ShareThis
Incredibly engaging narrative that touches on difficult, shocking subject matter that I wouldn't expect from a Nintendo game; fantastic soundtrack and voice work; very strong post-game content
Gameplay that's simple to the point of being repetitive; a number of bugs and glitches encountered throughout the game; uneven pacing
I’m not really sure how to start this review. I suppose the best place is with what my expectations were going into Emio — The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. I’d never played a visual novel before this, and the trailer for the game made it seem like it would be a good mix of Phoenix Wright (which I have played) with some horror elements. This game wound up being one of the most gut wrenching, tragic, disturbing stories I’ve either read, played, or watched, and as I sit here writing this minutes after finishing the game, I’m feeling a mixture of both intense sadness while also feeling glad I’ve experienced such a unique game. As the first new entry in the Famicom Detective Club series in 35 years, it has me looking forward to what other stories we can expect from this franchise in the future.
From this point on, this review will have spoilers. It’s difficult for me to communicate the impact of this game and its narrative without diving into critical story elements.
You don’t have to have played the other games in this series to understand what’s going on in Emio. Brief (and few) references are made to characters or past events from those games, but are written in a way that makes them easy to follow by new players like myself. Gameplay is simple and the narrative is linear. The story begins with a murder: a teenage boy is found strangled to death in a remote area with a paper bag over his head. The bag has a crude smiley face drawn onto it; he appears to have been strangled with a rope. You, the protagonist (who you can name whatever you want — I named him Kazuma Kiryu after the main protagonist of the Yakuza series), are a junior detective with the Utsugi Detective Agency. You and your boss, Shunsuke Utsugi, make your way to the crime scene to investigate alongside the police department.
At this point, the player is immediately introduced to the game’s mechanics. A menu appears on the left side of the screen with myriad options to do things like observe the environment, question people, flag down people in the area, think about what you’ve observed, etc. Eventually, the player receives a cell phone, which you’ll use from time to time to contact other characters. You have a notebook, which is automatically filled with key details about suspects, friends, victims, and other significant people as you receive them. The end of most chapters concludes with the protagonist returning to the office with his partner, Ayumi Tachibana, to compare and review notes from the day’s investigation. Some chapters are from the protagonist’s point of view while others are played from Ayumi’s.
From a technical standpoint, Emio is solid but not perfect. I encountered a bug in one of the early chapters that prevented me from moving forward — all menu options became unresponsive when I clicked on them — so I had to save, quit, and restart to get the game going again. I at least never encountered that particular bug again, but I did experience others, like the cursor skipping over menu options. In one instance, I pressed A to progress the text and the text box disappeared, leaving the person I was speaking with on screen and the background music playing, but nothing happening. I pressed A again and the text box came back up with the text I’d last read; pressing A again fixed the issue and I continued on, but it was a weird glitch.
As this is a game centered around investigation, Emio doesn’t want to make things too obvious, but the way forward can be a bit too vague at times. There were a couple of instances where I’d run out of things to ask the person I was questioning and hitting the “Think” option to consider my next course of action wasn’t yielding any new thoughts, but what I was supposed to do next wasn’t at all clear. It was only by exhausting every single option, even the ones I didn’t think made sense in context, that it became clear how to progress forward. But by and large, most of the game is just spamming the “Ask/Listen” option and paying attention to when certain menu options glow yellow, indicating that those should be the player’s next choices.
The game’s pacing suffers a bit from too much inane chatter and banter between the protagonists and allies. There are times where it’s handled very well, like when the player sits down at a bar to speak with the owner, and the small talk seamlessly and rapidly turns into an incredibly important conversation. Then there are others where you really want the conversation to be over because it’s pointless and doesn’t drive the story forward at all. Some chapters drag while others suddenly step on the gas and you need to know what happens next.
While the chapters are long, they’re set to the game’s fantastic soundtrack, which ranges from upbeat and cheerful to eerie, unsettling, and ambient. The art style is also really nice, with beautifully-drawn environments and character animations that bring these 2D characters to life. It also helps that they’re all fully voiced in Japanese, with great performances from the cast.
Emio is not a difficult game, but I don’t think it’s intended to be. In fact, the main focus of this game is the story — it is a visual novel, after all — and it absolutely has something to say.
The narrative is centered on abuse of all kinds and the lasting impact it has on both the victim and the people closest to them. What starts as a crime procedural with some light horror/supernatural elements mixed in starts to become a much, much more serious story by the final few chapters and rapidly takes a darker turn than any I could’ve predicted.
The investigation into the murdered boy causes both the police and the detective agency to realize the case’s connection to a string of unsolved murders of three teenage girls from 18 years prior. They were all strangled to death and found with paper bags over their heads, crude smiley faces drawn onto the bags. The protagonists then become aware of the urban legend of Emio, The Smiling Man, who appears before crying girls and offers to give them a smile that will last forever. If the girls scream or try to flee, he strangles them to death and puts those paper bags over their heads, but if they laugh, he goes away. The protagonists realize the urban legend is likely real, which triggers an investigation that takes countless twists and turns — but also hits close to home.
One of the lead detectives on the case has a brother who went missing at the same time of the girls’ murders. It was a life-changing event that set her on the path of becoming a police officer, in part to use the resources of the department to help find him. It’s then revealed that she has a personal connection to Emio and that she’s emotionally compromised, which is impacting the investigation. By the game’s final chapter, she’s become totally reckless and myopic, leading to a deadly situation which she rapidly loses control of.
The last few chapters of Emio left me genuinely shocked; the only other time I can remember being this surprised by the darkness of a game’s narrative was when I reached the climax of Alice: Madness Returns, another game which centers around abuse and horrific crimes. This game touches on a lot of troubling subjects: immense pressure on Japanese students to get into top-performing high schools and the suicidal thoughts that come with failure; vulnerable, neglected teenage girls who fall prey to perverted men; alcoholism and severe child abuse; divorce and broken homes; people who can intervene in cases of abuse who instead choose to turn a blind eye; patricide; self-mutilation; mental illness; and permanent psychiatric issues which stem from severe childhood trauma and physical and mental abuse. What left an even greater impression was seeing how Nintendo didn’t dance around the issues, but dove head-first into them. The only time the writing was a bit vague was when one character described experiencing sexual abuse at the age of 17, which is strongly implied through her language but not explicitly stated. Otherwise, between the graphic violence and the writing, the narrative leaves no room for confusion.
I was surprised when the game came to a close, the end credits finished rolling, and a post-game epilogue unlocked. It’s not very long, maybe about an hour or so, and consists of some gameplay and a short anime depicting important backstory events, which tie up loose ends and mysteries left unresolved at the end of Emio. Utsugi warns the protagonist that it’s “dark, heavy stuff” and to only give him a call to discuss it when he’s ready. The game’s most disturbing content is in this extra chapter, so it actually felt like the warning was meant as much for the player as it was the protagonist. However, it was extremely strong and I highly recommend playing it.
The tragedy of Emio isn’t just in the lives lost to an unhinged murderer, but the lives destroyed by abuse. The game specifically focuses on and calls out the impact of such abuse on children by parents and trusted adults, with one of the final lines of the game noting how parents often forget how difficult life can be for a child. Many of us look back to the ease and carelessness of childhood with nostalgia and longing for a time when we weren’t burdened with adult responsibilities and stressors. But children are too often burdened by the consequences of parents who are either overbearing, neglectful, violent, inattentive, or ineffective. And Emio chose to shine a spotlight on that.
Don’t go into Emio expecting either a long game or a super polished gameplay experience. The story is around 12 hours to complete and, as I mentioned above, there were some bugs and some minor gameplay frustrations. But do give it a chance if you enjoy strong narratives that keep you on the edge of your seat and have an interest in the macabre. Emio’s M-rating is well deserved and I wouldn’t recommend giving this to an adult who is uncomfortable with graphic violence or explicit depictions of abuse, especially towards children. But if you’re ok with the subject matter, check out Emio even if you’ve never experienced a visual novel before. I’m glad I did.
Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard criteria.
