We all know that the Switch 2 is currently looming on the horizon. The specifics don't really matter right now beyond the fact that it's known that Nintendo is gearing up for the next big thing, whatever that is. Until recently, I've considered this something of a nuisance in much the same way as I did the impending shift away from the Nintendo 3DS once and for all. I've recently come around on the idea, however, and it's all thanks to Emio - The Smiling Man, a Famicom Detective Club sequel that took decades to happen.
Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club likely isn't the sort of game anyone might consider to be a system seller, and it certainly wouldn't qualify for the Switch successor – whatever it ends up being called – in large part due to the simple fact that it, you know, hasn't released for it. It's only just released for the original Nintendo Switch. Add to this that it's a fairly straightforward visual novel/adventure game distinctly set in Japan decades in the past in order to make it contemporary with previous Famicom Detective Club games and, well, let's just say Tears of the Kingdom it ain't.
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What it is, though, is a tightly paced, well-written thriller of a detective story that doesn't particularly rely on any significant visual fidelity while still being a good time. It's not perfect by any means, and if this were a review I'd have more than enough to grumble about when it comes to the particulars, but where Another Code: Recollection earlier this year felt like an unusual outlier, Emio - The Smiling Man releasing now makes it more like a pattern than ever before.
And given this would appear to be a pattern Nintendo is establishing right as it is heading into its next console, I couldn't be more excited. As for why a video game that essentially can be chalked up to "pretty solid" at best excites me, the short version is that I'll take an ambitious, unusual, experimental video game that doesn't quite grasp the heights it reaches for, over a technically perfect game any day of the week. The long version is a little more complicated.
Whenever Nintendo releases a new console generation, there's a fairly significant shift in its output. Frequently, this has over the last few consoles been in large part due to different methods of controlling them. The Wii had motion controls, the Wii U had the gamepad, and the Nintendo Switch combined all of the above with the mobility of the Nintendo 3DS. The Switch 2, or whatever Nintendo does call it, is a bit of a question mark in terms of how it'll up the ante.
With my well-documented affinity for Nintendo's handhelds over the years, it should come as little surprise that the Switch has supplanted nearly every other gaming console in my household, and what few games I play on other consoles or PC are usually exclusive to them. Given the option, I'll play a game on Switch, even if that means trading some fidelity in the bargain. The portability is impossible to beat, and even with a Steam Deck in the house, the Hori Split Pad Pro means that the Switch remains far more comfortable in my hands.
So, it is natural that I view the impending reveal and release of the Switch 2 with more than a little trepidation. Who even knows what Nintendo's got cooking this time around? (Well, besides Nintendo. Hopefully.) With the Switch as a culmination of different hardware efforts of sorts, its successor really doesn't have a solid way to stand apart unless it makes itself stand apart, and there's no telling what that might mean.
But Emio - The Smiling Man has, perhaps foolishly, convinced me that there's still that oddball, ambitious undercurrent at Nintendo. It tells me that the company is in the business of making games of all kinds and that there is still space for smaller titles that aren't attached to Zelda, Mario, Kirby, or even Metroid that can make it all the way from conception to release – with a physical cartridge in North America, even, which is not always a given!
I'm not saying that the Switch 2 is going to fulfill all of my GBA-era dreams, though I wish it would, because I'm enough of a realist to understand that predicting the way Nintendo's proverbial wind might blow is foolish at best. But Emio - The Smiling Man and games like it go a long way toward convincing me that someone making business decisions at the company has interests that align with my own in a manner that makes the future look bright.
As we look ahead to the Switch's successor, check out everything we know so far about the Nintendo Switch 2.
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