Spoilers for Emio the Smiling Man
So I've been turning the ending of this game's story over and over in my cotton filled dome for the weeks after I finished Emio.
I don't really pre-order games, if I do it's only for physical games since that's the only format that imo has any inherently justifiable reason for doing so. The only games I've ever pre-ordered so far have both been from this year, Another Code and Emio the Smiling Man. What got me to pre-order was the whole intrigue and pedigree of a classic Nintendo IP getting a big new entry written by the original writer of the first two games way back when. So I was really excited about it as someone also into visual novels of the murderous and mysterious kind.
And that's enough about that because it feels like the ending to this game flies in the face of mystery, I was really intrigued by the claim of a "divisive ending" by the writer, Yoshio Sakamoto, which initially gave me the impression of an ending reveal that the real identity of the killer might have been a controversial pick or something. The kind of reveal to get people talking and theorizing if it was really the right choice for the writers or theorizing if that was the truth at all.
Unfortunately by divisive I guess he meant like, baddd??? Look if you've played Emio to it's conclusion you know there's a massive elephant in the room I'm not bringing up and that's Minoru, the game's second half. I wanted to write this before diving into Minoru to collect my thoughts about my initial reaction to Emio's ending and to compare it to how I feel about the game after completing Minoru. But I also feel that as someone going in to the game blind and not knowing there even was a second part that it's still important to document the initial impressions that for all intents and purposes the game leads you to thinking is the true finale until a post-credits scene. And I still have thoughts about this ending and aspects of the game's story that didn't sit right with me regardless of if there's a second part.
As for my hesitation to even starting Minoru for weeks, that's really cause after Emio's ending it made it pretty hard to feel invested at all in the mystery that the game had set up because if it is about Minoru I can't take him seriously anymore because he's *literally* the Joker. I could sit there to hear the story spill it's guts out about him and why I should care but I stopped caring about it after it was revealed that the suspected guy who killed all those people years was actually the guy that killed all those people years ago... also he's the joker babyy (/ref)
Like the game totally peaked in the penultimate chapter, I was genuinely blindsided by the "FINAL CHAPTER" banner when starting the next one. It really felt like the story was *just* picking up steam after the slow burn, finally starting to pluck at the threads to really untangle the mystery buuuut then the finale happens and any anticipation to actually figure out the Emio case through Actual Gameplay and detective work is thrown out the window when it wraps itself up in like 10 minutes. I genuinely really felt bad for the Todorokis having lost their son and how he was now accused of murder and it felt like the player was going to dig something up to clear Minoru's name given all the build-up to some kind of twist with the construction workers mixing up the faces between Minoru and Junko's missing brother, Makoto.
Also about Makoto, he's just in the abandoned village? Implied to be living there I guess? But that's honestly not the impression I got from the construction site taxi guy saying he dropped Minoru (though iirc under the assumption of Makoto going by the face mixup) off in the woods one time. My honest assumption was that Makoto had gone to the woods to kill himself or something. Also like, so if that wasn't Makoto and really is just Minoru (checking the game's notes to confirm that it says Minoru was dropped off there) he just worked at a construction site while looking like the Joker (baby) and him wearing a face mask just hid *allllll* that? I guess it could be implied he left working there or something and then Joker-ified his face I guess but that really feels like I'm making excuses for something that should have had some kind of evidence for in Emio itself.
Also I just genuinely didn't believe what I was seeing when the Joker face was revealed the first time. I had this pie in the sky theory that since profile cards in the notebook weren't updated with CGs seen in flashbacks that maybe that's cause they're just the visual representations of what the protag was thinking. Obviously the real answer is cause that would make no sense and I didn't have much stock in the idea other than a passing "hmm what if" when Eisuke was shown in a flashback but didn't get a picture card portrait thing. But when I saw Minoru's face in Junko's big "fuck you here's the entire plot" reveal in the last 10 minutes I thought for a second maybe I was right all along and that the protag was just imagining what Emio looked like under the bag because there's no way in hell this entirely very grounded story was going to have the actual goddam Joker Baby be the villain. But then the ending happened and he got shot and yup, he's just the Joker I guess and all those feelings I had about finding the Todoroki's son and suspicions I carried throughout the story trying to piece the mystery together myself were thrown out the window because it was actually the guy who we were told probably did it back in like chapter 2 or something.
Also speaking of suspicions, Tsubasa is a total fucking creep and I hate him and I can't tell if you're supposed to think he's funny or a suspect. My jaw was on the floor that entire initial meeting between him and the protagonist at the school and I was desperately wanting to tell Ayumi to stop hanging around that guy afterwards. Shocked that there wasn't really any deeper investigation into his character about confronting all *that* and he was just actually a good guy all along I guess. I was genuinely scared about this dude being a teacher at a middle school after hearing that conversation. I think that might have been the most visceral reaction the story got out of me when playing.
Also about the ending slideshow where everyone is happy I guess, I really don't buy that there was anything going on between Junko and Daisuke. My first impressions of his blow-up in the car towards the end was as a defense mechanic because he didn't want to believe the protag was right and that he'd been had this entire time, and spoiler alert he was. Him and everyone were had by the last second twist, and I can't imagine a guy as proud of himself and his job as Daisuke would then want to marry the woman who'd been lying to everyone this entire time and framed a child's tragic suicide as a murder for her own goals. Like I'm glad Makoto is at least doing better in the end, it would have been pretty crappy if he also just died or something but I really don't buy any of the random marriage stuff and that Junko just sort of got away with it in the end.
Also Junko just *had* the original Emio bag I guess? That's a reveal I would have never in a million years would have guessed with what limited information was available, and not in a good way. No inklings that the bag had been tampered with or had discrepancies with the scene it was found or idk an entire other person's fingerprints on it (granted I'm no forensic scientist but Junko wasn't wearing gloves when she ripped it off before and I'm assuming had handled it since then without wearing gloves too).
The connection with the three original murders is never elaborated on either, the original victims feel like such a footnote by the end it's kind of upsetting. Like what was up with the whole house on fire thing? There's little mysteries like that that all feel like they were leading somewhere and then the story just trips and falls off a cliff in the last act and it sucks cause I was really really enjoying my time with it until then. Like there's some really good characters like Mama Shoko, probably my favorite.
[^ evidence that she's the best character]
So all in all I guess Minoru is what's next to do but I find it hard to really care about any reveals since it all leads to Minoru's big Joker moment in the end and I can't even really pretend to care at that point with how incredibly silly that is. And if it does answer some other questions like what was going on with the original victims and his car the protag never asks for the license plate of or even a basic description of weirdly then that's cool I guess, but it's beyond the point where it would have felt like a meaningful reveal now that the big story is over.
I'm hoping that the second campaign or whatever it is can save my opinion of Emio the Smiling Man, but really it feels like regardless of it does or not it still leaves a bad impression with it's ending when there was no knowledge of a second half to begin with. And that's even assuming Minoru is a "half" at all, it could still leave any of my questions and unanswered and it doesn't stop the problem that it feels like the finale of Emio just happens at the player and that all their detective work basically amounted to little more than leading them to the room that the ending happens in because none of that ending reveal was solved with actual detective work and instead just getting talked at for 10 minutes and then everything ends.
Hopefully my overall opinion will change enough, don't think my reactions and opinions about the game's initial ending will though.
🥀PART 2🥀