Release Date: August 29, 2024
The third part of a series of dark adventure games from Nintendo, launched in 1988. Emio: The Smiling Man – Famicom Detective Club has us playing as a detective's assistant. We are trying to find a killer who places paper bags with smiling faces on the heads of their victims.
Emio: The Smiling Man - Famicom Detective Club is the third installment of the series of detective adventure games titled Famicom Detective Club, launched in 1988. The game was developed by the Nintendo company.
The story told in Emio: The Smiling Man – Famicom Detective Club was overseen by Yoshio Sakamoto, the author of the scripts for the two previous parts of the series - The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind. The titular Smiling Man is an anti-hero from a fictional urban legend who killed his victims and placed paper bags with a drawing of a smiling face on their heads.
When a body of a dead student is found, treated in the same way by an unknown killer, the Utsugi detective agency steps into action, specifically - the main character who is the assistant to the private detective, Shunsuke Utsugi. Our task is to investigate potential links between this murder and a series of unsolved murders from 18 years ago, and consequently - to discover the identity of the perpetrator.
Apart from the protagonist and their patron, during the game we meet other characters known from earlier parts of the series, led by Ayumi Tachibana (over whom we can also occasionally take direct control).
The gameplay in Emio: The Smiling Man - Famicom Detective Club is based on the pillars established by the two previous installments of the series. We must conduct a detailed investigation, which leads us through various locations. During the game we examine crime scenes and collect evidence, as well as conduct conversations with characters who are often a source of valuable clues.
The graphic design of Emio: The Smiling Man – Famicom Detective Club is maintained in a manga style.
Platforms:
Nintendo Switch
Game Ratings for Emio: The Smiling Man - Famicom Detective Club Video Game.
Eurogamer: 3 / 5 by Lottie Lynn
Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is a successful homage to the venerable series, which tells an enticing story despite its repetitive nature.
NintendoWorldReport: 3 / 10 by Xander Morningstar
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.
Daily Mirror: 4 / 5 by Aaron Potter
In the end, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club successfully bridges the gap between classic and modern visual novel formats with ease. Because while, on the surface, it appears to share a lot in common with the revitalised Famicom Detective Club duology for Nintendo Switch from a few years back, there’s also some slightly new changes made to its mechanics and presentation that makes it ripe for relative newcomers to the genre. While it’s true that some lines of enquiry outstay their welcome and the correct dialogue action isn’t always made blatantly evident, the story of “Who is Emio?” didn’t disappoint me by the time the final credits rolled.
![[1:21] - What Lies in the Past Trailer](https://cdn.gracza.pl/galeria/filmy/640x360/-1867911453.jpg)
