“When a young girl is found crying alone at night, a man appears in front of them. The girl looks up to see a face on a paper bag for a head. The smiling man says to them, ‘I can give you a smile that will last forever.’ The man leaves the girl dead, with a paper bag like his, over the girl’s head.”
This is the fictional urban legend of Emio, the Smiling Man, from “Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club” (2024). Emio is the latest 1st Party Nintendo title for the Switch (as of writing this), and it has shown what they can put out late in the console’s lifecycle.
It flew under the radar for most people since it is the third installment in a niche, three-decade-old series from the massive company. Emio was a surprising announcement, and the game offers an experience you can’t find in other games, especially other Nintendo titles.
What is Emio?
On July 10, 2024, Nintendo dropped a 15-second teaser trailer simply titled “Emio.” It played a video of a man in a brown trenchcoat and a paper bag with a drawn smiley face over his head, with the end asking, “Who is Emio?”
Online discussion of what this could be went wild. This was an odd teaser trailer to drop on a Wednesday morning, with no notice of what this was in relation to. The only other details given were the mature rating and the lack of outside studios mentioned. Many took notice of the M ESRB rating and considered the possibility of Nintendo developing an in-house M-rated game. Seeing the discourse online, over what this odd teaser could mean and people were curious and even excited to see what this could lead to.
A week later, on July 17, Nintendo released a video featuring the game’s producer, Yoshio Sakamoto, co-creator and producer of the Metroid series, talking about his latest title, “Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club.” He talked about how this was a new title in the Famicom Detective Club series and briefly went over some of the details regarding this installment. The way they presented Emio gave more eyes on it than it would have otherwise in a regular Nintendo Direct.
While some were disappointed with what the game was, the teaser was talked about for a week. Considering this was a niche series in Nintendo’s lists of series without a new title in three decades, this shined a light on the Famicom Detective Club series.
If this was shown a month prior in June 2024’s Nintendo Direct, I doubt many would have been talking about Emio alongside Mario & Luigi: Brothership, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, or even the long-awaited reveal of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Emio being announced outside of that with the teaser presented was a good way to get people’s eyes on it, even if for a brief moment. With the release date being a month and a half away from the official announcement, there was time to see what this series was about.
My Experience with Famicom Detective Club
Famicom Detective Club originally consisted of two titles prior to Emio, those being Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind. Both were released on the Famicom Disk System in 1988 and in 1989, respectively. These were adventure games having you, the main character, as a young assistant detective from the Utsugi Detective Agency. In each installment, you investigate mysterious cases and figure out the truth behind them.
Image courtesy of Nintendo
In The Missing Heir, you find yourself with amnesia as to what you were doing near a cliff looking over the sea. You soon find out you are an assistant detective to a private investigator and were investigating the death of Kiku Ayashiro, former head of the Ayashiro family, along with the story of said family in the local village.
In The Girl Who Stands Behind, two years prior to the events of The Missing Heir, you investigate the murder of a young high school girl whose body was found at the edge of a river. Along with her case, you hear about a rumor at her high school, of a ghost appearing behind people. She is described as a blood-covered high school girl. You investigate the possible connection into the murder and the rumor.
Image courtesy of Nintendo
Both titles were not released outside of Japan during the Famicom/NES era, and little was shown officially outside of Japan. At most, prior to 2021, was hearing the name as an obscure Nintendo series, as well as hearing it from Kirby & Super Smash Bros. creator, Masahiro Sakurai. He has stated that he considered the inclusion of Ayumi Tachibana, the second main character of the series, in Super Smash Bros. Melee, but dropped the consideration. She got a trophy in Melee and a spirit appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
After the original Famicom releases, The Girl Who Stands Behind did get a remake on the Super Famicom as well as a Satellaview game, BS Tantei Club: Yuki ni Kieta Kako. It was only for the Satellaview system, a Super Famicom peripheral to play games via broadcast. I only knew the names of “Ayumi Tachibana” and “Famicom Detective Club” for some time, until the February 2021 Nintendo Direct.
During their highlight sections of upcoming games, they unveiled remakes of the Famicom Detective Club games for the Switch, and later released worldwide on the EShop in May of that year. Going from the pixelated art style of the Famicom to smooth 2D animated scenes in the remake was a jump in how deep a remake could bring something back to the modern age. At the time, it slipped past me due to no physical copy and being an EShop exclusive. With Emio on the horizon, I had an excuse to play them.
Interacting with the Investigation
As mentioned before, you are an assistant detective looking into death cases and the truth behind them. Gameplay involves interacting with the people you talk to and investigating your surroundings to make progress in the case. Generally, you talk to someone for information regarding them or something related to the case, and you have a set of topics to talk to them about. You make progress by getting clues for your investigation, investigating certain objects or even characters, or just pushing a conversation deep enough.
There were moments when I was lost in how to progress the story, so I just had to try every dialogue option, examine everything, and just go from top to bottom to push through the investigation. Any important detail you discover is recorded in your notebook, which is in your pause menu in the two remakes.
Sakamoto described it the best in an Ask the Developer interview over Emio, as the series are interactive dramas. You are experiencing these stories from the main character’s point of view, but you are the one making the decisions in the investigation.
You are also required to name the main character by first and last name in both of these games. Another interesting thing regarding naming yourself in both of these games is that if you name yourself in either one of them when you have to name yourself in the other game, the game can check for saved data in the other game and ask if you want to use the name it finds.
Since both of these remakes were being developed at the same time by studio MAGES, the overall feel of these games are not that far apart.
As for the stories, they are different from the usual Nintendo catalog. The main writer for the series is Yoshio Sakamoto, with The Missing Heir being the first time he wrote a scenario.
Without saying anything regarding either of the stories of Famicom Detective Club, they are worth experiencing for the darker, more grounded narrative they provide. Going through them blind has been one of the most chilling experiences as I went through its development and the twists of the investigation.
The opportunity for these early Nintendo video games to be playable in the modern day is incredible. While many did miss on these titles initially, myself included, with Emio being a new title in this long-dominant series after over thirty years. It had some people look back at these remakes and give them a proper go, just to be ready for Emio.
Going into Emio – The Smiling Man with a rough understanding of the gameplay of the series from the remakes, it was mostly the same as the previous two titles, though there are some differences in gameplay.
Most notably, you and Ayumi are given a cell phone near the beginning of the game. You can use it to make calls via contact information that you obtain or dial in a phone number on the keypad. Sometimes it is needed to progress in the story but you can try and call your contact info for optional dialogue.
There is mention of a battery life, which during my playthrough only drained twice, near the start and at the end. It might be a coincidence, but I am not sure.
Another option added is your notebook. It is moved from the pause menu in the remakes and into your investigation menu, and the UI overhaul displays it as a notebook with written information gathered. Some information is underlined and is used when speculating on the case as options to piece together what happened.
Progression is easier in Emio compared to the remakes, since they usually highlight what you have to talk about or what to examine. The previous games did highlight options, but it was always new information or topics, and sometimes they were not needed to progress, so this was a nice change of pace. The conversations in this game are engaging with little pause, in terms of progression compared to the previous titles and I was invested in what new information I was learning over this case.
Image courtesy of Nintendo
The case for Emio starts in the morning with a phone call to the detective agency. The local police want your assistance due to the oddity of what was found. An anonymous phone call came in saying they found a dead boy on the side of the road near an abandoned pump station in the mountains. At the crime scene, you are not allowed to see the body up close and are only told some details regarding it. The victim was a middle school boy who died of strangulation of the throat. But the oddity came from the paper bag over his head which had a rough drawn face over it.
After investigating the crime scene, you are later told of the urban legend of Emio, the Smiling Man. Your task is to look into the possible connection between the two.
Playing the game, it surprisingly has some of the lightest and darkest moments of the series. Interacting with the new characters in Emio was a good time and had an impact going through this game.
Most of the interactions added something to the investigation both directly and indirectly from what you learn of the people you talk to or what they have to say about others.
The darker tones in this game are heavy, and due to the more grounded story, it does hit a bit harder than other narrative-heavy Nintendo games. I highly recommend giving this game a chance if interested.
If you have a Switch, Emio has a demo for the prologue and the first three chapters of the story to reel you in on what this investigation leads to. This title might be a sleeper side from Nintendo’s output this year, let alone the wider gaming space, but it is genuinely surprising seeing this being put out.
