Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club pulls you in with a sinister murder, then keeps you on edge as it weaves together a web of secrets. A young boy is found dead, his tragic fate somehow tied to an unsolved mystery from nearly two decades ago — and an eerie urban legend about a killer who hides behind a paper bag, a crude smile drawn across it. The narrative darkens as you dig deeper, delivering just enough clues to make your skin crawl as you approach its chilling conclusion, though its conclusion leaves something to be desired.
What is Emio?
In Emio, you play as an assistant detective for Utsugi Detective Agency. You’re trying to solve the murder case by interrogating witnesses and canvassing crime scenes. The protagonist appears as a 19-year-old boy, but you sometimes play as your colleague Ayumi Tachibana who is working on the case with you.
I previewed Emio recently and was drawn in by the intriguing story, so was psyched to review the full game. Straight away, I loved that the game recognised my saved data from the demo, saving on time and repetition.
Helpful Features
After recently reviewing Ace Attorney, a similar investigative game, it took a minute to adjust to Emio’s simplicity. Players are presented with a relatively simple menu… Or is it? I found myself repeating certain steps again and again, which got frustrating. However, it is exactly what you’re meant to do to uncover new revelations and progress the game. As you select the right option, it’ll unlock more dialogue, other actions, and/or other areas or people to chat with.
I incorrectly mentioned in my preview that you can’t autoplay dialogue – turns out you can, by pressing Y. You can also skip dialogue with L1, but be warned – you can miss whole sections if you hold it too long. If you accidentally end up doing this, you can mercifully review dialogue history by pressing X. You can remove the dialogue box completely by pressing B, to enjoy the many lovely scenes the game offers.
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Throughout your investigation, you’ll survey areas that are bigger than they appear. To navigate them, use Look / Examine and select Surroundings. This took me a bit of time to work out as it wasn’t covered in a tutorial. Similarly, Call / Engage allows you to switch your focus between different characters. It doesn’t happen too often but it’s good to know, so thought I’d save you some button pushes!
Read and Review
Emio also has a Review feature, where you have to go through your case findings periodically with your colleagues. I loved this feature as it nicely recapped the story given there is a lot of reading. Make sure you review your Notebook before this to get across the details, as you’ll have questions to answer. Getting them wrong is fine though as there are no penalties. You may get a light reprimand from other characters though.
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Sometimes you’re asked to input text into an answer box, which I found could be a challenge if you didn’t know the correct answer as the game doesn’t allow you to check your Notebook again during this phase. This means you’ll have to stumble through until you get it right (or look up a walkthrough).
I’d recommend playing with the sound on, to enjoy the anime-like experience and the various cutscene moments, like the one below, which really make the game pop.
Dark, Mature Themes
Emio has a gripping story, overall paced quite well to keep the story interesting as you uncover more. Towards the end — especially at the end — the themes get darker but you get enough hints at where it’s going. I will avoid saying more for spoilers, but you can expect mentions of suicide, murder, and other mature-age content. It’s definitely worth the M rating, but it’s not strictly horror (thank God).
There was also more to the story after the credits which had me pleasantly surprised. It felt less like a game in this section though, but added sufficiently to the darker themes. It was gorier than I expected too, but then again, I’m a little weaksauce when it comes to this stuff.
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Anime or Video Game?
The artwork in Emio is stunning. Players are treated to some brilliantly coloured and animated scenes that jump straight from an anime, making the game fun to look at. It also makes complete sense why they allow you to remove the clunky dialogue box and take some lovely screenshots, like the one I took below. It’s the kind I’d love for my PC wallpaper.
The characters are mostly likeable and endearing, with great voice acting which added to the production value. The tone of the game is more serious, and avoids the corniness I encountered in Ace Attorney, which is more lighthearted. I also felt sufficiently creeped out while playing thanks to the game’s soundtrack, and regretted playing it late at night when the story started getting heavier.
Challenging Investigation
Further down the line, the investigation gets harder as you have to travel to multiple locations and speak to different people. There’s more to choose from which keeps you repeating a lot of the actions again, but you’ll hopefully have gotten the hang of it like I did and understand which prompts are needed. There were times when it did get a bit frustrating, but who doesn’t enjoy a little challenge?
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As someone who’s never played a Famicom Detective Club game before, I found it lacking given it’s described as an adventure video game. I think the game could benefit from some puzzles laced through it, rather than a choose-your-own-adventure-type visual novel (although your selections don’t impact the storyline).
Should I give Emio a go?
Emio presents an intriguing mystery, full of twists and turns. While it was overall paced really well, it did feel a bit rushed towards the last chapter to wrap everything up, and a couple of plot lines didn’t get closure from my perspective.
It’s also very much an interactive story adventure, and didn’t take me long to clear, which makes me question the hefty price given the length. However, I was stuck to it till the end and didn’t need much convincing to see it through.
So I’m going to give a neutral answer here – if you have the funds, enjoy a good point-and-click, and a good mystery, then go for it. You can buy Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club today from the Nintendo eShop or select retailers.
Quest Daily scores Emio – The Smiling Man:
7.5/10
A copy of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this review.
