Earlier this year, I decided to dust off my old Nintendo DS and revisit two games I had fond memories of : Hotel Dusk : Room 215 and Last Window: The Secret of Cape West. Last time I played either game was before I started this blog, so I was curious to see how they had held up.
In case you're unfamiliar with them, Hotel Dusk and Last Window are adventure games made by the developer Cing and released in 2007 and 2010 respectively. You play as Kyle Hyde, former NYPD- detective, now a traveling salesman with the company Red Crown.
Kyle is on the hunt for Brian Bradley, his partner from his days at the force, who vanished under dramatic circumstances. As Hotel Dusk begins, Kyle has just checked into Room 215 of the titular building. Soon, our hero will learn that this hotel, located in the middle of nowhere, contain plenty of secrets, some which ties back to Bradley and to the crime syndicate known as Nile...
Last Window is set in 1980, year after the events of Hotel Dusk. Once again, the game takes place entirely within one building: Cape West, the apartment block in which Kyle Hyde lives. Having been fired from his job with Red Crown, Kyle is hired via an anonymous letter to locate the Scarlet Star, a diamond that went missing back when Cape West used to be a hotel. Soon, Kyle's investigation takes on a personal twist, as he learns that the mystery of the missing diamond is tied to the death of his own father...
As is the case with most adventure games, the puzzles in both Hotel Dusk and Last Window vary in terms of difficulty. Some are really easy to figure out. Others, not so much. In particular, there's a puzzle near the end of the second game which had me stumped for the longest time. I must confess that I eventually caved and decided to look up the solution (I'm positive I did the same during my previous play-through).
Both games feature the threat of dying (or at least getting a 'Game Over'). Moreover, in Hotel Dusk there's an item that you need to pick up and if you miss it, you've soft-locked yourself out of the game. Therefore, its recommended that the player switches between the three save-slots available.
In terms of presentation, I don't have much to say. Satoshi Okubo's soundtracks adds to the atmosphere of both games, while Chiharu Sakiyama's character artwork gives them a distinct look, reminiscent of the music video to Take on Me by A-Ha.
More than anything else though, the Kyle Hyde dulogy's greatest strength is undoubtedly its writing, courtesy of one of Cing's co-founders: Rika Suzuki. Szuki's plots are intriguing and filled with twists and turns that would make any mystery-writer proud. Then, there are the characters; Kyle Hyde himself is one of my favorite protagonists in gaming. While, at first, his stand-offish attitude may make him hard to like for some players, the more one learns about him, the easier it becomes to sympathize with the guy. and in both games. This extends to the vast majority of each game's supporting cast. While some characters are going to elicit more sympathy from the player than others, there are a few who can be said to completely without redeeming traits.
Finally, although I am by no means an opponent of emulation (quite the opposite), I do think that both Hotel Dusk and Last Window should be experienced on the original hardware. The Reason for this, is that there are several puzzles that require you to interact with the DS directly; opening and closing it, blowing in the microphone and so on (though if any of my readers, have played the games on an emulator I'd be interested to hear what your experience was and how the aforementioned puzzles were handled).
Sadly, Kyle Hyde's second outing was to be his last, as Cing filed for bankruptcy in 2010, the same year that The Last Window was released. Truly, a shame, but at least we'll always have this duology, which consists of two of the best adventure games I've played.
