August 20th 2024.
Is this Nintendo's most bizarre game yet? The newest addition to Nintendo's gaming collection is a highly-rated murder mystery that is now available to play for free as a demo. Nintendo and horror may not seem like a natural pairing, but it's not entirely unfamiliar territory. Remember Silicon Knights' Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem? And around the same time, there was also Geist. Plus, let's not forget that the GameCube era saw the arrival of Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Zero, and the remake of Resident Evil 1 on Nintendo's platform.
Surprisingly, during the GameCube era, Nintendo seemed to have a fascination with horror games, which also led to their interest in the Project Zero/Fatal Frame franchise. However, this fascination quickly faded away until July when a new game was announced under the name Emio. The teaser trailer featured a man in a trenchcoat wearing a paper bag on his head with a crudely drawn smiling face, giving off more of a Silent Hill vibe than a typical Nintendo game. At first, no one knew what to make of it.
It was later revealed that Emio is part of the Famicom Detective Club series, which was a shock to many. The Famicom Detective Club games were released exclusively for the Japanese version of the NES and were relatively unknown to Western audiences until a remake compilation was released for the Switch in 2021. These games have a similar style to the Ace Attorney franchise, with a slightly more interactive approach than a visual novel but still more passive than a traditional Western-style adventure game. Now, a new entry in the series has been released with an 18 rating.
As of today, a demo for Emio is available to play for free on the Switch eShop. The prologue and first chapter are available now, with the second and third chapters being released on August 23rd and 28th, respectively. Any progress made in the demo will carry over to the full game, so players won't have to start from scratch if they decide to purchase it.
Unfortunately, we can only talk about the prologue and first chapter at the moment, which makes it difficult to give a definitive review of the game. However, it's clear that it has the same interface and graphics as the remakes. Despite the dark subject matter, the game maintains a cartoonish appearance, with 3D character models and limited animations. The backgrounds are static hand-drawn artwork, which was acceptable for the remakes as they tried to retain the look and feel of the originals. However, it raises questions for a completely new game, especially since there is no English voice acting, only Japanese.
It's also disappointing that there seems to be no significant changes in terms of the interface and lack of guidance. The simple text menu allows players to talk to people, examine objects, or surroundings, but it feels random whether these actions will advance the plot or not. While we never got stuck, we also never felt like we were purposefully moving the story forward. But don't just take our word for it, try the demo for yourself, as that is the whole point of it. However, based on the demo, it seems like there haven't been any significant changes in terms of gameplay.
Tonally, things are different. The visuals and cheerful soundtrack remain the same, but the crime involved is much more disturbing than before. Players take on the role of a 19-year-old private detective who works at an agency hired by the police to help solve the murder of a 15-year-old schoolboy in a remote area. However, the body is never shown, and it is the player's teenage detective partner who talks to the victim's parents off-screen. This creates a peculiar tone, with the only interaction hinting at an adult theme being a junior police detective who acts inappropriately towards the protagonist. However, it's unclear how far this will go.
The same can be said for the game as a whole, especially since the age rating mentions topics like domestic abuse and suicide. We're not expecting a game like Doki Doki Literature Club!, but it's possible that the cheerful presentation is setting the stage for a tonal shift later on. However, this is just speculation at this point.
In the demo, the most unsettling moments come from flashbacks of the smiling man approaching two victims, but there is no visually horrific imagery. It's hard to tell whether Nintendo is being overly cautious with the 18 rating or not, but it will be interesting to see how far Emio goes in terms of plot and horror atmosphere. It's possible that the initial teaser may have been misleading.
Emio will be released on August 29th for the Nintendo Switch, with a price tag of £39.99. It's published by Nintendo and developed by Nintendo and Mages. Will it live up to its potential as a horror game? Only time will tell. In the meantime, you can email us or leave a comment below with your thoughts on the game. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter for all the latest gaming news and exclusive content.
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