A period 'pulp noir' game that breathes new life into an old style of gameplay and keeps you interested the whole time.
As protagonist Kyle Hyde, you've had a tough life. As an ex-NYPD whose partner, Bradley, turned bad, you're now a travelling salesman for a two-bit operation that handles minor detective work and specialty item locating on the side. Arriving at Hotel Dusk on a mission, you're immediately stunned to learned that someone using your name stayed there six months ago. Thinking this might be the work of Bradley, you set out to find the truth, engaging all the workers and guests in conversations, even running into an old street-wise punk you know from NYC. Following an engrossing story, you'll soon discover that nearly everyone in the hotel is somehow linked to someone else, even if they don't know it. From the pompous mystery writer to the snobby actress to the hardworking maid, everyone's got some involvement: a clue to offer; a task for you to do; a story to tell. Using just the stylus you'll move, grab items, solve puzzles, pick conversation choices, and knock on doors. Eventually you'll be lead to the truth, and whether or not Bradley has any involvement in all this... you'll just have to play to find out!
The people you meet and how they're represented are very impressive. Even though they're merely sets of 2D black-and-white pencil drawings, their facial expressions and body language, combined with smart dialogue that never strays from character, do a better job of letting you see their personalities than many games with FMV and Hollywood voice work, and in a detective game, that's everything. Whether you find the fact that so many people in one hotel on one night could be interconnected so much is eerie or laughably outrageous, one thing's clear: a lot of time was spent on the story & fleshing everything out, and you won't be able to help being entranced by it all. The control scheme is solid, as tapping with the stylus to knock on a door feels very natural, as does using it to pound a hammer through a wall or wipe away flakings on a picture. Extra-helpful is having a few memo pages where you can scribble appointments and clues to help you on your way.
Like some other games of this variety, one gripe is seeing items you know you'll need, but not being allowed to grab them until you've found something that requires its use. This leads to a lot of agitating backtracking. Some plot twists your character won't figure out until long after you've done so yourself, and there's a lot of areas where you know there's a puzzle for you, but it only 'magically' becomes available when you need it to advance the plot. The text dialogue is somewhat slow to advance, and protracted plot-advancing conversations will make your hand cramp. There's also some occasional repetition of dialogue within conversations. Death in the game is rarely from actually dying, but usually from a character clamming up on you because you've made too many bad choices in a conversation. It strikes quickly and without a lot of warning, which can be frustrating.
While the stylus is very comfortable and natural to use, the concept of holding the DS like a book sometimes misfires, leading to further hand cramps. Some puzzles also make you carry out the same repetitive task longer than is necessary (or comfortable). Most zoom-in graphics are VGA-era quality (not bad for a handheld) and the fact that character drawings are actually two or three nearly exact drawings that swap rapidly give everyone that subtle hint of action that lets you believe they're real. The music is competent, though a bit cheesy, and the sound effects are all well done. While you should hit 15-20 hours (depending on how much time you spend searching every tiny nook for clues), there's very little replay value. By providing a fun, deep story to live out, Hotel Dusk proves that with new technology, there's a lot of value to updating otherwise passe gaming genres and letting them find new fans.