Hotel Dusk: Room 215 — Advancing Towards the Window

“What qualifies as a video game?”

It’s one of the biggest questions gamers have pondered this generation, mainly due to Nintendo’s willingness to give your parents a gateway into the hobby. It’s also utterly frivolous due to how it arose, and the meaning some people have established about what a video game (or non-game, if you will) actually is. Opinions over the internet differ wildly, and by the end observant passer-bys are left wondering what points precisely to the answer, mostly based on what audience it’s aimed towards.

So when a game(or “game”) like Hotel Dusk: Room 215, one championed by the vocal, niche minority who’ve experienced it, what should it be classified as? Video games are constantly referred to as interactive experiences whose worlds are shaped by your actions, or whose challenges can be accomplished by your inherent ability to adapt to the reflex-intensive mechanics presented. Hotel Dusk is an interactive story where you guide the main character through the ropes, with small interaction in the form of decision-making. It’s a game even less involving than its genre predecessors in point-and-click adventures, falling squarely within the visual novel classification — a concept further hammered home as the game has you hold your DS like a book.

It sure doesn’t sound like what defines a game; yet the fact that it’s praised by people who call themselves gamers speaks volumes about how defining what represents a game completely fruitless.

(That is, unless you’ve used the terms and phrases solely for simplicity’s sake. In which case, you’re excused.)

It doesn’t have the most innovative stylus use, but it never gets old.

Hotel Dusk has you go through the motions as Kyle Hyde, a 33-year-old take-no-nonsense salesman for Red Crown tasked with peddling his wares to numerous places. Fate would have him happen upon a rundown place called Hotel Dusk, where he’ll have to stay for the night.  Beginning the game, it’s aware to both you and your protagonist that there’s more to this hotel than it initially seems. You’re tasked with obtaining two items hidden somewhere in the hotel by a mystery employer, but that’s not all you’re doing, as secrets lie within its past and present. Its current owner, Dunning, lets him stay in the room that’s said to grant wishes: room 215.

Kyle himself isn’t exempt from this either; he’s a man who holds his own secrets within. He used to be a cop for NYPD with his partner Bradley, and all was rosy until his partner decided to go south and betray him. After being shot, Bradley fell into the ocean in New York, his body never found. Kyle believes he’s still alive because, and the obtains clues of his possible whereabouts. This brings him to Los Angeles, where he believes he’ll find answers about his ex-partner and friend.

 It’s worth investigating the environs, especially to hear Kyle’s snarky comments.

Mystery is what Hotel Dusk does best. The fine development team at Cing (or that were at Cing) clearly did their homework in nailing the vibe that many detective films and novels of yore had. This game takes place in 1979, a world that should have a completely different feel and aesthetic than the present or future when replicated digitally. The well-written dialogue is an assistant to this, and thanks should also be given to Nintendo’s localization team, who did an amicable job in translating the dialogue.

The main challenge here comes in saying the right things at the right time to the right person upon engaging in conversation with them. Questions will always arise when talking to anyone staying in the hotel, some of which are more important than others (as denoted by multiple colors). You’ll sometimes need to tap the person you’re conversing with to peg them for info, indicated by a flashing exclamation mark. You’ll need to pick carefully, as picking the wrong decision can either raise their curiosity, make them upset, or worse, get you ejected from the hotel. You don’t want to do either, especially the last one, since ejection means the game is over. Fortunately, you can go back to before the conversation began, if that happens.

Some people are more than willing to talk to you…

This game has a unique graphics style, with characters are actually real models traced over to resemble animated versions.  Rotoscoping isn’t a very common technique in an age where everything is being replicated in CG, but it’s a brilliant way to create a distinct look that’s as pleasing to the eye as something drawn from the ground up. In fact, this was the first game in around ten years to have this technique, and the only one to have it after this one is Last Window: The Secret of Cape West. Perfectly fitting, too, because it’s this game’s sequel.

When I said the development team clearly studied everything that would make a fictional iteration of the late 70s feel genuine, I was also talking about the music, which is beautiful. It’s mainly comprised of slow-moving, jazzy material necessary to suit the subtle mood the game has throughout most of its ten chapters. Composer Satoshi Okubo definitely deserves a pat on the back for what he’s done here.

…while some definitely aren’t.

Aside from it being slow moving game and mostly non-interactive, which might be a problem for some of you, it only has one niggling issue: finding out precisely what to do next at times. Around 70% of the time you’ll know where you need to hang around to trigger the next story event; the other 30% consists of either picking something up or doing something so minimal that you wouldn’t think it was required to continue the story. It gets a little frustrating, especially when you’ve been wondering where you went wrong for a lot of time.

Way too many visual novels go unlocalized, so we should cherish them when they arrive on our shores. Hotel Dusk warrants the attention of anyone who likes games like these, or who enjoys detective and mystery stories or books. Nintendo didn’t advertise it very well upon release, but in case you missed it, it’s still available everywhere. As previously mentioned, there’s also a sequel: Last Window: The Secret of Cape West. It’s currently available in Europe, and it doesn’t seem like it will be available anywhere else since apparently publishing a game is too hard for Nintendo of America these days. Make sure you pour out a cold one for our fallen friends at Cing after playing it.