Main game
3.87 average rating based on 39 ratings
I was hyped asf because of Emio and I´m actually happy that all the hype was worth it, I was a bit worried at first but I can confirm this is indeed a mature games with many sensitive themes I won´t talk about because spoilers. Best FDC game so far: Best story, best characters, best mystery, best visuals, best pacing, etc. I was wondering how they were going to make this game, if they were going to follow the same old game mechanics or they were going to modernize it so it could be played as a standard VN and yeah they opted using the same game mechanics from the previous game, I thought that could slow down the game but it didin´t.
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 …
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.
I had high hopes for this after enjoying The Missing Heir when I played it last year. But after playing some of the first chapter it really feels like they deliberately tried to recreate the irritating mechanic where you need to select every dialogue option multiple times that I assumed was a vestige from the original NES game in the remakes. You also often need to hit the "Think" button before being able to advance the dialogue with an NPC so your player character can repeat everything he's just learned to himself in case you were asleep the first time.
It's really disappointing.
The writing seems solid, but I was expecting something that didn't feel trapped by its roots. And with it being as expensive as it is, it's kind of a tough sell for me.
I kinda wanna try this game out since it looks really cool, but also, I'm a very eepy girl and I'm 99% sure I'll fall asleep if I actually try to play through a visual novel.
Just want to evangelize about Emio -- The Smiling Man since virtually no major gaming site reviewed it. It's fantastic. If you love thematically rich storytelling, it goes so much deeper than its trope serial killer story implies. Goes in a totally unexpected direction that pays off if you're down to engage with that it's saying. If you're a visual novel person, don't sleep on it!
Thoughts here: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/emio-the-smiling-man-famicom-detective-club-review/
After playing this demo, you can call me Georgeypoorgey - The Ambivalent Man!