Nintendo has thrown a vandalized paper bag over its squeaky clean image with the new Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club game, so it’s time to review the brief transformation in detail. Fans were initially confused when Nintendo dropped a mysterious trailer for what everyone assumed was a new game, and all it showed was a man standing still, a paper bag over his head that had an unsetting smiling face painted over it. Days later, the company revealed what they were working on, taking us back to the Famicom Detective Club series after it remade the two older titles in 2021.
Image: Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club Review—A Great Addition to the Visual Novel Genre
The Famicom Detective Club series received a new leash on life when Nintendo remade The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind, back in 2021. The games were a step away from Nintendo’s usual fare, but they were handled with just as much care and attention as its other hits like the Mario and Zelda games. If there’s one thing we have to establish in this Emio – The Smiling Man review right off the bat, it’s that Nintendo has been just as successful at modernizing the franchise and bringing an immersive, mystery-fueled game this time around.
Despite the dark nature of the storyline, the game doesn’t cower behind terrifying, dingy landscapes to convey the sense of unease that comes with the legend of the Smiling Man. Emio – The Smiling Man’s visuals are bright and even calming at times, with its anime-style art to settle us comfortably into this Japanese setting. The atmosphere. is complemented by authentic voice-overs and music to immerse us in the experience.
Before we get into the story and gameplay, the art and aesthetic of the game have to be acknowledged—every setting in the game is visually appealing. While there are no active action scenes with crazy combat or an overwhelming flood of activity, the game isn’t meant to mimic a Silent Hill or Resident Evil game. There is no open-world format for you to explore and uncover the mysteries of the case. It is a visual novel, which makes it more similar to reading an interactive book than playing a video game, so it isn’t going to appeal to all types of players.
Despite this, the game never settles for blocks of text that you passively read through to understand what’s going on. You still get to initiate activities, choose dialogues, and determine what happens next. Yes, the story is linear and there’s no room for any significant deviations, but you still get to put some brain cells to the test.
What’s the Story of the Emio – The Smiling Man Game?
Developed by visual novel studio Mages, Emio – The Smiling Man is the newest addition to the Famicom Detective Club series after 30 years—expectations from the game are understandably high. The young teenage detective protagonist has now grown into a 19-year-old who hasn’t lost his touch, entrusted to unravel a sinister murder case this time. The body of a middle school boy is discovered in a vastly isolated location and while the death is tragic all on its own, the matters are made worse by the paper bag over his head, tainted with an eerie, drawn-on smile.
Speculations arise—is the death connected to the horrifying series of murders that occurred 18 years ago? The one where a killer, “Emio,” had targeted crying school girls, leaving them dead with a smiling bag over their heads? The killer was turned into an urban legend and perhaps he wasn’t done with his rampage.
You play as the nameless protagonist, occasionally switching to the perspective of your partner Ayumi Tachibana, a feature that is a first for the series. There is an extensive collection of characters you meet and interact with, and while some can be annoying, all of them are fascinatingly complex. Reviewing the Emio – The Smiling Man game, we can tell you that the most enjoyable part of playing this will be unpeeling the layers of complexity in the characters and the story.
Understanding the Gameplay: Emio The Smiling Man
As the story unfolds and you begin your investigation into the case, there are a couple of different but limited actions you can put to use. You can call/engage, ask/listen, look/examine, occasionally take objects, use your phone, think, and open your notebook.
These basic interactions set the stage for your journey through the story. The required actions can be confusing to establish sometimes, but they’re not hard to master. Occasionally, you might encounter an opportunity to type out your own response, but again, these have a limited impact on the story. The gameplay mechanics are simple, but the story and investigation more than makeup for the shortcomings.
While the Japanese voiceovers may alienate some users who strictly prefer to game in English, the text dialogue boxes and commands tell you everything you need to know. The tone of the game is occasionally humorous and rarely gets as dark as the initial trailer suggests, but that doesn’t take away from the experience and the twisted ending. The case isn’t overly straightforward, so you don’t have to worry about a boring resolution to the entire tale.
The majority of the Nintendo Emio – The Smiling Man reviews will tell you what we’re thinking too—if you like a good mystery and don’t mind a slow game, this experience is designed for you. While it’s missing the action-packed boss fights and open-world explorations, Nintendo’s Emio still has a lot to offer with its narrative-heavy game. Gamers who enjoy replaying games won’t find anything special here to come back to once the answer to the mystery is revealed, but the 15+ hours of gameplay with Emio: The Smiling Man is still worth a one-time experience.
It’s also in our best interest to support Nintendo’s experimentation with other genres and styles of games, so we’re all set on smiling ominously as we guide you towards playing Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club with this review. If you’re not ready to commit to the $49.99 USD game fully yet, you can give the demo a shot to understand what the visual novel format of Famicom Detective Club entails.