As a newcomer to the world of visual novels I was excited to give the latest Nintendo exclusive a try when it landed on my desk. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club made a bit of a splash when it was first teased a few weeks ago due to its scary vibes and the reveal of high age ratings the world over, both oddities for Nintendo.

I’ve long mentioned in many reviews over the years that new games in a series or genre need to do two important things to be successful: give long time fans something to enjoy so they remain fans, and give newcomers something to latch onto so they can become fans.

I fall into that latter category and, even if you don’t believe in that little axiom of mine, it’s always good to have some fresh eyes on anything long running. Famicom Detective Club actually dates back all the way to the 80s with titles on, you guessed it, the Famicom, so there is a lot of lineage I would be walking blind into.

And before we get any further I am just going to refer to this game as “Emio” for the sake of simplicity. That title is just too long for its own good.

“Junior high school student Eisuke Sasaki has been found dead in a chilling fashion, with a smiley-faced paper bag over his head. This unsettling visage bears a striking resemblance to a recurring clue in a string of unsolved murders from 18 years ago – as well as the urban legend Emio, aka the Smiling Man, a serial killer said to grant his victims ‘a smile that will last forever’,” reads the official synopsis.

“Does the Smiling Man really exist…or is a new culprit continuing on his legacy? As a member of the Utsugi Detective Agency, you’ve been tasked with investigating the events that led to Eisuke Sasaki’s death. Along the way, scrutinise the clues and testimonies you gather for potential connections to the gruesome events of the past.”

With that in mind I won’t be spoiling anything in this game, so you can go in blind like I did.

Booting up the game for the first time and I get to give the protagonist a name. The protagonist is a 19 year old detective at the Utsugi Detective Agency and we will see most of the game from his point of view. We start immediately at the crime scene of Eisuke Sasaki with no tutorial.

Emio uses a text-based interface for players to interact with the world. Your options, with some exceptions, include the following: Call / Engage, Ask / Listen, Look / Examine, Show, Use Phone, Think, Open Notebook and Save / Quit Investigation.

During certain scenes, new options will pop up. Such as “Take” or “Travel” with the latter usually appearing when it’s time for the player to move to a new area.

Emio has a very mixed first impression. The presentation, with its pleasant graphical style and upbeat music, doesn’t really fit with the murder mystery plot of the game. It feels like I’m looking at and playing a dating sim more than anything most of the time. Some may say that this is intentional to create contrast – the idyllic every day life against the horror of a child murder – but that doesn’t really bear out.

As the game is so simple a tutorial wasn’t really needed, but I did feel frustration in the opening bit of the game. As I played more I realised that this wasn’t me being unfamiliar with how the game plays, but rather the weird and unintuitive way Emio works.

Here’s an example that takes place in almost every single minute of gameplay: your main way of interacting with NPCs in this game is with the Ask / Listen command. You bring this up, choose a topic to talk about, and the NPC will likely comment on that topic. Great. The problem is the endless and unnecessary pauses in this system.

If, in this example, the NPC has five sentences to say about the topic, it will require that the player pushes the interact button five times. Why? Why is it made this way? Why break one single thought into so many splintered pieces of dialogue?

It truly feels like the developers did this to artificially increase player engagement. Presenting all the relevant dialogue all at once would have players “interacting” less with the game. Why not rewrite the script to be more succinct in that case?

This gets even more annoying when you need to force the player character to “think”. Sorry but I really don’t believe that thinking is a gameplay mechanic. Inside of the game this is presented, usually, as inner dialogue where the player character is essentially speaking to the player. Fine, sure, but why tie this to advancements in the dialogue and other puzzles? Surely the player should be thinking on their own and then acting on those thoughts, without the need for a dedicated button?

The deeper I got into Emio’s mechanics, the more frustration I found. Why is the notebook, an essential piece of evidence gathering, suddenly inaccessible at certain times? Why aren’t character portraits assigned next to NPC names in that notebook so I can more quickly reference information? Why does the “think” command often times make my character speak? Why do NPCs need to be needled a random number of times on a subject, with no change, before they progress to a new piece of dialogue?

There’s many more nitpicks I have, and they are made more infuriating by the moon logic this game uses. This happens often in the “Review” section of the game, which mostly happens at the end of chapters. The Review usually has the player character and other NPCs go over evidence and the day’s findings to progress the case.

Most of it is straightforward, but the game throws dumb curveballs that make no sense. At one point a character continually told me they were worried about something, and when an NPC in the review asked if that character was worried about anything, I told them.

ERR! Wrong! What the game was really asking me is what type of vehicle that character drives.

At this point many may say that my frustrations with mechanics are due to unfamiliarity with the genre, and the logic problems may stem from localisation issues (the game’s characters are all voiced in Japanese) or, again, from unfamiliarity of how I shoulder approach and interact with this game.

Even if that is the case, it still results in a game that I was not looking forward to playing. It doesn’t help that it’s also excruciatingly slow in revealing the story too. This reeks of a modern TV show that putters along for 10 episodes of its season and only gets juicy in the last couple of episodes.

The only real solace I found in the game was its setting. Emio is set in the real life Japan and it makes for a great little get away to see the country inside of the game. When I reviewed the Teal Mask DLC for Scarlet and Violet I mentioned that it felt like returning to Japan through the lens of a Pokémon game. In Emio, this is just outright Japan, and it’s always fun to explore such a different country with all its eccentricities and cultural differences.

This feeling of fun just from existing in the world is why many may like this game or visual novels in general, but it cannot carry an entire game. I really hate to say this, but I can get that same experience from watching TV or a movie based on the same subject matter. I can also get a much better story by reading a novel or manga, and I can have way more fun playing a more interactive game. All of that leads me to asking: why play this at all?

All of my problems with Emio could have been forgiven if this was a lower priced indie title, but that simply isn’t the case. The cheapest way you’re playing this game is with the digital version from the eShop clocking in at R929. Those who want a a physical version will be paying more too, with the local Nintendo store asking for R1 099.

With several demos available for free right now, you can get a taste of Emio without paying to decide for yourself. After the release of one of these demos I scouted out sentiment on some forums and found people enjoying what is on offer here, so I am fully aware that there is something for a certain audience to enjoy.

Unfortunately my final thoughts on Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is of a game that has very little to offer me and I’m not sure it will work as a way to bring in new fans.

I do want to acknowledge, however, that many early reviews for the game and fan feedback from the demos have been overwhelmingly positive, so it seems we have a real Marmite situation on our hands . This wasn’t for me but if it is for you, please enjoy.

FINAL SCORE: 5 OUT OF 10.