Nintendo recently published a three-part interview with the staff behind the MAGES mystery adventure Emio—The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club.
Notably, producer Yoshio Sakamoto and coordinator Kaori Miyachi participated in rather lengthy conversations deep-diving into the game’s development.
One of the standout responses from the final part of the interview is how Sakamoto emphasizes the sheer degree of detail this new entry boasts. Every scene was given “extraordinary attention to detail,” to the extent that she thinks MAGES had around double the workload they initially expected.
Sakamoto also teases how Emio—The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club features elements not often seen in the Famicom Detective Club series.
You can view the quoted relevant response below:
Sakamoto: I can’t get into specifics due to spoilers, but this game incorporates elements you won’t have seen very often in other games, let alone in the Famicom Detective Club series up to now, so I hope everyone enjoys it to the end.
Also, each and every scene, down to a simple flashback, was produced with such extraordinary attention to detail that I think MAGES. ended up with around twice the workload they were expecting. They handled it with a lot of perseverance, so I’m truly grateful for their support.
Famicom Detective Club is a series of text adventure games by Nintendo that came out in the 1980s. They were created by Yoshio Sakamoto, of Metroid fame, and drew inspiration from Portopia before becoming a reference in the genre themselves.
In the series, players must investigate areas using a mix of point-and-click exploration and text commands. Each game tackles a different crime case, drawing inspiration from classic murder mystery novels.
In 2021, Nintendo released remakes for Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind. The development came as a partnership between Nintendo and Mages, who used detailed 2D animations to flesh out the experience further.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club will take the Utsugi Detective Agency to investigate a new case of serial killings. This time, people are showing up with paper bags covering their heads.
The case is reminiscent of a string of unsolved murders that became an urban legend. According to the stories, a smiling man (Emio) granted his victims an everlasting smile by covering their heads with paper bags with a smile drawn on top of them.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club will come to Nintendo Switch on August 29, 2024.
