#Famicom detective club spoilers

[ruinationz]

oh yeah also the man of the hour! the bag boy himself!!! but reversed? minoru tsuzuki/"unmasked" emio in reverse club au (he's still like. 43 or so but since he actually interacts with people in public he's able to care for himself and not look TOO much like a walking dead body)

bonus ramble under the cut for how the "smiling man" myth now functions in this au

the "smiling man" myth is more-so based around emio's unmasked appearance (i mean come on, if he kept the bag even after he stopped killing people then he'd probably be caught immediately) aka. the sliced up jeff the killer fanon type thing. with a slice up face caked with make-up and sharpie, he goes around to crying girls and if they dont laugh at his face (for most context in this au, along with the bag he'd draw on a smile to make his sister laugh with his absent mother's abandoned make-up) he stabs them to death with scissors, draws on their face and then slices the same smile he has onto them. so the fdc is then investigating an eisuke with a slit neck and a smile sliced into his mouth...

very gruesome stuff but minoru's backstory doesnt change much, he's a little more manic and a bit more "social" however

been debating giving the killer a new name as well... since "emio" is a persona he puts on in public again i think maybe the slashed smiler or smth would be cool. idk hes funny fun fact he drew flowers on his mask himself

[pikespendragon67]

Man, I just keep thinking about that final confrontation from Girl Who Stands Behind

The build-up to it once it clicks that there is in fact a body in the off-colored wall. I was thinking that the body would be seen in the mirror at some point to act as the catalyst for the Girl Who Stands Behind rumor. Kind of like an optical illusion. (Though the walls must be thick to not have the smell of a dead body travel across the school).

And when Tatsu attacks the mirror to reveal what looks like the Girl Who Stands Behind ONLY FOR IT TO BE THE SKELETON OF SHINOBU. GOD FUCKING DAMN. SHE LANDS RIGHT BEHIND TATSU’S BACK. AND YEAH, THE FACT SHE LOOKED LIKE YOKO. GOD DAMN. Shinichiro Miki’s blood curdling scream really added onto it.

I really hope Emio has a similar HOLY FUCK moment that leaves me reeling for days or months after playing.

[hodgepodgequack]

Emio Demo checklist

So I’m about to play through the Emio demo pretty soon and I thought it would be fun to create a checklist of tropes found in the previous two games of the series.

Obviously if you haven’t played the first two games, I would not look at the list because it might spoil some things.

I’ll update the list tomorrow with boxes checked indicating what has been confirmed in game. Feel free to add things to the list or make your own!

[weird-gay-disaster]

Well.

We know who he is now.

[cru5h-cascades]

Here, have a perfectly cut scream from Emio's bonus chapter :D

[violentlydefending]

finished emio: the smiling man!! pretty solid, really great presentation, iffy pacing, and a few underwhelming elements, but i was able to have a good enough time with it. the epilogue was a real highlight for me, but there were a few standout moments in the game proper as well. wouldn't say no to playing more if more entries get made and will definitely be checking out the remakes of the other two entries at some point :]

[zerosocialskillz]

Spoilers for Emio’s ending

I wonder how “Emio for Smash” peeps are gonna cope once they learn he’s fuckign dead now

[wtfuglydemon]

In "The Missing Heir", there was still the whole mystery of the Ayashiro Curse, FDC seems to really like its mystery with a hint of the supernatural, but in TMH i never felt like the curse was in any way threatening and more like a silly story that the villagers kept being really exaggerated about, the game also doesnt investigate much on the rumor despite it being so prominent, it's more a coincidence than anything.

In "The Girl Who Stands Behind" the mystery of the ghost haunting the school is basically all you're searching for because its intrinsically linked to the case, you are not only constantly after the rumor but it is constantly being proven to be more real than you might first believe, that by the end, just the idea of it makes you uneasy while you investigate, like there really is something behind you at all times, the supernatural and horror of it has a much bigger focus which really makes up for it by the end despite the mystery itself not having as big of a twist as The Missing Heir.

I finished Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind, the mystery this time wasn't as great and rather obvious but what really made it worth to me was how much focused on the horror it was, i felt very uneasy the whole time, specially when characters appeared in the background suddenly, it almost made me flinch a little.

I am also a sucker for ghost girl stories so i still really loved it overall.

[owlyjules]

Alright little ramblings about famicom detective club!

Super Light spoilers ahead for "the girl who stand behind"

.....

ALRIGHT!

Firstly I want to open with the fact I love the game so far and loved "the missing heir" from the same serie. They are 80s and 90s games remake so I understand some creative descisions about why the main character is 17 in "the missing Heir" and 15 in "the girl who stand behind"...

However...

Holyshit!!

THAT DETECTIVE UTSUGI??

HE FOUND A 15 YRS OLD RUNAWAY WITH MISSING PARENTS AND WAS LIKE

"Its free real estate Assitant!"

Then I tought ok i guess its fine if he helps him a bit but then not even 20 min in HE BRINGS HIM TO SEE A DEAD BODY!!??

And then I thought "oh the mystery must be happening in the school the detective enrolled his 15 YEARS OLD ASSISTANT HE TOOK IN FROM THE STREET AT BUT NOOOO!" THE KID IS WORKING FULL TIME ON DETECTIVE WORK/MURDER CASE ALONE, SLEEPING AT THE OFFICE AND NOT GOING TO SCHOOL!

Like omg can someone make sure the kid gets all of his meals and proper sleep??

My guy!!

PLEASE just a bare minimum of care for the kid you took in please?XD

[nabateaprodigy]

So I recently just finished playing through Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir!

Just wanted to give a little quick review of how I felt about the game! Don't worry no spoilers are mentioned!

✔️Amazing Story.

✔️ Lovely Art style.

✔️ Solid OST.

✔️ Great character design's.

➖ Having to double-check areas to progress the story or find clues.

✖️ The story felt rushed during the last chapter.

✖️ The characters not being fully fleshed out as I would have liked.

(Applies to survivors and characters before their deaths. Yes, I know this is a murder mystery game; however, even before characters die, they can still be fleshed out and explored a fair bit.

Although I know this game is a remake, and for the type of game it is, I'm willing to let it slide. Especially since this is probably the first of its kind when the game was originally made. However, still disappointed, but none of what I said here applies to the MC.)

Overall an 8/10 for me. I ended up enjoying this game way more than I thought I would! Even though I did have a few issues and things I didn't I still fell in love with this game. And will definitely be looking forward to playing The Girl Who Stands Behind!

[gamersonthego]

GOTG Review: AI: The Somnium Files and Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir

This is the next game in my Backlog Roulette series, where each month I spin a wheel to randomly select a game on my massive backlog that I must play (though not necessarily to completion). These wheel spins occur on the monthly preview episodes I co-host with my friends on The Casual Hour podcast.

Not every game on the Backlog Roulette wheel is going to be a winner, and they’re not meant to be. Many are games I curiously picked up on a sale or remembered from an old tweet or offhand comment from a friend. 

That was the case with AI: The Somnium Files. Someone described it as a Persona adventure game, and that was good enough for me to snag it on the cheap and hold onto for a rainy day. But it only took a couple of sessions to realize that while The Somnium Files isn't really what I had in mind.

AI is a detective game at its heart. You embody Special Agent Kaname Date, an acerbic yet disaffected gumshoe with a missing eye. In its socket instead is an AI robot called Aiba who pulls double duty as a sort of Zelda Navi-like character while also giving you a host of super powers (like being able to see through objects or hacking into phone records remotely). But despite having these tools available to you, it only makes the moment to moment gameplay even more of a hunt-and-peck ordeal. 

I just couldn’t get into it, especially once my AI eye turned into a scantily-clad anime waifu for little to no reason. The writing goes into a very creepy and horny mode once this transformation occurs, and that was enough for me. Maybe if the game was more fun to play, I’d have been able to overlook it, but after already being bored and frustrated by the larger mechanics, it ended up as the final straw.

Reeeeeal classy, Date.

So instead of slogging through AI: The Somnium Files any further, I put it down in favor of a different Japanese detective game that also happened to be on the Backlog Roulette wheel. One much more stripped down and straightforward (and much less horny), Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir. 

FDC is a series of two mystery games that (as the name implies) released on Nintendo’s Famicom console. While the 1988 and 1989 originals never saw a release outside of Japan, Nintendo and developer Mages remade the games from the ground up to release worldwide on the Nintendo Switch in 2021. 

What a difference 30+ years can make.

Loading up the first game, The Missing Heir, the interesting mix of new and old hits you immediately. Gone is the pixel art of the 1988 version, replaced by hand-drawn backgrounds and anime-inspired character designs. The chiptune music tracks have all been updated to more modern instrumentation as well. But ever-present is the simple list of actions and dialogue options of the UI.

And it plays like an old adventure game too, requiring you to select some of the same dialogue options multiple times (or in specific, untold sequences) to unlock further options to progress the story. Occasionally, the game will highlight options in yellow to tell you of new options that have just opened up by some trigger, but that is not always the case, nor do these highlighted options always further the plot either. I can appreciate how a detective game should leave the player room to actually make deductions on their own, but oftentimes in The Missing Heir, I would end up cycling through every dialogue choice multiples times, just crossing my fingers I would finally hit upon the right sequence or frequency. Eventually, I would give in and pull up a spoiler-free guide to cut down on the repetition and get through the story.

Because unlike AI: The Somnium Files, Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir actually has a fun story to uncover. Originally being a Famicom game, it’s no Sherlock Holmes, but there are ample rug pulls and intrigue, culminating in a twist you can probably see coming, but maybe not in quite the way you expected. Despite being a game centered around a murder (or two, or three), it’s just kind of a pleasant little experience to work your way through. It’s even got me interested in playing its prequel, The Girl Who Stands Behind.

AI: The Somnium Files may have ended up being a bummer for me (though other people seem to really enjoy it, according to numerous reviews), I’m glad it led me to a game I enjoyed much more. And even better, I was able to trim two games from my backlog this month. That's value, baby!

[ruinationz]

since minoru's voice actor (hiroki takahashi) is turning 50 today i choose to accept this date as emio's (very canon) birthday. happy birthday

[pikespendragon67]

I’ve finished Emio The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club! Spoilery thoughts below including Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind:

I think I’ve been spoiled (not in that plot details were revealed, but indulged) by the spooks from Paranormasight and Girl Who Stands Behind. Like.

THIS WAS SUCH A DAMN GOOD REVEAL. It wasn’t completely supernatural, but Shinobu possessing Yoko and what was seen in the window that night meant things could be left to interpretation if needed.

However, Emio addressed something I had issue with in the previous titles: showing the killer’s methods & motives on screen rather than through character dialogue. It made the tragedy of both sibling pairs just feel more tragic. In a way, they both got some kind of happy ending, but it makes my heart break thinking the couple that took in Minoru won’t be able to see him again, or at least in the same way. I also thought Minoru’s face would’ve burnt by the fire, but I guess not.

For Minoru’s episode alone, I definitely like Emio more than Missing Heir. I think I still like Girl Who Stands Behind more for the final confrontation and Hitomi, but I’ll let my thoughts sit to see if I still feel that way.

[hodgepodgequack]

Emio Demo Observations and thoughts….this is going to be a long post.

By the way, I WILL be spoiling something that happens during “The Missing Heir” And Danganronpa 1 case 2.

18 years ago, 3 teenage girls (with no known ties to each other) are strangled to death by hand and are found with paper bags on their heads. The paper bags have a picture of a smiling face on them.

The paper bags intel was never released to the public, therefore the only people who knew were the cops, family members, people who found said bodies and the culprit.

Now theres a similar case with a teenage boy (Sasaki who I will be calling S from here on out).

There’s 3 options regarding what happened to the kid

Option 1: It’s the OG killer who’s never been caught. As for why he’s starting again, there’s two possibilities

S was either looking into the Emio rumor or he saw something he shouldn’t have and the killer wanted to nip that quickly.

S is a closeted trans person and the OG killer knows that somehow. The director of the game has stated that the ending of the game might be “controversial” Keep in mind this game takes place sometime in 1997-2000s, it’s 2024 and being Trans is still controversial. In game it would most likely be an ever bigger stir. Who’s to say that this is the controversy the director was referring to?

As for why the method of death has slightly altered, I only have one theory: fingerprints

The original case took place sometime between 1979 and 1982. I know nothing about the history of fingerprints in Japan so this is a massive shot in the dark with what I’m about to say:

Fingerprint dusting may have not been a routine procedure (or it was but there was no way to preserve said information ) and the killer knew that. But a lot changes in 18 years and it’s possible that it is now routine and said info can be preserved. Hence the strangulation method has changed and the item to use cause death it not anywhere to be found.

Option 2: It’s a copycat killer

Why someone would do this, I have no idea, but it would explain a few discrepancies.

D1: the way the person is killed

D2: victim is male (they got the teen part right)

D3: The way the paper bag looks

If you look at the paper bag the Emio of the Urban legend uses. It has holes cut out where the eyes should be (and additionally it appears he removed any eye wear before putting the bag on, just a weird detail I’ve noted)

Current bag has no hole cut out. It’s a purple circular spot in the middle of some black round scribbling.

And I know what you’re going to say, cutscenes aren’t important, but in the famicom detective club universe they are.

There’s a prime example of using a cutscene in “The missing heir” where Jiro is smoking with Kaneda, pay attention to the way he holds his cigarette. It’s a small detail, but developers who do mystery games don’t put them in for shits and giggles.

Option 3: S’s death has NOTHING to do with the original case.

The only reason why the police think that it’s connected to the previous case is because of the paper bag. If the bag wasn’t there, they wouldn’t be thinking that.

It’s entirely possible that someone else offed S and fled the scene. Someone else finds the body and instead of reporting it to the cops, pulls a Togami and alters the crime scene to include a paper bag on the kids head. Why they do that, I don’t know. They could have been inspired by the Emio rumor (which is a weird thing in itself that I’ll discuss in a bit.)

Some other observations that don’t really fit anywhere else:

The way the bag is placed on the head. The corpse looks like it it’s looking in an upward direction while the bag makes the face on it point to the side. I don’t know if it’s an important detail or if it was done to be creepy. Because the only believable way for that to happen is if S was strangled in an upward position, the bag is placed on his head and before he hits the ground the bag shifts to a different position and it’s not corrected.

Kuze knows Utsugi

The current theory is that she’s related to one of the original victims in some way and because the case was never resolved she because a detective to find the truth. Ut might have worked on the case and that’s why he knows her. Ku might not be saying anything out of fear that she might get removed from investigating at all (it’s a one liner, but someone mentions that she follows police protocol to a T so it would be interesting to see if she acts like a hypocrite because she’s personally connected to the case). It’s also a possibility that he resents Ut for not catching the guy. It would be crazy twist if the OG killer and the current killer (assuming they are not the same person) are both cops hence why they didn’t get caught. As for a guess right now (and based on the premise stated beforehand) the OG killer might be Kanada and the current one might be Kami.

3. Kami is a very sus

First of all the game does not give you his age, which is a massive red flag. Secondly he shows up late to the crime scene (yes it’s implied that he is a bit of a careless character, but that could be a facade) he might have been busy trying to cover his tracks. Thirdly he mentions that he used to go “missing” when the schools were actively trying to prevent kids from straying to far. Maybe one time he did it and saw something he shouldn’t have.

4. In the prologue there is a part where the protagonist and Ut speak at the same time and they sound like the Smiling Man.

5. In the game “The Girl who stands behind” there’s a box near the boxing gloves that you could inspect. According to the game at the time, it has something to do with UTs family (I’m pretty sure it’s a crest). In this game you can’t even examine it and that is sus in of itself.

6. The Emio legend is odd for multiple reasons. The fact that it mentions girls(who look to be teens based on the cutscenes) die with paper bags on their heads is reminiscent of an actual case implies something important. The info regarding the paper bags got leaked (and maybe some things on the girls mental health at the time pre death hence the crying imagery) and that spiraled and created the Emio urban legend. Furthermore, Ayumi immediately mentions the urban legend when we talk about the case. That implies that either this rumor has started recently enough for her to notice it, or it’s one that has persisted through time (and that begs the question why has it lasted so long and who started the rumor?

And now for some questions regarding the demo

How did S get into the area? It’s a pump station whose gates are normally not open (note that the all the trash is on the outside of the area, not on both sides. S’s bike was also left outside meaning the gate was closed. Did he pick the lock? Was the gate open and the killer put the back bike? I don’t know!!

2. How did the Jogger see the body?

Anyway. Can’t wait for the second part of the demo to drop tomorrow and I’ll see how much is right.

[weird-gay-disaster]

Uh, so this is really out of left field for me to talk about, but I've been feeling this type of way for over a month now.

I'm very ambivalent about the new Famicom Detective Club.

Before the game's reveal and when we basically had a teaser to go off of, there was a lot of speculation (jokes, memes, or otherwise) over what the project could've been. I'm not much of a survival horror enjoyer, I was just interested in what it could've potentially been. I noticed some accurate leaks about it beforehand, but didn't think they were legit.

When it was fully announced, I basically went "oh. okay..." before feeling a growing sense of disappointment and embarrassed for having such an autistic level of obsession over the teaser. Not because of it being a visual novel, but the fact that it was a certain type of visual novel from a series I genuinely did not care that much about. And the way it was described in Yoshio's interview (mainly the part where the ending was described as "divisive for some people") made me think "oh...so THAT'S how it's gonna go...").

And I probably wouldn't be so vexed with it if I didn't notice a number of FDC's (supposed) fans responding to some similarly disappointed people by...basically insulting them. Because...that'll make people want to enjoy the obscure, niche thing you seem to care about so deeply.

What made things even worse was when I noticed a certain Twitter profile (@WhoIsEmio) and thought it was an ARG linked to the teaser somehow, especially since the bio linked to Nintendo's Emio website/the new Famicom Detective Club game website. There were somewhat sporadic, cryptic uploads with seemingly random Japanese words and music (?) that I assumed would've hinted at certain plot points of the game.

So imagine my shock & disbelief when I eventually found out this shit was apparently an AI experiment from a college that may not exist. And this apparently has nothing to do with the actual game (which creates a number of...interesting questions as to how they even knew about certain dates revealing more FDC information...). It legitimately made me want to jump off a building or something.

Uh, so for the demo (as of Ch. 2 right now)...

I think the music's pretty nice...and the mystery is at least interesting enough...the antagonist is pretty menacing & enigmatic so far....

But....

I'm not saying it needs to be like Danganronpa (especially since that series has issues with a good number of its character designs being increasingly more derivative), but...the character designs here are REALLY bland and boring to look at (besides the main antagonist himself). It's like it's trying to go for a more "anime/stylized realism" angle, but it ends up looking very cookie-cutter instead. Many visual novels, even with all their flaws, at least have some interesting art direction, so seeing how it is here felt very lackluster.

And the writing...the mystery itself is fine so far, but much of the regular dialogue between characters incites little to no emotion within me. Beyond certain key characters, I personally didn't feel that much for the main cast.

When I got to the point where you had to wait at a bus shelter before deciding whether or not to call a taxi, the pure silence and the angle made me paranoid enough that I assumed Emio was either watching from the background or was about to creep up to the protagonist as he closed his eyes to...somehow summon a taxi. Needless to say, it felt anticlimactic when neither of those things happened.

I might continue looking into this, but very likely via a playthrough online (and not just because I'm currently poor).

[cru5h-cascades]

Found a YouTube vid showcasing the grandfest plaza

ACHT DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. THEY'RE JUST STANDING THERE. ACHT DO SOMETHING PLEASE. YOU'RE GIVING REAL EMIO TEASER VIBES RN DO SOMETHING ANYTHING.

Also for those wondering DJ Octavio does some DJ-ing in his lil' booth area. I don't have a pic of that saved though but trust me on this.