Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Welcome to a mysterious place where wishes are said to come true. This is Hotel Dusk, and your room will be No. 215. Weird things have been happening in the past years, and the hotel is somehow connected to all these incidents — you don’t know why, you don’t know how, you just know that you have to go. Cing’s latest interactive adventure is not only incredibly stylish; it also has a great storyline filled with mystery and a fantastic cast of characters. But is this game the DS adventure everyone’s been wishing for, or is it just worth a temporary visit? Please read and enjoy your stay.

Facts and Features:

• Players live this interactive novel through the eyes of Kyle Hyde, a former New York detective on a quest for redemption … and revenge. A surprising plot, clever dialogue and an intriguing cast of supporting characters accompany him on the journey.
• Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is a touch screen-focused title that players of any skill level can play. By engaging in conversations with shady bellboys, chatty maids and secretive femme fatales – each with dark secrets of their own – the player determines the path of the story.
• Hotel Dusk: Room 215 uses sketch animation, film noir-esque camera angles and dynamic lighting to create a truly original and innovative graphic style.

Checking In
You are Kyle Hyde. You are a former detective who left the service and are now a salesman for a company called Red Crown. Yet, there’s something bothering you. It is something that happened three years ago. It’s something that changed your life, and the lives of people around you. Kyle Hyde was at one point, one of the best detectives in the NYPD. While working on a case involving (his now ex-buddy) Brian Bradley, one night he gets a call that sends him running after his ex-partner. After catching up with Bradley, a bloody scene is showed – a scene where Hyde shoots his colleague, sending his body into the river by the dock. The mystery here — and actually the reason of Hyde’s many sleepless nights — is that Bradley’s body was never found. So why is it that you are here, ready to visit this weird place called Hotel Dusk? What’s so special about it? It is not a very desirable place, and yet it is full of mysteries that you cannot even begin to understand. Many characters have joined to visit this Hotel, and all of them share one little secret. And that’s precisely the secret you’re looking for.

Hotel Dusk is basically a graphical novel/adventure that has puzzle solving all the way through, but relies entirely on its script. Why? Because the game is driven by each one of the conversations you have with the hotel guests, and other characters. The storyline is the real meat of the game, and fortunately, Hotel Dusk delivers one of the most intriguing stories in the last years. In Hotel Dusk, you will hold the DS sideways 99% of the times, and you advance through each one of the scenes by taping your screen, or pressing the D-pad. You control Hyde by guiding him around the map with your stylus. It’s too easy, you simply make the trail – and Kyle will follow. When you see something that you can examine, or someone you can talk to, you tap on one of the icons. The top screen (or in this case, the opposite screen) will always show you a 3D perspective of the hotel, while the touch screen will show you a top view for you to guide the character – making it easier to find your way through Hotel Dusk.

Hotel Dusk’s presentation is incredibly stylized

Because the game is so easy to control, you’ll never really get stuck or have problems because of its difficulty. It’s true that the puzzles are there, but Hotel Dusk rewards players by actually giving more and more information about the storyline’s mystery. It’s an adventure game after all, and the focus of it — like previously mentioned — is not puzzles, but rather feeding us small portions of the grand storyline leading to its fantastic climax. From the get go, the characters of Hotel Dusk are really not what they appear to be. Dunning, for instance, is the Hotel owner. He knows your name, but doesn’t know who you are. Why? You’ll see. Then there’s Louie (Louis), who’s an ex pickpocket who is now reformed and trying to live a normal life in Hotel Dusk. A normal life in a nearly abandoned hotel? We’re curious to see how everything turns out in the end. Each time you encounter one of the guests, you’ll be able to ask some questions based on the info they’ve given you. Ask the right question, and you’ll get even closer to the truth. Ask the wrong question, and you may end up on the streets, wondering what could’ve been – and wondering if you’ll ever discover what you’ve been after. It’s a smart move, to penalize the actions of the player, or actually reward them if they choose to ask the correct questions. Hey, that’s the life of a detective after all.

People may try and compare this game to the also recently released Phoenix Wright: Justice for All, but it is nothing like it. Where Phoenix Wright relies on humor (which we love!), Hotel Dusk maintains seriousness throughout the entire game, with one or two good jokes every once in a while. If this sounds like a negative, please let us correct ourselves — it is anything but. The storyline’s pace and atmosphere actually give the game a really noir-esque personality, and as the game progresses, your interest will increase — you will really want to know what happened to Bradley, and how Hotel Dusk is connected to the entire plot. And because the game only has 15 characters, it can afford to take the time and flesh their personalities out, and create likable or equally despicable personas in the adventure. Hyde himself may be your everyday stereotypical ex-detective, but when the story kicks in, you’ll be more and more interested in helping him solve the great mystery of his life. It’s a superbly written storyline that deserves props for trying something new on the Nintendo DS.

If there’s anything negative regarding Hotel Dusk’s gameplay is that the pacing is just too slow sometimes. It’s not slow in the sense of being boring, but rather that it takes too much time to tell the story and intensify the mood and atmosphere. And while it may not be tedious to some, Cing should’ve at least given the option to skip one conversation after reading it the first time, or letting us choose the text speed. Still, it’s forgivable because it wasn’t the developers being lazy, but rather a design choice that they wanted in the game to keep the pacing in tune with the mood and atmosphere — increasing the feeling of mystery and anxiety. Also, it’s commendable that the developers didn’t implement weird things in the puzzles, but rather focused on real stuff. You won’t see a mysteriously placed statue in the bathroom, or an inexplicably placed chess game below the kitchen sink a-la Resident Evil — everything here is based on stuff that can actually happen in real life. Memos ripped apart, annoying little girls that won’t let you walk by the stairs (well, not too real), and even “master of unlocking” action. Heh, sorry about that.

Opening the Mini Fridge
We have nothing but admiration for Hotel Dusk’s fantastic storyline, but what about the visual presentation? Well, get ready to hear some more praise, because Hotel Dusk has one of the best artistic packages ever seen in videogames. From the opening video to the grand finale, everything is so stylishly done, that it puts other graphical adventures to shame. Utilizing a hand-drawn technique that gives the game a “pseudo-noir movie” personality, each one of the characters is great to look at, and even though the images are static – you are really fooled into believing that they are moving, thanks to the sketchy lines on each one of the designs. If you remember A-Ha’s famous music video for their hit song “Take on Me” (we’re not that old, we promise!), you’ll know what we’re talking about. It is a really exceptional choice of artistic design, but it works, and we can’t actually imagine any other style being used, seeing as it blends so perfectly with the rest of the gameplay and atmosphere. We definitely can’t wait to see what Cing cooks up next!

Explore the mysteries of Room 215

Musically speaking, there isn’t much to be said. There are a lot of jazzy themes going on throughout the game, and the tunes will change depending on what you are doing. Questioning a guest? The music will pick up. Talking your way out of an awkward situation? The music will play cool. Asking the wrong questions? Eek, you better start packing. But thanks to this, it will be easy for you to predict what’s coming, and that’s why the soundtrack works. It may not be a huge soundtrack, it may not be the best on the DS — but what it does, it does correctly.

Do Wishes Come True in Hotel Dusk?
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is quite a delicious dish. It takes a game genre that hasn’t gotten much attention in the last years, mixes it up with a beautifully artistic style, adds a great script and fantastic character development, and serves it up in two screens. The result is something special because it proves that any game genre can still be revitalized with the right amount of heart poured into it. The developers have come a long way from their previous title Trace Memory, as they actually built upon that solid foundation and improved almost everything that was needed in order to create one of the best adventure games out there. It’s true the game might be a bit slow or even too wordy for some people, but those who take the time to visit Hotel Dusk will find themselves enjoying their stay in a fantastic place where wishes definitely come true.

— Miguel Yanez