Frequent frowns. Emio: The Smiling Man.

Author’s Note: To avoid possible spoilers, I have decided to not include any screenshots. Enjoy!

Typically, during the month of October, I like to play spooky games to celebrate the month/my favorite holiday. I decided to start the celebration with Emio: The Smiling Man. At least, that was my intention. The game cover had the look of a haunting murder mystery. It was, indeed, a murder mystery. Haunting? Not really. Nor was it atmospheric or intriguing. Really, Emio was a slow-burn of a point-and-click visual novel where solving the mystery was a linear path. It was also tedious and bloated up until the tenth of its twelve chapters. It’s a hard game to recommend.

One thing I do have to praise the game for is the presentation. It takes place in Japan, which was captured supremely well. You’ll be travelling across the country solving the mystery. There are varied locations: cities, the countryside, old buildings, police stations, and more that make you feel like you’re actually in Japan despite the 2D artwork. And the character art is also worthy of praise. It really feels like you’re playing an interactive anime due to the way characters move. The characters, which there are a lot of, aren’t static. The developers did their best to make this feel like a living world.

As somewhat evidenced by the title, you’ll be solving the mystery of The Smiling Man. But, let me back up a second. The Smiling Man is actually an urban legend of Koufoku City which hasn’t been mentioned in years. However, the recent murder of middle schooler Eisuke has reignited talks of it. As a member of the Utsugi Detective Agency, you (a character you name yourself) and your colleagues have to figure out why Eisuke was killed and nab his culprit. The story starts on a high: murder, urban legends, suspicious characters, etc. Sadly, it struggles to keep that momentum going. You’ll be going through the same motions with the same characters over and over for most of its twelve chapters. Now, when things start to finally reveal themselves and truths come to the surface, it makes up for the slowness. Kind of. You may feel differently.

Solving this mystery is where the fun should lie. Again, at first, things are interesting. Emio: The Smiling Man is a tried-and-true point-and-click adventure. You’ll select a number of actions that can be used to interact with another number of objects/people surrounding you. Every chapter, there’s a required order for doing this. At the end of most chapters, you’ll do a review with your colleagues of what you uncovered. Thanks to a notebook that keeps track of everything and is instantly accessible, it’s easy to ace these reviews. I think I started losing steam with this repetition by the sixth chapter. I can’t emphasize the game’s slowness enough.

Still, it didn’t take long to solve the mystery. It felt longer, but I finished Emio: The Smiling Man in about ten hours. I’m a fast reader, so your mileage might vary. After the credits rolled, I got a surprise: a bonus episode. I decided to check it out. I’m glad I did. This bonus episode ties everything together in the main story and answers some questions I didn’t realize were unanswered. Best of all? There’s very little reading/clicking. Most of it was presented in a beautiful (and often bloody) anime movie. In some ways, it made up for the slog of the main campaign. This is the sort of game that will appeal to a small sample of gamers. I feel like the fanbase for point-and-click visual novels is a mighty but few amount. That demographic will smile from start to finish. Everyone else? There will be more frowns than smiles. Proceed with caution.

Overall, 6/10: Emio: The Smiling Man begins with a bang, but has trouble keeping that momentum up until an amazing conclusion.