With ‘Emio – The Smiling Man,’ Nintendo Goes Full Serial Killer

Nowadays, Nintendo is known for its family friendly image with gaming icons like Pikachu and Mario. But that wasn’t always the case. There was a period of time in the Eighties where the Japanese developer was more amenable to adult-oriented content like Famicom Detective Club, a murder mystery adventure duology published in 1988. 

While the original games were never released outside of Japan, Nintendo remade them for Switch in 2021, bringing the series to international audiences for the first time. With over 143 million Switch consoles sold worldwide so far, it’s important for Nintendo to diversify the kinds of games it makes so it can appeal to everyone, including gory true crime fanatics.

Now, the series is getting its first new entry in 30 years called Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club and, unsurprisingly, it’s a top-notch mystery game. And while it has a compelling premise and a horrifyingly engrossing story filled with page-turning plot twists, its abrupt conclusion left me with more questions than answers.

The Smiling Man revolves around a young middle school boy found dead on the side of the road, his head covered by a paper bag mask adorned with an illustrated smile. The case is seemingly connected to ones that occurred 18 years ago, where a killer named Emio gave crying girls a smiling paper bag mask before killing them. However, it’s been dismissed as an urban legend. It’s an eerie foundation that makes the mystery even more captivating as it unfolds, bolstered by its charming cast of characters.

You play as a nameless young boy (whose moniker you can select), but the difference between him and other self-insert protagonists like in games like Persona or Pokémon, is that he actually has fully voiced lines. Instead of being a silent protagonist or simply making grunting noises and one-liners, he actually speaks with personality: kind, thoughtful, and supportive. It’s a welcome change of pace that prevents the protagonist from feeling overly generic.

This also makes conversations with other characters feel less one-sided. Junko Kuze, a hard-headed detective, has a bit of a rivalry with the protagonist, leading to some intense interactions whenever they meet up while conducting their own separate investigations. Kuze’s partner, the aloof Daisuke Kamihara, is the perfect complement to her stubbornness, and provides plenty of great comic relief. Without going into spoilers, the game also explores the theme of childhood trauma incredibly well through some enthralling backstories for its characters. Seemingly innocuous details about a person’s past end up becoming pivotal story moments, and there were a few red herrings that made me question myself every time I thought I figured out the whodunit.

The Smiling Man is a point-and-click adventure that plays out like a visual novel. The gameplay experience is reminiscent of old LucasArts text adventure games from the Nineties like Sam & Max Hit the Road and The Secret of Monkey Island. The experience is closer to reading a book rather than the traditional action-heavy play styles of games like Call of Duty or Uncharted. There’s still plenty of interaction, though. Along the way, you will inspect objects and talk to NPCs about a variety of different topics regarding the case.

There’s a sense of nostalgia, but The Smiling Man also feels approachable and easy to play rather than held back by its throwback style. That’s largely due to its great quality-of-life features, like the ability to skip dialogue you’ve already heard or set it to scroll automatically. That way you can sit back and relax with the comfort of reading at a steady, bookish pace. The game also has a notebook that continually adds new information about the characters you meet as well as the story’s progression. All of these features let you follow the story easier and keep track of its characters.

It also helps that The Smiling Man is presented well with a passionate piano-laden soundtrack and a distinctive art style. Despite the series having its roots in the Eighties, the audio ditches the old chiptune music and replaces it with modern instruments and beats, befitting the era in which these remakes are now released.

The game’s developer is famed visual novel studio Mages, who’s responsible for some of the most notable games in the genre, including the incredible time-travel adventure Steins;Gate. Characters are portrayed in 2D illustrations in front of a 3D background, and the slightly choppy character animations give it an appealing mid-tier budget feeling compared to Nintendo’s more polished franchises like The Legend of Zelda. 

But the character animations are still visually striking with bold colors. The music does a great job of intensifying the atmosphere when a plot twist happens or keeping you calm when you’re just strolling through the city. The expressive Japanese voice acting also makes conversations feel lively, but I wished there was an English dub. With The Smiling Man being a brand new entry in a retro revival series, English voice acting would have made the game more immersive for international audiences.

My biggest issue with The Smiling Man is that by the end, you’ll be left with many unanswered questions throughout the course of its 15 hours of gameplay. Due to Nintendo’s review embargo restrictions, and to preserve the surprises, there’s not much detail that can be given, but many players may feel that the storytelling experience is ultimately disjointed and could’ve been tied together more dynamically. Much of the story progression happens in unexpected info dumps, which could’ve worked better had vital revelations been interspersed throughout the story more organically.

Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is a mechanically simple game, and after reaching its conclusion once, there’s not really much replay value. Still, one playthrough is enough for its gruesome and heartbreaking mystery to leave an emotional impact. Even if I wasn’t entirely fond of The Smiling Man’s fragmented storytelling, I still walked away with a smile on my face. Thankfully, though, with no bag over my head.