quick play/read. Maybe a bit expensive and less exciting for some but I enjoyed my time with it. It would be interesting to see more of this type of content but it feels like a special circumstance for one of Nintendo’s oldest and decorated creators getting some creative passion out there with his earned creative freedom. One that may not happen again for a long time.
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