Hotel Dusk: Room 215

You should know going into Hotel Dusk that it's not very action-packed. Everyone's favorite attorney game has a certain flair to it, an ever present excitement to solving cases and grilling witnesses. But Hotel Dusk, though covering similar territory, is much more subdued. Throughout the whole of the game, which I suppose took somewhere around 8-12 hours, I felt pressured for perhaps a total of two minutes. This isn't necessarily "bad" depending on one's tastes. Ultimately, it is less like a video game, and more like a book. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this was Cing's mantra all along, as the game-like portions are somewhat rough around the edges while the storytelling is highly refined.

Yes, it is very well written. Hotel Dusk is a surprising example of how a good detective story can be told outside of a thick novel or an abridged film. Figuring out the running plot was rarely what I would call difficult, but was nevertheless intriguing and enthralling. By the last few chapters I simply couldn't put my DS down; I had to keep pushing toward the truth.

Which brings me to my final point - casual play. As I said, the "game" elements lend themselves pretty well to a casual player. But at the same time, I think if you were to take long breaks between loading save files, you'd be at a disadvantage. This is because so much of what happens in Hotel Dusk is reliant on your attention to and memory of past events. If you do decide to play this game in spurts, be sure to make extensive use of the in-game notebook.

Progress: Complete