Review: Hotel Dusk -- An Engaging DS Mystery
Hotel Dusk is a point-and-click adventure in the style of an interactive mystery novel
. You play as Kyle Hyde, a former police detective who works as a "salesman" for a secretive company. You end up at the Hotel Dusk, where no one is as they seem. You proceed to investigate, hoping to find clues to the whereabouts of your former partner, Bradley, whom you have been tracking since he betrayed you several years ago. The entire game takes place in the Hotel Dusk all in one evening, ending the following morning.
Platform: Nintendo DS
Genre: Adventure (Interactive Novel)
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Release Date: January 22, 2007
Publisher / Developer : Nintendo/ Cing, Inc.
Gameplay: 9/10
First of all, you hold the DS like a book for the entire game, reinforcing the concept of the interactive novel. This works very well, in general, and makes using the stylus exclusively for the entire game more comfortable. It's easy to recline in a chair with your "book" and explore your mystery, in a similar way that you would read a traditional novel; overall, it was a very good design decision in my opinion. One nice feature the designers did include is an option for those of you unfortunate enough to be left-handed in a right-handed world: you can choose "left-handed" mode in the beginning, which means you'll hold the DS "upside down" - thus using the non-touch screen and the D-pad and buttons instead of the touch screen and stylus. I played using the traditional right-handed mode, so I can't vouch for the quality of the left-handed control scheme. However, it is nice that the developers at least gave left-handers an option.
As a point-and-click adventure, your time is spent primarily doing two things: exploring rooms in the hotel, looking for clues, and interviewing the hotel guests and staff.
Overall, I actually really liked the way you navigate in Hotel Dusk: You slide your stylus along the bottom screen, moving the "circle with a carrot" that indicates Kyle around the room in an overhead view. The top screen shows a more detailed first-person view of where you are as you move. When you reach a hot spot where you can interact further, whether that is zooming in on a location or speaking with a person, the cursor will flash.
It makes navigation easy and pretty quick, and not nearly as tedious as it was in Theresia, for example. When you zoom in on a location in a room, you will get a 3D view that you can use a slider to spin around and see a roughly 180 degree area. You can use the stylus to click on various items to get a description (and sometimes, to zoom in further). You can also use the hand to pick up items, or use your inventory to utilize an item (i.e., a key). You also have access to your notebook, where you can scribble notes, using the stylus (you also use your notebook to save, review characters - including their room numbers - refresh your memory on what has happened so far - and more).
One nice thing about the game is it does not let you examine everything in a room, which means you don't waste too much time looking at every square inch up close, hoping you won't miss something. Although there are a few things you will examine that don't need to be, for the most part, you will only interact with items that are necessary for the story.
Interacting with people brings up a full screen of Kyle (your character) and the person with whom you are speaking. Kyle appears on the left screen and the other character on the touch screen.
You touch to continue the conversation at each break, and then will get a list of questions to ask, which you again choose using the stylus.
You also will occasionally come across minigames, some of which are essential to the story (i.e., various puzzles) and some which are thrown in just for fun, but all of which utilize the DS features very well. I'll try to leave it vague so I don't spoil any puzzles for those of you waiting to play the game for yourself, and though I did have some problems in some of the puzzles getting the stylus input to be recognized by the game, overall the utilization of the DS features was right up there with Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, in my opinion. The only thing you never use is the microphone (thankfully). For example, characters will reach out to offer you items, which you must "take" with your hand, using the stylus. It is a nice touch to get you even more into the story.
Unlike many Adventure games, you can "die" - if you make a few wrong decisions while interviewing a suspect, or sneak into a room at the wrong time - you will either be kicked out of the hotel or spend the rest of the night sulking in your room. Either one means "game over" and you will have to start over from the beginning of the chapter or from a save point. So I do recommend saving often, as some chapters are long and having to go through all the conversations more than once can get tedious.
I did appreciate that despite its strict linear design (you must do X before Y will happen), for the most part you usually know what you need to do next, or at the very least, are able to figure it out. Still, this design can always be frustrating if you figure out something in advance but can't make it happen because it isn't "supposed" to happen yet.
Still, overall the game is very tight with only a few minor problems in stylus recognition, and plays very smoothly so that you really can get engrossed in the mystery.
Story: 7/10
While the story won't win any Pulitzer any time soon, and it is the victim of many genre cliches, I did find it very engaging, especially at the end. In this sense, it really lives up to the concept of the interactive mystery novel in that you don't want to put it down as the story progresses: you want to find out what's really going on. Although I did end up figuring out a little of the resolution, it wasn't entirely what I expected, so in that sense, it was satisfying and a little refreshing. Although some of the localization is so cliche it can be a little grating at times (i.e., "dame"), overall the characters were very well individualized, each with their own distinct way of speaking and their own personalities. You also really come to like the protagonist, Kyle Hyde, and I frankly wouldn't mind seeing him appear in another mystery.
View article Images hereGraphics: 8/10
While Hotel Dusk is by no means a graphical powerhouse of a game, I gave it a high score because of the hand-drawn characters and cutscenes. Since a large portion of the game involves interviewing the various hotel residents, you spend a lot of time looking at the portraits of Kyle and the person with whom he's speaking. All portraits are hand-drawn, each with their own unique look and personality.
These are not still portraits, either, but have simple animations showing gesturing and facial expressions, and really help you understand the various characters. In fact, a lot of the charm comes from these hand-drawn animated portraits.
In addition, the included cut scenes also include beautiful, color hand-drawn scenery with the same black and white hand-drawn characters. It's great for setting the mysterious mood of the game.
The graphics of the surroundings aren't bad, but they aren't great, either, with many of the rooms looking very similar (and I don't just mean the hotel rooms). But the DS isn't a superbly powerful system, so perhaps that is to be expected. The biggest gripe I had with the graphics (and perhaps this is also partially a story gripe) is the setting: the game is set in the 1979, yet with only a couple exceptions, none of the characters clothes or hair styles were indicative of the time period. Add this to the fact that I couldn't really see any reason for setting the game then and I found the lack of time-appropriate clothing and hair a bit disappointing.
Challenge: 6/10
Overall, Hotel Dusk is not a very challenging game. This is both good and bad in some ways. It is good in the sense that it lets you settle into the story and just enjoy it, but it can also be bad in the sense that I could see how some could get frustrated with the overall low difficulty level.
On one hand, all the puzzles are pretty straight-forward (i.e., pick the lock), but at the same time, there really aren't that many puzzles to begin with. The focus of Hotel Dusk is the story, not the puzzles... if you are looking for puzzles, I suggest something like Professor Layton instead. In this sense, the lack of puzzles and low difficulty of the ones included is a good thing since it is too often in the Adventure genre that we find puzzles for the sake of puzzles, or puzzles that are complete trail-and-error in order to make them artificially difficult. Frankly, I prefer a puzzle I have to reason out to one that is just a guessing game.
Sound: 2/10
Disappointingly, Hotel Dusk has no voice acting at all. I understand that the cartridge size limits the ability for voice acting, particularly in a game like this one in which there is a lot of dialogue. Still, it would have been nice if some voice acting had been included; for example, certain key phrases (think: Persona 4) and especially the scenes at the end of each chapter in which a character finally reveals their secrets. On one level, this makes it even more like a novel, and makes it easier to "read" while on a bus or in a waiting room, but the lively characters would have been brought to life even more effectively had some voice acting been included.
The music and sound effects were also blah (and could even become annoying at times), so I ended up playing most of the game with the sound off - and certainly wasn't missing anything. Definitely the low point of the game.
Replay Value: 4/10
Now, I hear that if you play through more than once you can get different endings, although from what I hear they really aren't all that different. I, personally have no interest in replaying in the immediate future; that is a sad fact of the genre. However, you can get this game used or even new for a decent price, and it does offer a significant amount of play time, although I honestly don't know how long.
Overall Impression/Recommendation:
A decent adventure game that handles very well on the DS. It has a story that is a satisfying length - not too long or too short - that engages the player, encouraging you to play through until the conclusion. Certainly worth a play through for those who enjoy adventure games or mysteries.
However, if you prefer action-filled titles, this is definitely not the game for you.
Overall Rating: 7/10 - Worth a play-through, unless you only like fast-paced, action games.
Review: Hotel Dusk -- An Engaging DS Mystery
By: gamepodunk
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