One of the things I appreciate most about Nintendo is that even when they were more successful than ever with the Switch, they did not hesitate to support series that do not always produce mega hits. Nothing is more symbolic of this than Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. Nintendo shocked everyone when they released full-fledged remakes of the first two Famicom Detective Club titles in 2021, and yet even then I was surprised when I first heard that the same team was returning for a brand new entry. This was even more true when it came time for the reveal and it became clear that Nintendo was throwing its full weight behind the project; even before the game booted up, it was obvious that they were confident in what they were going to deliver.
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, Emio delivers on its promises. While it’s difficult to debate the merits of a narrative-driven game, especially one centered around a mystery, Emio manages to give its story a depth that I may have felt was lacking in the previous two games. Beyond the tragedy of unnecessary deaths that sets this new story in motion, there are other tragedies at the core of this story, and Emio’s greatest strength is how it truly humanizes its characters – to give those tragedies the weight they truly deserve. At times, it’s an exceptionally difficult read, not because the story itself leaves something to be desired, but because of the subject matter it tackles and how the necessary levity ensures it finds its way.
It’s impossible to talk about specifics in any meaningful way without giving away some of what the story is about, so I won’t go into that any further except to say that I particularly appreciated how much the game hammers home the responsibility you’ve been given and what it means to the victims of those left behind. Not content to just tell a story about a murderer, Emio paints a picture of the stain that violence has left on the people the victims left behind. Even that might be giving too much away, but the core of Emio’s story feels different from the Famicom Detective Club stories that came before it.
Otherwise, I can talk about some systemic changes. At its core, Famicom Detective Club is the same as it always was; only subtleties have been changed to improve the flow of the game. Much like The Girl Who Stands Behind, Emio is a much more straightforward adventure, and that’s helped in particular by a slight overhaul of how the Think command works. This time around, it will always give you at least a small nudge in the right direction as to what to do next, even if Think itself wasn’t the next required option to advance the story – meaning there should be far fewer situations where players are stuck trying to find a hard-to-understand solution that will allow you to move the story forward.
When the remakes of the original duology came out, Famicom Detective Club instantly became one of the most visually expressive Japanese adventure games ever made – with a shocking number of unique assets and a seemingly absurd amount of animation to match. Emio, freed from the constraints of the stories originally told on the Famicom Disk System, is another step forward for the genre in this regard. While there are still plenty of moments where players relive the same environments, the game’s length is noticeably longer than the two remakes and the number of locations seems to have been appropriately increased.
There’s more to this than just the number of environments, but suffice it to say that there’s no doubt in my mind that this is the most expensive game of this genre ever made – and players have a lot to look forward to as the story progresses. If you’re even a little bit of a fan of this particular medium, Emio is worth the price of admission for that reason alone.
Much like the remakes three years ago, Emio really does feel like a love letter to an entire gaming genre. After experiencing everything it has to offer, it’s impossible to see it as anything else – and that love is immediately palpable when you sit down to play it. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club may have only been introduced to the world a few weeks ago, but it’s already secured a place as one of my favorite releases in a very, very jam-packed year. If you’re even the slightest bit of a fan of visual novels or Japanese adventure games, you owe it to yourself to find out who Emio really is.
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