You’d think that with how long Nintendo has been around, that truly “surprising people” isn’t something that they would be able to do. However, ever since the most recent Nintendo Direct, The Big N has been pulling out one surprise after another. For example, at the Direct, they revealed numerous 1st party titles that hadn’t even been teased or “leaked” online. Then, right after that, they did the mysterious “Emio” teaser, which was soon revealed to be Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. This was the first entry in the detective series in 30 years, which got a lot of people’s eyes wide.
Don’t get us wrong, Nintendo has been known to pull a revival of a franchise when they feel the time is right, but this truly took people by surprise. That goes double when you recall that the first “Who is Emio?” teaser was one of the creepiest ones that Nintendo had ever done. Many people even thought it was for a brand new horror-themed franchise that The Big N was doing, only for it to be revealed to be something else entirely.
To that end, it would be understandable to think that the tactic might backfire, given the true reveal. However, in Japan, at least, that hasn’t been the case. In fact, as noted by insider Stealth, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club wasn’t just well received when it got revealed; it became the #1 pre-ordered game in the country on Amazon:
That’s a big deal for numerous reasons. First, Japan as a whole has become more of a “mobile game country” than a console one. The Switch has broken that mold many times over, and you can tell the games that the Japanese gamers are most excited by due to the turnouts they do for certain franchises. To that end, this game, which, again, was part of a series that hadn’t been built upon in about 30 years, getting a huge surge of attention is quite surprising.
It could be that many people liked the original games when they were young, or, they got the remakes that were made back in 2021. It was those titles that inspired the team to make a new one with new terrors and legends to bring to life. In this case, that’s “The Smiling Man.” The head of the project even noted that the ending would be divisive, so it could be that they’re not pulling any punches, and that has people in Japan excited.
