Topic: Emio-The Smiling Man: Famicon Detective Club

@Scooby-Doo I originally planned to grab it for around September myself but guess who just got a collection announced for that exact month XD

I really liked what I played of the demo though; it set up a very intriguing mystery, the puzzles were interesting (if a tad bit clunky) and the visual style was gorgeous. Definitely on my priority list for next year alongside FDC.

also when you lay it all out like this (Famicom Detective Club 3, Another Code Recollection and collections for both Apollo Justice and AA Investigations), 2024's been a pretty banger year for adventure games, hasn't it?

@Fizza Certainly has. Still haven't finished some from last year, too. It's a shame, though, they seem to have forgotten completely about the FDC game on the Satellaview, from what they were saying in the information given. I didn't really expect otherwise.

@Fizza Capcom choosing to release 2 AA collections in 1 year was very surprising, maybe they're preparing for a new game?

I've been seeing a lot of people complain that the teaser was "misleading"--it wasn't by the way, it did exactly what it needed to--and for my take it just seems like people are angry that Nintendo suckered them into getting excited for a point-and-click visual novel and that's hilarious to me

"how DARE they get me anticipating a form of adventure game that I've never played before"

https://www.esrb.org/ratings/39986/emio-the-smiling-man-famic...
ERSB rating came out, our lovely Nintendo Life staff kindly let us know about this. Wow, the plot points are heavy. Definitely didnt expect this. However i love dark stories so this may just be for me :3 im gonna wait to preorder it after another trailer showing more gameplay comes out, cause we technically dont know much. the art style looks so fire thoo. definitely excited for this!!

DEMO FEATURING FIRST THREE CHAPTERS OUT AUGUST 20th (CH. 1) AUGUST 23rd (CH. 2) and AUGUST 28th (CH. 3) !! AHHHH PLUS NEW TRAILER THIS HONESTLY LOOKS AWESOME THIS MAY BE DAY ONE 4 ME CANT WAIT FOR OVERVIEW TRAILER !!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J-FVzcBhx4s

I played a good bit of the demo, and it hasn't really gripped me so far. I genuinely have no clue as to why, since I don't dislike visual novels. I don't know if it's the story entirely or if it's the way that the gameplay functions, but it doesn't really feel like you have to solve anything yet. It's moreso just collecting information and then being tested on it at the end of the chapters.

Right, so I've just finished the game after a few gaming sessions, here are my thoughts:

• I feel that the game is just the right length to not overstay its welcome, although it does spin its wheels at times which will be too much for some people.
• The game has dark moments, but not as many as the teaser may have alluded to and most are reserved towards the end, (they are very good though when they do happen).
• The final chapter arrives abruptly, (I thought there'd be a few more chapters at the point I was at) and it feels like there are plot threads still unresolved however, these are all then revealed in an after credits epilogue, which is great don't get me wrong, but this could and probably should have been incorporated into the main game. The story told in the animated cutscene is dark, tragic and I really enjoyed it, it's just a shame it was all dumped at the end
• The game has a lot of going back and forth between actions, so for example you will have 'ask about x person,' 'ask about y person' and 'observations.' You exhaust one dialogue tree, get stuck and then go back to previous options that you had already exhausted prior and new lines of dialogue have been unlocked. Sometimes you will have to use the 'look' option and will have to click on a person's face, (not their body, even though the name of where you're selecting doesn't change).
  I don't feel that this was handled well, (other than brief yellow flashes on text you don't get much direction, which I guess is where the 'think' option comes in, but sometimes even that can be vague). As I'd played visual novels before, the whole 'click every option until something happens' works. This continues for the entire game, with one clever variation of this that I won't spoil happening towards the end.
• Like all media that finishes strong, the final chapter and ending bump up the score of this for me, but getting to that point can be a bit of a drag and a lot of people will likely drop the game before that point.
• As far as visual novels go I've been spoilt by the Phoenix Wright series and also 428: Shibuya Scramble, both of which are much better. Phoenix Wright I feel is more engaging to play and more exciting throughout as the pieces come together, Emio is competent but does stumble.

I'd agree with the Nintendolife score of 7/10, as I feel that's about as high as I'd rate it. Enjoyable but clunky and a bit slow at times. I should probably also add for context that I have not played the previous games, (waiting for a localised physical), so I'm not sure how this one holds up compared to those two. From what I could tell, there were a couple of references to the previous games, but nothing that makes them essential to play before this one.

Having finished this game yesterday I thought I'd share some thoughts -

Generally I love these games, and I'm truly glad Nintendo revived the previous ones AND decided to continue the series! Actually there's one more game to unearth, I learned yesterday: They released an exclusive entry for the Satellaview SNES addon, back then.

So, style of game, artwork, music, it's all really good.

Gameplay: You have to accept that you're barely playing, it's primarily a novel. And the interaction you have feels very arbitrary and random, you cycle through 3-4 commands until all the dialog appears. That's something that needs updating, at least the distinction between the commands should be clearer.

Now for the story - I'm not actually spoiling anything, just discussing the vibe after finishing:

I wonder why the story had to turn out quite so bleak. I'm not even talking about the gory moments, rather the plot events and particularly the backstory - it's really devastating. Usually you are offered a silver lining or something, but here it just leaves you like 'ooof'. It's WAY darker than the previous 2 games and I wonder what sparked this. I'm glad my girlfriend ended up not joining in for most of this game, because I know she'd have been upset.

What do you think?