Sure, it’s not straight-up horror as the early teasers suggested, but even still, Emio — The Smiling Man is among the darkest games Nintendo has ever made. It’s a murder mystery that doesn’t skimp on the murder and throws in an unsettling urban legend for good measure. More than that, though, it’s just a really great mystery on a platform that has steadily become an ideal home for them.

Emio is actually the continuation of a decades-old franchise from Nintendo called Famicom Detective Club. Created by Metroid designer Yoshio Sakamoto, the games originally never launched outside of Japan, until a pair of surprise remakes hit the Switch in 2021. Emio is the first entirely new entry in the franchise since the late ’80s — but even still, not...

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