Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club
- Game mechanics – 80%
- History – 94%
- Music – 81%
- Graphics – 81%
Summary
Visions of Mana is clearly designed to cater to the old user who saw the series born many years ago. It will give them what they are looking for in a video game full of color, attractive settings and a story whose narrative always revolves around a tree. In terms of game mechanics it also delivers, but it doesn’t try to be surprising and the class system is very entertaining. The narrative, without being extraordinary, is very direct and will give Mana fans what they are looking for.
- Genre: Visual Adventure
- Platform: Nintendo Switch
- Release: 08/29/2024
- Publisher: Nintendo
- Developer: Nintendo EPD, Mages
I know, I understand. In a world with an industry where we have all kinds of single-player games, where we have online experiences, even with virtual reality and thousands of franchises that seek to stand out every day; it is strange that someone turns to look at a visual novel. However, the success of the Nintendo Switch allowed us to remember a company that took risks, that proposed and that played with all its franchises, the Nintendo of yesteryear. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club It is the third installment in a trilogy that began more than 30 years ago (Many of us had not even been born yet).
This detective agency and its adventures had their origins in faraway Japan and it was only a couple of years ago that both installments were brought to the whole world with remakes by Mages, you and I know them for being the studio behind the successful Steins;Gate franchise (yes, Steins;Gate is a video game and not just an anime and overexploited figures of Kurisu Makise).
And even though I would like to give the details of everything I experienced throughout this narrative work, I would ruin the entire experience for those who dare to live it. Let’s start with the basics: Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club He is a mysterious figure who began killing people for no apparent reason. The curious thing is that he always leaves them with a bag on their head, a bag that smiles, which leads the victims to end their lives with a supposed happy ending.
We also recommend: Yakuza Kiwami arrives on Nintendo Switch with a release date
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is not just any game
Do you still think Nintendo is for kids?
Of course, we are facing one of the most mature plots and stories of the Japanese company and, if you still think that “Nintendo is for children”, you better not pay attention to it. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club to a minor.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club and its narrative not only explores the crimes surrounding this detective agency, but its storyline leads you to humanize and get to know its characters with a narrative mastery that we can rarely obtain from a visual novel. Likewise, it should be noted that the last hours of the game, with an approximate duration of 15 to 16 hours, will leave you with a lump in your throat due to the coldness of some of the stories that will be exposed.
If this is your first time hearing about this franchise, you’ll be pleased to know that you don’t need to play the previous two titles. Is that convenient? On a smaller scale, the narrative line really only follows the growth of the protagonists, but doesn’t reflect a drastic change in the events that occur.
Without a doubt, the fact that Mages’ studio was able to create an original script alongside Nintendo leaves us with one of the narrative works of visual novels that should be remembered alongside the best and most popular franchises of the genre, such as Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, Zero Escape and Doki Doki Literature Club.
Being so gossipy has never brought me anything good
Really speaking and being very honest, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club It doesn’t come to revolutionize the genre: The gameplay is based on reading dialogues, choosing locations, solving puzzles and following a linear narrative. The player’s options will be limited to: “Think”, which will help you know where to go, “Talk”, to be able to get the game and the clue to all those involved (even insisting and speaking up to three times), and “Interact”, which will give us the opportunity to select objects to unleash specific actions such as the meddlesome experts we will become. Of course, we are happy to admit that all these options are much better implemented than in previous games, where the limitations of being NES remakes did not allow to go further and they stuck closer to the original.
In case you’ve never explored this genre, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club It’s a nice game to start with, in the sense that the mechanics aren’t complicated and it gets straight to the point. The game is never permeated with interruptions of mechanics that are changing or evolving, or that present a challenge: It’s all about making you part of a story, getting involved with it and its characters, but it never challenges you to do more.
One more opportunity is that Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club All of the subtitles are in Castilian Spanish, with a couple of typos throughout the narrative. It’s a shame that Nintendo hasn’t yet decided to bring these games to our Spanish variant, since there are words that even as Spanish speakers will be difficult for us to decipher for the audience in Latin America.
The aesthetic aspect of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club could be considered “simple” since the visual presentation is quite rigid when it comes to the characters and their panels. However, each illustration and panel are made with great detail, giving more life to each of the characters and the events that are illustrated. We could say that it is in line with what other visual novels do and is not very proactive in that aspect.
Do you agree with the rating? Follow the conversation through our Discord.
We played Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club on Nintendo Switch with a code provided by a Nintendo representative in our region.
#Review #Emio #Smiling #Man #Famicom #Detective #Club #visual #hardcore #gamers