Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (Switch)

After 2021’s surprise remasters of the first two Famicom Detective Club games, the series is back with a new entry: Emio – The Smiling Man. With a much darker premise than you’d usually expect from a Nintendo game, the game puts you in the shoes of a private detective trying to solve an eerie murder case. The game released exclusively on Nintendo Switch on August 29^th 2024.

The story opens with the grizzly murder of a school boy as you’re put in the shoes of an assistant private investigator tasked with solving the crime. Once you reach the scene, you learn that the victim was found with a paper bag on his head with a smiley face drawn on it. This brings back similarities to a case 18 years before the events of the game alongside “The Smiling Man” an urban legend in the area. As you investigate the case, more links between events and people unravel themselves into a thrilling case that keeps you guessing throughout. While I wont spoil any of the major plot points here, trying to unravel the plot before the game tells you was a lot of fun, with plenty of mysteries to be solved.

The cast of characters are well written, with plenty of depth and secrets to be uncovered. All of the information collected about characters is recorded in a notebook to keep track of everything important so you can refer back to it in case you missed something. One nice feature the game has is how when loading into the game, you can view a synopsis of the events that have happened so far. This was a life saver after putting the game down for a couple days and being able to pick back up where I left off with a recap of what’s going on. The story is make or break for a visual novel, and the story knocks it out of the park, with a compelling mystery to solve throughout the game’s runtime.

The game plays as a visual novel with some point and click elements. The main structure of a chapter is travelling to a location and either speaking to a character, asking them questions to try and uncover new information, or investigating the area for clues. After exhausting all of the dialogue options or finding all of the clues in the environment, you put the clues together in a review to recap what you’ve learned and make some conclusions. As the story unravels, these conversations with characters get more and more interesting as more gets revealed. Being a visual novel, the focus is naturally on the story as opposed to the gameplay.

The game keeps it simple and this works in its favour, letting the story take centre stage. However, exhausting all of the possible dialogue options can occasionally feel repetitive, with all of the deductions that you make yourself tending to being towards the end of the chapter, after gathering all of the information. Overall, the gameplay of the game serves to present the story well, letting it take the focus of the game, as you’d expect from a visual novel, although the chapter structure can occasionally feel repetitive.

The presentation of the game is great, with some great art direction for the environments and characters. The characters are animated well, with subtle animations that bring them to life during the investigation scenes. The game also features some great Japanese voice acting throughout, although there is no English dub but the voice acting is still great, showing the characters emotions well.

The soundtrack complements the games tone well. The artwork stands out as the highlight of the game’s presentation, with some fantastic art for environments and the titular smiling man has a memorable design that really stands out well.

Overall, Emio – The Smiling Man is a great visual novel that tells a compelling mystery that kept me interesting and guessing throughout. While there was a few frustrating elements, mainly in the occasionally repetitive structure of chapters, I think the game is a great experience and the more mature tone and premise is something that is a welcome change from what you’ve come to expect from Nintendo.