A story driven Adventure/Mystery game at heart, but feels greatly inspired by Point and Click PC Adventure games
The game taps you through pretty quickly. You're Kyle Hyde an ex-detective, now salesman. Something terrible happened during your time in the force and it pushed you away from the job. You roam around a hotel, appropriately called Hotel Dusk, on business and you quickly figure out that there's more to this hotel than you could of hoped. Never has a game create so much warmth and interest in characters than Hotel Dusk. There's a definitive feeling between every character and their animated actions boast their personality and emotions. The dialog as well creates a very tight vibe that keep the game interesting and playable, even if you're just running around a hotel to talk to people hours on in. The art style--which is compared to A-Ha's hit video "Take On Me" way too much--is executed quite well. The sketchy off beat style molds almost too well with the games story and characters. It's very easy to get lost in the grey and shady exterior of the game, but once the story gets rolling, which happens right as you start a game, it's very hard to put it down. The story of the game is broken into chapters which segues through each other pretty smoothly. Every minute of the game does a great job of milking this unique storyline. Although the story does lack of incentive direction at some times, the complexity of it all never seems to stop until the last second of the game, where it ties in a satisfiable fashion. Also, as you progress there are puzzles to keep the gameplay fresh and enjoyable to the last bit. These puzzles don't really push the mind to it's limit, but that's just to say most solutions are simple but often not seen at first, so the difficulty is quite vairable.
Hotel Dusk is played as simple as you could imagine. First of all, the game has you hold your DS like a book. The game can be controlled through the touch screen throughout the entire game if you like. At sometimes this can be completely uncomfortable, but thankfully Cing made great use of the face buttons. During times of long, hand-tiring dialog, some carefully chosen buttons can be used to comfortably get through it all. While moving around the hotel, using the d-pad or touch screen, the second screen accompanies you through a first person perspective as you tour the hotel. Half of the time you'll find yourself investigating a room where you then search a 3D area, which you can pan left and right to look around and investigate. The graphics aren't very impressive, but does its job nonetheless.
The game sports a great soundtrack that fairs the mood of every conversation and any situation you're put in. The jazz, blues and classical fusion embraces the art style in a way that enhances gameplay. It's almost like clockwork. There isn't much to say about the sound effects, but that it's all very natural. That's definitely how doors sound like when they are old. Or footsteps even, it isn't noticeable and that's how footsteps should sound like.
It's almost sad to see that this game isn't getting the attention it deserves. It easily offers basic features that most popular games slack away with. An intriguing storyline, interesting characters, and natural dialog. There aren't a lot of games where gameplay relies on it's storyline to keep you going, but this does just that and it does it nearly flawlessly.