Emio - The Smiling Man is Nintendo's attempt at entering the murder mystery genre and it shows how the Japanese company has the potential to make more dark, captivating games for the Switch.
Early teasers for the game initially suggested that the game was a straight-up horror title but it is still among Nintendo's darkest projects.
Emio - The Smiling Man is a murder mystery game that doesn't skimp on the murder and throws players into an unsettling urban legend for good measure.
Nintendo's Emio - The Smiling Man
However, the game is actually more than just that as it is an amazing mystery game on a platform that has steadily become home to more and more of them. Emio - The Smiling Man is supposedly the continuation of a decades-old franchise from Nintendo.
This is the Famicom Detective Club that was created by Metroid designer Yoshio Sakamoto. The games originally never launched worldwide until a pair of surprise remakes went live on the Nintendo Switch in 2021, according to The Verge.
Emio - The Smiling Man is the first, entirely new entry in the series since the late 1980s, and even then, not a lot has really changed. Similar to its predecessors, the latest game plays out like a visual novel.
In this game, your actions are determined by a series of verbs found on a menu and this is how you "look" at a crime scene. "ask" a witness questions, or "review" your notes.
At times, there will be actions that are contextual where you can't talk to someone if there is no one there.
In Emio - The Smiling Man, players take control of an investigator who is working on a case about the death of a high school boy whose body was found wearing a paper bag with a crude smiling face drawn on it, said Polygon.
A Captivating Murder Mystery Game
The game features an older case that also had the same signature as well as an urban legend that talked about a killer who wore a paper bag. He then gives anyone he sees crying a "permanent smile."
Emio - The Smiling Man focuses on the human element of the first victim, Eisuke Saski's death, and its surrounding mysteries rather than on the supernatural part of the situation. In the game, characters hold various secrets that are gradually unveiled to players.
You will start to witness how these emotions can flood a person until their rationality is almost completely lost. One of Eisuke's closest friends has holed up in her room due to a mix of grief and guilt over her potential part in the victim's death, according to Eurogamer.
