As I sit here slowly swirling my ginger ale, I think back on what's led me here. Couple weeks ago I hit the road with nothing to do and a few bills burning a hole in my wallet. As I stroll into a shop on the way, I give the shelves the once over. Nothing stands out as rare or impressive; just another run of the mill place, same old song and dance. I was all set to write the place off but I decided to take one more look. There in the corner, out of the way, was a piece that a few little birds have told me can carry its own weight: Hotel Dusk Room 215. I'd been thinking of giving it the once over, and I figured now's as good a time as any. I get the attention of the guy behind the counter and a few minutes later I'm walking out of the store and everything looks just a little bit brighter.
Now that that bout of film-noir reminiscing is done, you may have a slight idea of what you're in for. Hotel Dusk is visual novel game for DS released by the small game company Cing who doesn't have much to their names besides this and other similar adventure style games. I admittedly don't have a whole lot of VN exposure personally - my experience with the genre is limited to the various incarnations of the Ace Attorney series and the recent hit Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. However, the VNs I have played can easily rest among my top favorite DS games of all time. So when I heard that fans of the Ace Attorney series should check out Hotel Dusk, I was eager to give it a try.
Before I dive into the meat of this review, I'll discuss the gameplay. For those of you who couldn't tell from the name, visual novel games usually don't have much in the way of gameplay. The gameplay in a visual novel is usually limited to puzzles and similar point and click style segments. Also mixed in is a bit of "choose-your-own-adventure" flavor dialogue choices where the decisions you make can lead to either game overs or alternate endings.
That said, I feel the puzzles in Hotel Dusk were really weak. A lot of them felt pretty gimmicky, like they were putting you through the motions of something that could've been shown in a scene. Yes, I already figured out to combine this item with the other, do I really need to do this little simple segment as well? And by the 10th time I had to open a door manually it was getting pretty old. On the other hand, the conversation choices and searching segments were pretty well done and some of them were even a bit tough to figure out. I'll admit I got my fair share of game overs in this game. In fact, I was used to gliding through conversations like these pretty easily and got surprised by my first game over. It's nothing stellar, but it does its job well enough.
Now for what really matters in a game like this: the story and characters. Hotel Dusk is a serious and gritty story of Kyle Hyde, a down on his luck ex-cop turned salesman looking for his lost partner. His boss also makes him do little jobs of finding things, and one of these jobs sends him to the titular hotel. He gets a room called Wish that's supposed to grant the wishes of whoever stays there. As he settles in we're introduced one by one to a large cast of characters. The most notable of these are Louie, a pickpocket Kyle knows from the old days now working at the hotel; Rosa, a sassy middle-aged maid who does most of the work at the hotel; Dunning Smith, the grouchy and rough proprietor of the hotel; and Mila, a mysterious young woman who can't speak and seems to be connected to a lot of what's going on. As Kyle starts to explore the hotel, he quickly learns that all the guests have pretty big skeletons in their closets and these secrets are tied to all kinds of shady business, possibly even leading Kyle to the partner he's been looking for for so long.
Hotel Dusk's story is pretty standard for a mystery like this, but at the same time it's fairly well written. Its got its fair share of plot twists and you'll probably be hooked till the end to see how everything is connected. Some of the reveals are pretty easy to spot coming, but there are some legitimately surprising moments as well. That said, I do feel that this is probably the weakest VN I've ever played. This maybe because I had high expectations given my love of the other DS VNs I've played, but the game didn't seem to have the same punch or spark to it. It was lacking charm when compared to Ace Attorney, and it didn't compare to the suspense or intrigue of 999. The mystery was pretty good, but the rest of the story didn't quite feel strong enough to carry it. Maybe I was spoiled by greatness though, and I will say that Hotel Dusk does still have a solid story that stands up pretty well.
When it comes to characters, however, Hotel Dusk left me with quite a bit to be desired. Because of the more serious and heavy tone the game takes, a lot of the characters come off feeling rude, annoying, or just boring. Kyle himself has his nicer moments but for the most part is a bit too cold and rough for my tastes. I did like Louie, he was a pretty upbeat guy who brought some levity to the game. Most of the rest didn't win any awards with me though - they had there moments here and there not enough to really make me care about them. A decent amount of them got some eleventh-hour likeability as you learn about their backstories, but it generally didn't make up for the rest of the game. Kevin in particular can go take a flying leap; God I hated him for most of the game.
When it comes to graphics, the character portraits in Hotel Dusk had this unique black and white handdrawn style to them that I really liked. It really fit the somewhat noir-esque mystery story and added a lot of style to the game. There's not much else to say for the graphics, though, with 3d backgrounds that just mediocre. Still, in a game like this the character portraits are more important than the backgrounds so it comes out all right. I really liked the music in this game; there's a lot of period-fitting jazz and bluesy tunes that would pep me up or make me get serious and focused. It really added to the game and helped bring the hotel to life. On a final and minor note, the ides of holding the DS sideways like a book bugged me a bit. It didn't feel like a book, it felt like a sideways DS. It really just felt unnecessary and annoying.
All in all, Hotel Dusk is a solid DS visual novel that while not the best in its field certainly isn't a failure. If you're interested in these kinds of games its definitely worth looking into, and if you like serious cop mysteries I'd recommend picking it up. It's going pretty cheap nowadays and for a low price it's definitely worth the money. That's all for me, see you next time!
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