100%Nintendo Switch

Wow. Can’t believe Nintendo actually made this game.
A game that will stay with you long after you’ve finished it. Gripping plot, gorgeous visuals and voice acting, some gruesome imagery that justifies the 18+ rating very well. I couldn’t put it down until the final, tragic, satisfying and horrifying conclusion. Nintendo took a big gamble here, I’m glad to say it paid off.

60%Nintendo Switch

This game was a little disappointing. I knew it was a visual novel, but I thought we would actually get to do some detective work, LA Noire style. Instead the game railroads you onto the correct path. The story isn't all that interesting either. How it came together was unexpected, but I felt like the game did a bad job of drip-feeding us clues. The first half feels like we're making no progress and it gets a little boring. It picks up in the second-half, but it never becomes great. There were also an odd amount of times where I just wasn't sure how to progress, I'd just resort to picking every possible option. That puzzle where we need to type in someone's name after seeing it a single-time doesn't really work if you can't read kanji. You're pretty much soft-locked unless you have great memory or you look it up. Overall, this game was disappointing and not worth the 50 bucks I spent on it. I will say though, props to Nintendo for advertising the shit out of a game that maybe 5 people would've bought otherwise. They should do this more often, just with better games.

80%Nintendo Switch

Sakamoto is now fully vindicated

85%Nintendo Switch

My first Famicom Detective Game I've played. Game takes a different mentality to play through, but a fun visual novel overall. The epilogue sticks the landing and makes it all worth it.

80%Nintendo Switch

Mon premier jeu du genre "visual novel". L'histoire, bien que tragique, est prenante et superbement portée par la bonne bande-son et une animation de qualité. Une bonne surprise!

80%Nintendo Switch

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2280618121
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2280618221
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2280618323
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2286428981
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2286429093
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2286429234
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2286429363

40%Nintendo Switch

It started really promising but it only gets worse as it goes on.

Positives:
𝘼𝙧𝙩 is very beautiful. It is not my preferred art style but it has an undeniable quality and charm to it. The 80s vibes also add that warm and nostalgic tone to the story, so when it begins, even though it's a murder mystery it feels very cozy.

The 𝙎𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙠 is also a banger. Such a good composition that fits very well with the time of the story and the tone.

Negatives:
𝙂𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮 is a complete chore. Instead of our usual reading this VN has you picking mini choices all the time. You have to pick options like "call", "ask", "look" all the time, and many times you have to pick the same option many times in a row or else the story doesn't go on. You have even options inside those options and it the end it all it does is break the pace and make a sloggish story feels even slower than it already is.

The 𝙋𝙡𝙤𝙩 is a complete bore. I'm sorry for those that like but I honestly cannot see how. The very little plot happens at a glacial pace. It feels like 80% of the game is padding.

No spoilers from me but I'll just say the 𝙀𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 is rushed. So much so that even if it can be somewhat of an improvement of the overall story it left a sour taste in my mouth.
After completing the game you get an 𝙀𝙥𝙞𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙪𝙚 and a 25 minutes anime to give a bigger perspective of the overall plot. It starts good and does enhance the story until you have more twist that are pretty much a case of "this happens because the plot needs it". It's so bad I think it made the story even worse.

Honestly, for me the game was a 𝟱 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝟭𝟬 until I saw the anime. The anime could have made it a little better but something happened and for me the score manages to be even lower.

Conclusion: There is a demo for it and I highly recommend you try it before giving Nintendo 50 bucks for this. Make sure you LOVE the demo before buying because even some VNs that are not high on my list I can mention much more positives than I had with this.

100%Nintendo Switch

What an experience, the narrative of this game hooked me immediately and I couldnt put it down for like 3 days straight. Sharing this experience with Gabriella was also so special for me and just a ton of fun. EMIO >< Also, what a sick birthday present.

100%Nintendo Switch

https://thekonnetwork.com/2024/09/06/famicom-detective-club-3-emio/

50%Nintendo Switch

Mildly compelling story. The payoff was quite lackluster, in my opinion. Epilogue was interesting, a real tone shift that I wish had been sprinkled throughout the rest of the story.

80%Nintendo Switch

The story is great, but the gameplay is... pretty much non-existent. You are not playing a detective, the game does everything for you. It's more like a movie where you keep pressing a button to move on. Still, it was fun.

80%Nintendo Switch

Man I really enjoyed Emio the Smiling Man. The characters are really fun and charming, and the story does a good job of making you care about them. Meanwhile the mystery takes some genuinely dark and horrifying turns. When I got to the end I just felt emotionally gutted.

Gameplay is a little dated and you end up just brute force picking every option until you progress the scene. It's better than the older games and doesn't get in the way at least.

Final Grade:

B or 8/10
12.8 Hours
9/29/2024

80%Nintendo Switch

Very engaging mystery when you give yourself over to its structure. Some excellent music and good production value. The ending is a bit disappointing, but doesn’t ruin the experience, would be much better if the info in the prologue was incorporated earlier. Still, I want to play the other FDC games now.

80%Nintendo Switch

A very good visual novel from Nintendo, which continues the saga from the NES. The most notable thing is that it has been translated into Spanish in Spain, which is appreciated because not many are translated into the language of Cervantes.
In terms of gameplay, it always takes you by the hand and there is no possibility of error, although this has not been a very negative point for me. I have enjoyed it a lot, playing one episode a day.

80%Nintendo Switch

The Famicom Detective series is a long running series of games stemming back to the NES. I have never played any of the games from that series, and I honestly don’t play many visual novel games, but I was willing to give this title a chance. What I found was a game that gripped you the moment you start, and doesn’t let go until the credits are rolling.

Visual novels pretty much live or die by the story they create, thankfully for Emio this game immediately hooks the player into its world. Emio starts off with the death of a middle school boy, whose body was found with a paper bag that has a smiley face drawn on it over his head. This triggers the police to re-open the case of a serial killer who murdered three girls 18 years ago in a similar manner, and has since become a local urban legend. The story is simply fantastic all the way through, and while it is a “whodunit” type of tale, I never knew who the culprit was. There were a couple of times I thought the game played its hand and I knew who it was, but I never figured it out until the very end. The story wouldn’t be nearly as great as it is without the characters driving it, and all of them are done very well. The dialogue that was written for these characters also deserves to be commended, outside of one (who is the “goofball” of the game), there weren’t any characters that acted like complete idiots, and their lines feel grounded and very reasonable to the situations they are in.

Being a visual novel the graphics are mostly still images, with some small bits of animation for characters occasionally moving. While there isn’t a whole lot going on visually, everything that is there looks very good, and the art is quite appealing. It is an anime artstyle, but once again it looks quite good and none of the characters look goofy or stupid given the serious tone of the game. Another high note is the music, and the tunes that play are all quite good, a special shout out to the main theme, it has a lot of spooky elements to it with its low beat, and its used in some great situations to create tension.

Emio isn’t without its faults though, being a visual novel the gameplay is mostly just selecting actions from a menu and seeing how the story continues after selecting the appropriate action. The general gameplay is mostly drab, and while the story can carry the dull gameplay, there isn’t much of a reason to come back for a second playthrough once you know how everything is going to unfold. I also thought the slight visual cues of what to select were unnecessary, and didn’t give the player a chance to figure out what to do next without a helping hand. This should be optional.

Despite me never really playing a visual novel before I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Emio the Smiling Man. The story is so damn good, and its refreshing to see Nintendo delve into some really mature, serious, and frankly fucked up scenarios that are present in this game. If any of this sounds like something that would be interesting, I definitely recommend this game, once it gets you hooked into its story, you're not pulling out until the very end…giggity giggity.

Pros:

+ Very appealing artstyle with highly detailed characters and environments
+ Really solid soundtrack
+ Incredibly mature and gripping story
+ Well written dialogue and interesting characters

Cons:

- Not much reason for a second playthrough
- The quick visual cues of which action to select next is unneeded

80%Nintendo Switch

The interactive parts of this have been thankfully improved over the last two games. The format is the same, but two things fixed a lot of issues: dialogue hints at what to do next and single location investigations. There still were a few situations where it feels like I'm exhausting every option trying to figure out what the game wants me to do, but these moments seemed to be designed that way intentionally to portray a passage of time. Overall, it's a much smoother experience.

The story this time starts out similar to the last game, The Girl Who Stands Behind. There's a murder tied to an urban legend, and it connects to a cold case. It's a serial killer story this time though which helped push this game its M rating. The writing is once again strong like the previous games. The characters and relationships are engaging, the mystery hooked me with its twists and turns, and the smaller characters I question have amusing personalities. The animation is more detailed this time around making for an even more beautiful game. The ending was a big surprise as it broke form from the rest of the game. It all comes together in a satisfying way. It's a funny, moving, thought-provoking experience.

60%Nintendo Switch

Another day, another visual novel review from the guy who has about as much collective expereince as a rookie detective on their first hit and run case.Needless to say, I am once again put in a weird position with rating this title. Emio - The Smiling Man, Or Emio for short is a legacy continuation sequel to the Famicom Detective Club series, you know those two visual novel remakes that Nintendo put out in 2021 with almost zero marketing? Yeah this was really set up for greatness right from the start. But on a more serious note, just like the two other games in the franchise, Emio is a game with a lot of different highs and lows that sadly suffers the most from its' awkward pacing. Out of the game's twelve chapters, virtually no forward momentum is made throughout the case from chapters 3-9. The game continues to flounder the spectacular premise by presenting no new information or suspects after the initial introduction of all the major players in the story. The latter half of the game is a wild goose chase, and that chase doesn't lead to anywhere meaningful or interesting until chapter 10. Even then, it's not inherently interesting, rather it simply presents new info and new questions to ask the player, which after remaining stagnant for so long can come off as a wave of refreshments. I don't want to completely dog the game though, as a lot of the writing here is top notch stuff. Especially the emotional side. This game is at its' best when it is tugging at your heart strings, playing with characters' feelings of loss and grief. No doubt helped out by some spectacular voice acting. When a character is crying, you *FEEL* that man. And my last point of contention is the ending. I don't hate the ending, but I hate how it was executed. The game sets up a situation as if the protagonist is about to finally make a huge breakthrough in the case, or discover something that will flip the entire case on its' head. But rather than any of that happening, the game just blows it's entire load all at once and goes from "I feel like something big is about to happen" to "Oh, I guess it's over now." The entire mystery and truth of the case is all revealed at once with no satisfying delivery whatsoever. It all makes perfect sense, at least for "how" everything occurred. But the "why," or the motive of the case? Yeah none of that really gets explained at all. It feels kind of defeating to know that the lamest possible outcome is the one they decided to go with. At the end of the day, Emio is still one of the most mature, heart-breaking, and subtlely creepy stories that Nintendo has ever told. Because of that, I can't *not* encourage you to give it a try, especially if you're a long-time Nintendo fan. But as a standalone story or visual novel, Emio doesn't do much to match the luster and appeal that it's original viral marketing set us up for.

90%Nintendo Switch

Interesting game, with a good story, that keeps you engaged on the mystery on who is the Smiling Man and what is his motive. However it does lull in engagement from time to time, however again when the game does get going, it gets going pretty good especially, with the post-credit content that answers many questions on who the Smiling Man is and why they did the things they did. Plus you get an even bigger surprise at the title card when you're done with that content. Furthermore, the characters have well-executed personalities and rarely feel like carboard cutouts of people dishing information to keep the story going on. Overall, a great game and a good entry into VN games, also don't be fooled by the majority of this game, it does earn that higher age rating. Hope to see another famicom detective game

100%Nintendo Switch

I play a lot of Visual Novels and most have a dark theme. This game takes your expectations and says no damn chance. There are so many twists and turns that the finale is a satisfying conclusion. Everything is revealed and makes sense. It's dark, it's traumatising.
One thing though. The German translation is really weird at times. So combining evidence can end in a wild guessing game. I don't know if the English is better. It's not game breaking and doesn't happen often. But it is noticeable.
Still, this is a must play for every detective game fan.

85%Nintendo Switch

it is a good game, story tell. the QoL also improved compare to the first one.

90%Nintendo Switch

Wait for the post-credit content!!

90%Nintendo Switch

I kinda loved this one.

85%Nintendo Switch

My first ever visual novel and wow did it not disappoint. Very heavy topics and scenes at play here but the writing of this story is top notch. Had me at the edge of my seat the whole time, I kept going, wanting to know what was gonna happen. I rarely binge games this hard but man was this one worth it. I was very emotionally invested and got my heart racing and sinking especially at the end. Probably not the best idea to finish this game at night but whatever lol. One of the best stories in a video game I've played, an amazing murder mystery that I cant believe Nintendo allowed such a dark and intense game. I was worried if the ending would be rushed but it was perfectly executed and the post credits to wrap everything up and get the full picture was nice as well. Emio The Smiling Man Famicom Detective Club is definitely the biggest surprise of 2024 for me.
8.5/10

60%Nintendo Switch

Knocked a few points off for the awful ending which also changes key points about the preceding story and ruins multiple characters and the plot.

70%Nintendo Switch

A marked improvement over the first two Famicom Detective Clubs, but still nothing mind-blowing. We still have tedious investigation mechanics with a strange and unclear UI, and we still have large swathes of meandering that undermine the structure of the mystery. But unlike the first two games, I appreciate that this time around the story is actually attempting to be about something. And I'll never say no to a secret hidden epilogue. That was a great touch.