Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club brings a Nintendo veteran with 42 years of experience back into the writing chair – even though he announced after the second game in the series in 1989 that he would never be able to write again.
Nintendo just released a new Ask the Developer article featuring Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club producer Yoshio Sakamoto, who helped develop the Metroid series, and assistant producer Kaori Miyachi, a veteran of the Super Smash Bros. games. In the middle of it, the two reveal that even after releasing remakes of the first two Famicom Detective Club games in 2021, they didn’t know they would be working on Emio – The Smiling Man.
This is in no small part because Sakamoto thought he was done writing forever. Miyachi recalls that Sakamoto first said he was done writing in 1989, when the second Famicom Detective Club game came out, adding that this was his way of “explaining to the whole world my inability to continue writing.”
Sakamoto didn’t just say that in 1989 – he last said it in an art book that came with the Famicom Detective Club remakes in 2021. “But the desire to create something new again was always in my heart. I collected ideas in my head,” Sakamoto explains, adding that one of those “ideas” was for a “victim to be found dead with a paper bag over his head.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the basic premise of Emio – The Smiling Man. Someone is found murdered with a paper bag over their head with a smile engraved on it, and a major crime mystery unfolds from there. “Even though I hadn’t started writing the plot at the time, I told Miyachi-san that I was thinking of a story called Emio (Smiling Man), and she said, ‘Wow, that sounds interesting!'” Sakamoto recalls.
But what prompted Sakamoto to get back to his desk and write Emio’s story? It was because of the two remakes of Famicom Detective Club, which, according to Sakamoto, “became much more than mere remakes. When I saw the wide range of expression and the potential to increase the quality of the animation even further, I started to seriously consider creating something new again and was motivated to write a new story.”
Just a few months after Sakamoto mentioned Emio to Miyachi, the latter asked him how the story was coming along and said they were “looking forward to it!” This understandably prompted Sakamoto to “seriously think about writing this story,” and Miyachi’s genuine enthusiasm spurred the veteran developer to make Emio’s story concept a reality.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, the first new game in the series in 35 years, is out tomorrow, August 29th. You can play Emio’s demo, which includes the first three chapters of the finished game, right now.
Find out about our upcoming Switch games Guide to a look at all the other exclusives Nintendo has planned for this year.
