Emio The Smiling Man Famicom Detective Club Review (Nintendo Switch OLED)

by Jim Smale · September 6, 2024

Emio The Smiling Man Famicom Detective Club Review, Unmask the truth in a dark, twisted thriller for Nintendo Switch: Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. Solve the tragic murder of a junior high school student, where a creepy clue recalls cold cases from the past and an urban legend about a killer with a disturbing modus operandi.

Emio The Smiling Man Famicom Detective Club Review Pros:

Brilliant graphics.
5.4GB download size.
Japanese voice with English subtitles.
21 save slots.
Free demo that is actually the first three chapters of the game and your save transfers to the main game.
System settings – autosave settings (none/all scenes/all chapters), a. D messages skipped in skip mode (all/only read text).
Text settings – display speed, and highlight terms.
Protagonist voice can be set to be played or not.
Handybautopay button for cutscenes and interactions.
The game boasts Beautiful cutscenes with an Anime comic book style with slight animations and they carry that over to the game’s core graphics aswel.
In multiple-choice interactions, you get control over what you ask and new questions and observations can appear as you go about your investigation.
A flow shows when selecting options and questions so you can see each step you take.
When look/examine is used you have a magnifying glass and can look anywhere on the screen, luckily text pops up when highlighting objects and items.
You get to name your character.
The head Detective looks a lot like a younger Columbo and I am all for that.
Yellow prompts in the text boxes help you.
Has a knack for asking one thing can open up another thread or a certain action could trigger a new line of questioning.
Actual story cutscenes have a cool Anime filter over them and add a lot to the experience.
The game is best played on a handheld with headphones.
Combines many genres from visual novels, to puzzles and hidden object games.
The story is absolutely fantastic and you get hooked almost immediately.
Your notebook has any important information and details on people stored here, it has great page-turning animations and is overall a great little menu.
Manually save when you want.
The Story revolves around the body of a young child with a smiley face bag on his head, it shows signs of previous murders from 18 years ago, and the killer is an urban legend.
To break up large info dumps and conversations the game will sprinkle in little interactive spots.
You get a lot of control over how you investigate, you can choose what to say, where to travel, etc.
Multiple choice interactions.
The story or characters can be influenced or have elements changed by your actions and interactions.
You can lock save slots to avoid accidental deletes.
At the end of a chapter, you have to review everything you have learned by picking the answers out from multiple choice.

Emio The Smiling Man Famicom Detective Club Review Cons:

You cannot remap the controls.
No English voice.
At times it’s not clear what needs to be done or there is no quick way to check what was asked of you.
The music is OK but it does repeat and when you spend a while on a screen doing something it can be annoying.
Little in the way of game settings.
With so many genres of gameplay going on and the nature of the game, the pacing can be a bit up and down.
It feels like that at times you luck into an answer or new thread of questioning and observations.
For me I felt like I had to keep selecting the same option over and over until I got the same response, it didn’t all flow like it probably should.
You can get frustrated when meeting someone new as you never know what needs to be said to just get the interaction going.
The game never tells you about the fact that you have to sometimes click a certain part of someone like their face, the text pop-up doesn’t change and it’s really frustrating.
Next to no replay value.