Our Verdict
Emio - The Smiling Man is both a great continuation of the classic Famicom Detective Club series, and a strong standalone visual novel. It may not be for everyone, but its twisting narrative, vibrant characters, and thoughtful gameplay systems make it a treat for new and returning fans alike.
I’ll admit, I’ve never played a Famicom Detective Club game before – neither the originals, nor the recent remakes. However, as a big fan of horror games, visual novel games, and detective games, I had no doubt that they would be right up my street. As such, when the opportunity to take on this Emio – The Smiling Man review arose, I was only too eager to hop on the case.
I’ll refrain from revealing any spoilers in this review as, naturally, it’s an entirely story-driven game, meaning it’s best experienced firsthand with little to no prior knowledge of the case, but I’ll start with a brief overview of the narrative. Despite not playing the previous games in the series, I had no issues picking up the story here. However, I do want to highlight that this game contains scenes and topics that some may find distressing, including suicide, violence, and blood, so please keep that in mind before you try it out for yourself.
Following on from the previous Famicom Detective Club games, Emio – The Smiling Man follows three private investigators from Utsugi Detective Agency. There’s the hardworking, unnamed protagonist and his colleague Ayumi Tachibana, both of whom are 19-year-old assistant detectives, along with their boss Shunsuke Utsugi, an experienced 40-year-old private investigator and director of the agency.
Police inspector Kimiharu Kamada reaches out to the Utsugi Detective Agency to request assistance on a suspected murder case, in which the body of a 15-year-old junior high student called Eisuke Sasaki was found near a remote pump station. His apparent cause of death was asphyxiation with a rope-like object. But, of course, that’s not all – when police discovered his body, they found that the victim had a brown paper bag over his head with a crudely drawn smiley face on the front.
It turns out that this case isn’t one-of-a-kind, either. Eighteen years ago, there was a string of unsolved serial murders, where the bodies of three high school girls were also found strangled, each with a paper bag over their heads sporting that same smiley face.
These murders draw a parallel with the famous urban legend of Emio, otherwise known as The Smiling Man. In this legend, the Smiling Man appears in front of crying girls, wearing a paper bag with a smiley face over his head. He tells the girl that they don’t need to cry anymore because he’ll give them a smile that will last forever – then he murders them, leaving the victims with the same type of paper bag on their heads, smiley face and all. Yes, that’s a lot of paper bags.
But how do the urban legend, the murders from 18 years ago, and Eisuke’s case line up? Is it the same killer? If so, why is he returning now? Why a boy, when both the urban legend and the previous murders focus on female victims? Well, that’s up to you to find out. Switching between the unnamed protagonist and Ayumi at different points, you must investigate locations, question subjects, witnesses, and other individuals, and put together the pieces of the puzzle before the Smiling Man strikes again.
It’s an intriguing story with elements that draw on both real-life and fictional cases I’ve heard in the past, making it pretty grounded for the most part while still maintaining an otherworldly air. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you on your toes, and the suspense really picks up in the latter half of the game, sucking you in and providing you with an odd sense of accomplishment when you manage to piece things together and connect the dots.
Both the overall narrative and the climax of the story certainly have their faults, but it gripped me nonetheless, evoking that ‘just one more page’ feeling that I get from a good book. And, when I finally cracked the case and saw the credits roll, the game had one more surprise for me, beckoning me back in for another round, which was a very pleasant surprise.
Now, onto the gameplay. Emio – The Smiling Man is very much a visual novel with some point-and-click game elements. While it’s a bit more involved than some visual novels I’ve played in the past, don’t go into it expecting a free-roaming detective adventure game – it’s all about the story, and all of the tools at your disposal only serve to progress that story further.
Between the dialog sections, you have access to a command box with options such as ‘call/engage’, ‘ask/listen’, ‘look/examine’, ‘use phone’, ‘think’, and ‘open notebook’. You can use ‘look/examine’ to inspect your surroundings and other characters, ‘think’ to have your character ponder what to do next, and, of course, ‘call/engage’ and ‘ask/listen’ to talk to other characters.
Generally, the gameplay loop places you in a location with an objective, such as finding out more about a specific topic or meeting up with a certain character, then gives you a little free reign. While most situations point you in the right direction via context clues, dialog hints, or highlighted terms and phrases, sometimes it’s not entirely clear what action you need to perform to progress. This doesn’t mean it’s challenging, though – in fact, Emio – The Smiling Man is a very easy game – it just means that sometimes you have to repeatedly cycle through several commands or dialog options until you get the desired outcome.
On the plus side, this does sometimes result in you catching little dialog lines and pieces of information that aren’t necessarily related to the case, but help flesh out the characters and world further. Also, having to repeatedly prod and try different approaches when questioning an interviewee does make sense in a way, as a lot of these characters are talking about difficult topics. I mean, I’m sure real detectives have to ask the same thing over and over sometimes, too.
The characters are quite varied, and offer a brilliant level of depth. From the charming police detective Daisuke Kamihara to the friendly ‘aunty’ in leopard print that you meet on the street, each one has their own quirks and unique personality. This is undoubtedly enhanced by the brilliant Japanese voice acting, polished English text translation, and animated 2D sprites that never fail to reflect each character’s emotions perfectly.
Additionally, while a lot of the subject matter is quite dark, Emio – The Smiling Man does a great job of injecting some humor and plenty of charm into different situations, which helps provide relief from the heavy plot while also building up a sense of camaraderie between the characters at the story’s core. This also allows for a few red herrings along the way to keep you guessing.
Every time you meet a new character or uncover a new piece of information, you automatically add it to your notebook. The notebook is perhaps one of the clearest and most well-executed that I’ve seen in a game like this, featuring profiles for every character including a photo, full name and age, and just about every little detail you hear about them. The most important details are also underlined in red, making it easier for you to pick out key information.
If that isn’t enough, there’s also a review system, where the unnamed protagonist and Ayumi meet up and go over their notes. During a review, your character makes a statement with a missing word, and the game prompts you to fill in the blank. From here, the game either gives you a list of options to choose between, opens your notebook and asks you to select a character profile or piece of information, or invokes the Switch’s virtual keyboard and has you type out the answer. The latter may sound a little intimidating, but it’s usually a one-word answer that you’ll definitely remember if you’ve been paying attention.
If you’re looking for a challenge to test your detective skills, you won’t find it here. There are no failstates, and if you get an answer wrong, one of the characters will simply correct you with no further input required. As such, the review system is less of a test and more of a recap to ensure that you’re synthesizing all the information and picking up on the key parts of the case.
The controls in Emio – The Smiling Man are overall very intuitive and easy to grasp, with the added bonus of a graphic showing the button layout when you hit the + button. There are auto and skip modes to help you get through the dialog faster or with minimal input, a force skip where you can fast forward through scenes, and a text log where you can reread dialog and even replay voice lines. There’s also the option to hide the text log so you can get a good look at the art behind, which I really appreciate – especially because the text boxes sometimes cover characters’ faces and important visual details.
However, I do feel that neglecting touchscreen controls is a bit of an oversight, especially when in the point-and-click ‘look/examine’ mode, as, while controlling the cursor with the joystick isn’t too bad in this game, it lacks accuracy when it comes to smaller details in handheld mode, and being able to tap on the screen would be much easier.
That’s a small gripe, though, as the joystick-controlled cursor is better here than in other games I’ve played – it moves at a comfortable speed, stands out against the background, and the pop-up that appears when you hover over a person or interactable object is clear and easy to see.
Another nice detail is that Emio – The Smiling Man not only offers multiple autosave slots with a reliable autosave system, but also boasts multiple manual save slots. And, when you open the game and load a save, it also gives you the option to view a recap of the story so far, which is great if you take a break from the game but don’t want to start over (or for those of us with a terrible memory).
Visually, Emio – The Smiling Man maintains a nice level of cohesion, conveying that modernized classic feel well. The aforementioned animated character sprites are simple, with bold colors and a classic anime art style, but still ooze a lot of personality. On top of this, the environmental art is gorgeous, with many beautiful, sunny landscapes for you to explore that contrast perfectly with the dark, eerie settings and creepy flashbacks, making them feel all the more impactful. In a way, the art actually reminds me of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, with relatively simplistic characters in front of highly detailed environments making for a pretty striking visual style.
Beyond that, the menus are simple and bold, capturing the ‘retro’ feel from the original games, and everything scales well in both docked and handheld modes. Additionally, due to it being a pretty simple game in function, it runs very smoothly on the Switch, with quick load times and no stutter or lag. As such, the flexibility of the Switch makes it the perfect platform for this game, and I especially loved having the portability as an option when I wanted to sneak in one more chapter before bed.
At a rough guess, I would say that Emio – The Smiling Man will take completionists around ten to 15 hours to beat. For those of you who focus only on main objectives (or use a guide to blast through everything) it will likely be a much shorter ride.
As a fan of visual novels, I definitely think its $49.99 / £39.99 price is on par with other games in this genre, especially considering it’s fully voiced and features animations. However, unlike many other visual novels, it does lack replayability beyond, perhaps, a second playthrough to go over all the details with the conclusion in mind.
So, would I recommend Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club? Well, that entirely depends on you. I personally had a lot of fun with it and really enjoyed the slow burn as the narrative gradually unfolded before me. I also came to love the characters (especially my beloved Kamihara, what a cutie), and can certainly appreciate the attention to detail that went into its world. As such, my advice to you is this – if you enjoy visual novels and slow burn stories, check out the demo on the Nintendo Store before committing to a purchase. Because, while the story of The Smiling Man is certainly one worth telling, it may not be for everyone.
If you’re curious about the previous games in the series, be sure to check out our Famicom Detective Club review covering the remakes of The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind. Or, if you prefer your visual novels to land more firmly in the horror genre, be sure to check out my Paranormasight review or my Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II review.