"Style over substance"

Hotel Dusk was my most anticipated DS title of 2007. Followed by the new Pokemon games. Well, here's the hoping that the Pokemon games are good because Hotel Dusk has a lot of flaws.

Kyle Hyde is an ex-detective. He is now a salesman and ends up at Hotel Dusk to find some items for a customer. On the way in he passes a woman in white and when he arrives he is given room 215, the wishing room, a room where whoever stays has their wish come true. The story starts off strong enough. Building up tension but as the game progresses it becomes very formulaic and dull. The twists, for the most part, can be figured out as soon as you have the tiny bit of info and some things are just predictable. At the end of the game when everything should come together, the purpose of the game solved, none of that happens. A convoluted side plot takes full force and the matter at hand is ignored.

If Hotel Dusk does one thing right it's its graphic style. Hold your DS like a book and experience style like you haven't seen it. The game uses slick and beautiful characters that look hand drawn and their animations are very amusing. The hotel itself looks good as well. The right screen is a plain 2d map while the left screen will be a 3d rendering of it all. I have two problems though. Half way through the game you notice that situations are set up in a way that new character animations aren't needed so you wind up seeing the same thing over and over. Also, the 3d view of the hotel is a bit blurry and some items are very pixilated.

Another thing that Hotel Dusk has down is the sound. The music creates a splendid noir feel to the game which really brings the entire thing to life. Sound effects are limited but fit every situation perfectly. The biggest shame is that there is no voice acting but this is the DS and that can be expected.

The game uses the stylus for control and while it's very simple and easy to do I did run into a few problems. I found my hand cramping after just an hour of play and not just a slight cramp but one that lasted for a while after stopping. I also found that at times the stylus wasn't exact and caused me a few bumps along the way, mainly near the end of the game.

Hotel Dusk is an adventure game. Meaning you walk around this hotel, talk to people, ask questions, do some mini games and use items you find to solve puzzles. If you've played on adventure game then you'll know how they all play.

From the start you'll realize that the team that did Trace Memory are the ones behind this game. I have no real problem with that since Trace wasn't too bad of a game.

The puzzles in Hotel Dusk are pretty simple and if you've played Trace Memory you will find that these puzzles have been dumbed down a bit. This entire game is about talking and asking the right questions.

Okay, that's fine but the problem is that the game is like a wall of text. The game is split up into 10 chapters and one of the later chapters has you going to the bar, talking, as you leave someone else starts talking, then when you leave that hallway someone else talks to you and so on and so on. Not all are that linear but with a limit cast it isn't too hard to figure out what to do next.

The text in the game seems never ending at times and there are so many times where the game stops to explain every detail of the plot, even though mere seconds ago you got all of that information. It becomes tedious and it would be great if the dialog was witty and original but it isn't.

The mini games are slightly amusing but nothing too hard or exciting. The bowling mini game gave me many problems because the game failed to mention how to do it exactly and the other person kept getting perfect strikes.

Most adventure games have no replay value. Hotel Dusk offers some special things in the next two play throughs but they add nothing new to the game itself. So they get a few points for some effort I guess.

I have nothing against adventure titles or reading but what Hotel Dusk boils down to is a slightly interactive novel. This would be fine if the characters were more interesting, if their stories weren't so clichéd and if the dialog had some wit to it somewhere. The puzzles are too few and far between and they lack from any challenge. Hotel Dusk is a perfect example of style over substance and to be honest style almost won me over but the mundane act of going through the same bland dialog for hours at a time just killed it for me. Here's to hoping that this team can get the perfect mix of their two DS titles.

Story - 5/10
Graphics - 10/10
Sound - 10/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 6/10
Replay Value - 2/10

Final Score - 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/05/07