When the “Who Is Emio?” trailer hit a while back, people were fascinated by it and wanted to know more about what Nintendo had planned. That plan led to the reveal of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, the next entry in the mystery series that hadn’t been continued for thirty years! The previous entries had been remade in 2021 for the Nintendo Switch, and that was enough motivation for some of the people behind the original games to return to make a fresh, and frightening, entry. Fast forward to now, and we’re less than two weeks away from the game’s release on the Switch.
However, if that’s “too long a wait” for you, you’re in luck. Nintendo announced on Twitter that a free demo for Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club will arrive on August 19th. In a twist, it’s a two-part demo. The first part will let you play certain chapters, and then on August 22nd, MORE chapters will drop, so you can get even deeper into the tale. If you’re engrossed enough to keep playing, you can transfer your save data to the main game when it releases the following week:
This is a smart strategy for Nintendo for a basic reason: it allows people to see what this title is all about. True, the remakes are out there for people to buy, but that’s only part of the story. Those titles remade what came before, while this is completely fresh. Plus, you don’t need to play those past games to enjoy this one, so some people might just be interested in learning more about “Emio,” and this demo could help boost game sales upon release.
On the official Nintendo page for the game, they have this describing the plot:
“Student Eisuke Sasaki has been found dead in a chilling fashion, with a smiley-faced paper bag over his head. This unsettling visage bears a striking resemblance to a recurring clue in a string of unsolved murders from 18 years ago—as well as the urban legend Emio, a.k.a. the Smiling Man, a serial killer said to grant his victims “a permanent smile.””
It’ll be up to a “junior detective” to help solve the crime, and the team is leaning hard into the M Rating that the ESRB gave the title. So, let that be a warning to you: this game will feature some disturbing stuff, and you’ll need to be prepared for what you see and uncover.
