GoNintendo Review - Hotel Dusk: Room 215

I have been pushing Hotel Dusk: Room 215 since we first caught glimpse of it. I don’t know what really got my attention, but whatever it was wouldn’t let go. I had the feeling that this game would be worth the wait. Weeks went by, and hardly any news on the title would come in. I think the biggest bit of Hotel Dusk news that we ran was the website revamp, which happened 2 weeks ago. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why Nintendo isn’t hyping this title. It would seem like the perfect game to put into their Touch-Generations lineup, yet there is no TG logo on the box. The game has a strong visual style, yet the boxart does all it can to throw you off. The gameplay relates very closely to point and click adventures, yet Nintendo hasn’t reached out to this market. I am sure that Nintendo had no intentions of sabotaging their own product; they just didn’t know what to do with it.

If there is a title worthy of any praise you can throw at it, Hotel Dusk takes that honor. Nintendo could have chosen any aspect of the game to hype, at least that would have drawn more attention to it. This is why we are seeing the online and print media talk about the game so much. I can’t think of any recent Hotel Dusk articles that don’t question Nintendo’s marketing approach with the game. Very rarely does a game come around that the media feels they have to promote more so than the publisher/developer. Those instances come into play when you are talking indie games, and the teams behind them simply don’t have enough money to get the word out. As we all know, Nintendo has the money to blitz our senses with Hotel Dusk info. Nevertheless, I will (like much larger outlets) hype the hell out of Hotel Dusk. I sat down to write this review at 3:30 in the morning, simply because I couldn’t wait to gush about it. I had so many points I wanted to discuss, that I couldn’t figure out how to start this review. Hotel Dusk needs to be acknowledged for all that it accomplishes. This game isn’t just the finest “point and click” adventure on the DS, it is one of the high points in the entire genre.

Warning: story intro is explained in the next four paragraphs. This is info you learn as soon as you start the game up. If you want to leave that info to find out on your own, please skip ahead.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215 transports you back to the 1970’s, and into the shoes of Kyle Hyde, ex-cop. The reason Kyle is an ex-cop is the entire basis for the game. Kyle Hyde spent his time as a New York City police officer, quickly becoming a figurehead throughout the various gangs and general “bad guys”. He worked closely with his, first co-worker-then friend Brian Bradley. Brian had been assigned to take an undercover project. He ends up lying to his girlfriend at the time, simply to protect her. This wasn’t a simply undercover job, this was going to take years of work. While Kyle wasn’t too happy about his friend taking on this task, he didn’t really have a say in the matter.

Time passes on, Kyle continues work at the precinct, and Brian has been spending over a year working his way up the crime syndicate’s ranks. Unfortunately, the life of crime got into Brian’s blood, and he ends up selling out the cops. He leaks internal info on the police force, Kyle’s work included. Kyle, shaken by the fact that he lost his friend to a life of crime, as well as learning that important info has been leaked, sets out to hunt Brian down.

Kyle manages to find his ex-partner, which may not be a very good thing. Emotions are obviously running high on both ends of the situation. With one simple question asked by Kyle, Brian tries to flee the scene. Kyle grabs his gun, and without hesitation, shoots Brian. He watches as his one time friend falls into a river, and washes away. A few days later, Kyle finds himself quitting the force, and wondering why his ex-partner’s body was never found.

You take control of Kyle Hyde three years after he quit the force. He is now working for a door-to-door sales outfit, hawking house wares and other made-for-TV products. You quickly find out that this job isn’t all that it seems. Kyle’s boss often gives him side jobs, jobs that take a little detective work. While selling these goods are the front, hunting down missing objects and people is what really goes on. Kyle heads to a specific location, is then sent a sheet with a list of items to pick up, and quietly goes about finding them. This is how Kyle winds up at Hotel Dusk. Little does he know that he will be finding out a lot about his past decisions along the way.

I usually write one paragraph about the storyline of a game. Often, that is all it takes. When it comes to Hotel Dusk, storyline IS the name of the game. I find it absolutely impossible to truly get the idea, execution, and success of the game across without delving into the story. Even after that summary, I have barely scratched the surface of Hotel Dusk. I gave you the gist of what you find out within the first 10 minutes of playing. If you do not enjoy story-driven games, than steer clear of Hotel Dusk. Let’s say that you do hate this type of game. If you are willing to take an open mind approach to this game, I think you will be extremely surprised. Hotel Dusk has the power to change anyone’s perception of what the DS can do, how point and click adventures can be, and what video games can bring to the table.

On the most basic level, Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is (as I have mentioned), a point and click adventure. For those of you unfamiliar with these types of games, I don’t blame you. Back in the earlier days of the PC, point and click adventures were all the rage. Lucas arts wasn’t known for their Star Wars games, they were known for wonderful games like the Monkey Island series, Full Throttle, Maniac Mansion, and more. These were, for the most part, point and click adventures with very distinctive styles. You were presented with puzzles that often had rather bizarre solutions. The true draw of these games were their stories. Hugely detailed, extremely well written, and capable of pulling you in unlike any other genre. As PC games evolved, the world of first person shooters came into play. Ever since Wolfenstein rocked the computer world, the PC scene has been dominated by the FPS. Point and click games have popped up from time to time, but for the most part, it is a dead genre. That is, until the DS came into play. We are seeing a point and click renaissance with DS software. The homebrew scene is bringing all the Lucas arts adventures to the DS. More than a handful of brand-new titles have adopted this style, such as the Trace Memory and Touch Detective. Now comes Hotel Dusk, which is a point and click adventure, but evolved.

Hotel Dusk can be played entirely with the stylus, and that is the way I suggest. First off, you will be holding the DS on its side during gameplay. The purpose of this is to try and mimic that of a book. Cing (developer) had obvious intentions from the beginning to make Hotel Dusk different. They wanted to connect you to the game through various methods, one being how you hold the DS. Kyle Hyde carries around a journal where all important game info is stored. By holding the DS sideways, you feel that you are part of the game, and actually using the journal. This is furthered by the fact that Hotel Dusk actually lets you write in Kyle’s journal as if it were real. When the diary is opened, you can turn to a blank page and write yourself notes on the touch screen. Not only is this one of the many small instances that draws you into the game more, but it provides an excellent way for you to keep track of what’s going on. I don’t know where I would be in the game without this feature.

To continue on with the controls, walking is also done via the touch screen. By pointing your stylus at a direction on the touch screen, Kyle will walk over to it. The close your stylus touch is to Kyle’s indicator, the slower he will walk. The touch screen layout is a 2d map which offers an overhead view of the area you are in, while the top screen is in full 3d (more detail later). This map also labels the important areas in the room, such as a front desk, or other exits/entrances in the room. Lined along the bottom of the touch screen are a set of buttons. These icons light up when they can be used. For instance, one of the indicators is a picture of a door. This will light up when Kyle walks close to a door, be it locked or not. There are also journal and talk buttons, but the magnifying glass button is worth mentioning separately.

One of the most annoying aspects of any point and click game can be the hunt for clues. Most often you are put into an area without any idea of what you can interact with. You will spend countless hours searching every nook and cranny of a room to find absolutely nothing. Searching desks that are never meant to be searched, hunting down a book in a static library wall, and so on. Hotel Dusk has a wonderful solution to this problem. As you walk around the rooms you encounter, the magnifying glass button will light up. If you touch that button, you are given a full 3d view that switches over to the touch screen. Now you know that you have a specific set of items and set pieces that can be searched. No walking around to be done, no endless searching to sweat. Even better, each item will light up when you touch it, letting you know that it is possible to inspect it. This screen also includes an option to use items you have already picked up, as well as a slider bar that pans the camera left and right around the current area. This one innovation effectively kills one of the biggest issues of this genre.

Another issue with point and click adventures are the nonsensical puzzles. Many games in this genre are humorous, which spills over into puzzle solving. Any fan of this genre can tell you of instances where they played a certain game for hours due to a puzzle that just wasn’t logical. The last true point and click adventure I remember playing is Grim Fandango for the PC. It was an absolutely wonderful game, but it too had very strange puzzle solutions. Hotel Dusk does away with these situations as well. A puzzle very early on in the game presents you with a suitcase that is locked, and a broken key. If I were in real life, I would try opening the lock with a safety pin, or paper clip. This is exactly what Hotel Dusk presents you with. It tends to steer you in the right direction a little too much, but this is hardly a complaint. It is extremely refreshing to see a title in this genre present you with puzzles that make sense, and solutions that don’t have you scratching your head.

With all this talk of puzzles, you would think that it is the main focus of Hotel Dusk. To the contrary, this game is much more conversation focused than puzzle focused. When I started out this review, I stated that Hotel Dusk was a very story-driven game. This story is moved along by way of conversation. You will spend a good 75% of your time talking with the people you come across at the hotel. Conversations are also handled in quite an interesting way. Once again, when you find someone who you can talk to, the touch screen talk button will light up. You tap the button, and enter a conversation. Kyle’s picture will pop up on the top screen, and the person you are talking with will be on the touch screen. Conversations take a very dynamic approach to story telling. There are tons of instances where you don’t have to hear something when you aren’t interested in it. During conversations, certain bits of info will spark Kyle’s interest. After the main discussion is over, a touch screen set of options comes up. You are presented with yellow, red, and white question indicators. These indicators are stored every time Kyle hears something that he wants to learn more about. Red are the most important questions. These need to be asked in order to solve certain blocks down the road. White questions may require you to talk to the same person in more detail, and other people once you receive that info. Finally, yellow questions can be answered by the person you are currently speaking with. These indicators can sit at the top of the screen for the next time you talk to that character. For instance, say you want to hear only the integral info at a certain time. You can get that answer, write something down in your journal, end the conversation, and go solve a puzzle. Once that is done, you can head back to that same person and pick back up with your questions. Hotel Dusk doesn’t force you to go through meaningless questions. It doesn’t hold you back until you have asked every possible question there is. You can do what you want when you want (for the most part). The best part is, you will want to know every little thing you can about this story.

What is a story without compelling characters? It’s a crappy story, that’s what. After playing Cing’s last game, Trace Memory, I had high hopes for Hotel Dusk. I was also worried that the storyline wouldn’t be as strong as I had hoped for. I think Trace Memory is a wonderful game, but Hotel Dusk beats it in every aspect. It is almost as if Trace was a test, and Hotel is the real deal. The cast of characters that you find in the hotel are simply put, some of the best I have seen since The Indigo Prophecy for PC/Xbox. These characters are fully realized people with tons of back-story. All too often you have throwaway characters in these games. Someone you will talk to once or twice to get an important bit of info to solve a puzzle, than you never hear from them again. Hotel Dusk’s cast are living, breathing virtual people. I absolutely refuse to go into any detail of the cast, for I feel it would ruin the experience. I actually have physical reactions when I talk to people in the game. Some characters always put a smirk on my face, others I hate talking with…but in a good way. The personalities of these characters comes through in an amazing fashion. Trust me, you will want to learn the back story for these people.

There is one key feature that really pulls the storyline and characters together, and that has to be the writing. Hotel Dusk may be rated teen, but it is truly an adult game. I am not saying adult in the blood, sex, and profanity sort of way. Hotel Dusk handles storytelling in an adult manner. Character conversations have a very realistic flow to them, and no punches are pulled. Cing truly respects the player through the crafting of the story. Things are not dumbed down for you, nor are they sugar coated. Kyle Hyde is a miserable, lonely, hurt man and it shows. Other characters weaknesses, strengths, and brash personalities come through every time they utter a single word. This is the type of storytelling that we need in games today. This is the attention to dialogue detail that needs to be used to progress games as we know it. Nintendo is billing this game as an interactive novel, and I cannot think of a better term for it. I am extremely happy to see writing becoming a serious point of focus for developers. While Touch Detective has excellent writing done in a comical style, Hotel Dusk matches, and even surpasses that work, all while in a serious format.

As if enough style didn’t ooze from the game already, Cing put together an amazing graphical presentation for the game. I am sure many of you have seen the comparisons to A-ha’s famous music video for take on me. This is a great way to describe the overall look of the characters, but not how they come across. Each character is done as a pencil sketch with a good amount of animation to them. The animation, while not as smooth as something you would see in a cartoon, brings a distinctive tone to the game. It really draws you in when talking to characters. During conversations you will see various animations used, all depending on the topic of discussion. This coupled with the brilliant writing really helps bring the cast to life. When you remember Hotel Dusk, you won’t be thinking about the 3d aspect.

The full 3d engine is displayed while you are walking around on the map, and searching certain areas. This view really helps to get a look at your surroundings, and helps to give you a better feel for the hotel. The colors are very drab; you will see lots of browns, tans, and so on. This is done on purpose to portray the run-down style of the hotel. The actual 3d models themselves are average. For instance, when you see a desk, lamp, or chair, you will know what it is. You won’t be wowed by it, but it more than gets the job done. Hotel Dusk doesn’t use 3d to wow the gamer, it uses it to make for a much more functional gameplay experience. The 3d aspect really does add a lot to the gameplay, even if we have seen better models on the DS before.

Out of the entire Hotel Dusk experience, my one gripe is with the sound. I have no issues with the sound effects at all. Everything sounds as it should, or as you would expect it to. The real problem is with the soundtrack. Some songs in the game are really well done. They perfectly fit the mood, and end up being tunes that you want to listen to over and over again. Than there are other songs that just don’t do it for me. While nothing is so bad that you have to turn the sound off, it is bad enough to stand out. You can’t have an uneven audio project like this. The stand out tunes truly get your attention, but not as much as the poorly composed ones. Some of the music sounds like it should be in Clubhouse Games. You know the cheesy style I mean. That works beautifully in Clubhouse, but has no place in Hotel Dusk.

I want to tell you more about Hotel Dusk. I want to share the experiences I have had with the game. The moments that really stood out for me, the portions of the game that will forever cement it in my memory. I haven’t done that simply because it wouldn’t be fair to you. Hotel Dusk is a game that should be experience from start to finish all on your own. If you know anything more than the basic premise before going in, than you will be missing out on part of the experience. Sitting down with Hotel Dusk really does feel like snuggling up with a good book…a really good book. I can’t remember the last time a story got to me this much. I have been playing games for way over 15 years now, and I have learned to play and function with friends at the same time. With Hotel Dusk, I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to have the lights off, the room quiet, and my complete attention on the game. The story and gameplay full immerses you in the world. You have seen my gripes, which are very minor. While they have to be taken into consideration for a final score, then do not change the gameplay. This is not a game I wanted to end. Unfortunately, it seems that the game may have already ended for the public before it even started. You need to try this game. Buy it, rent it, borrow it…just make sure you get your hands on it somehow. The word needs to be spread for Hotel Dusk. It is the next great point and click adventure in a genre that has been dead for the better part of 10 years. This could be the one to bring these games back, we can’t let that get away.

Note - Japanese screens were used seeing that Nintendo.com’s image database and Nintendo’s online press room contain a very small number of screens for this title.