Reminiscing about Hotel Dusk for 15 years
People adore creating Top 5 Lists, if there is one thing about High Fidelity that is always true. We enjoy creating lists, so here are our top 5 films, songs, and TV programs that were canceled due to Scott Foley's casting. Even though I love creating my own top 5 lists when I'm very bored, I've discovered throughout the years that I'm not very good at it.
Any list I write has one or two items that I can readily identify that always rank at the top, but after that, it's mostly up to my whim. This is particularly true when attempting to order the many video games I've played over the years. I'm terrible at it, so if you asked me on a Monday what my top five books were, there's a good possibility that four of the titles would have changed by the time you asked me on a Friday. Everything is just connected to whatever it is that I'm now interested in. I'm a Super Metroid man sometimes, and a Marvel's Spider-Man guy other times. Alternatively, if a certain game I liked in the past is commemorating its anniversary, I could unconsciously give it priority listing, as I have been doing with Hotel Dusk: Room 215 for the whole month.
In actuality, the release of Hotel Dusk is celebrating its 15th anniversary this month. Nintendo created the game as part of their "Blue Ocean" strategy. If you're not familiar with this period in Nintendo's history, simply take a look at all the lighthearted titles the company released for the Wii and DS in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of titles like Nintendogs and Wii Sports.
These games, known as "Touch! Generation" games on both platforms, included crossover hits such as Endless Ocean, Elite Beat Agents, and Clubhouse Games. Some titles, such as Personal Trainer: Math, America's Test Kitchen: Let's Get Cooking, and 100 Classic Books, didn't exactly resonate with players of all races. If the previous title is unfamiliar, it essentially turns your Nintendo DS into an e-reader that can only read books that are in the public domain. If there's one thing about Nintendo that everyone should be aware of, it's that it likes to cut corners anywhere it can (take the music choices on Wii Music, for example).
Room 215 at Hotel Dusk was one of these titles from Touch! Generation. It is really billed as "A Mystery Novel: Lies. Betrayal. Murder" on the rerelease box cover. Perhaps that's why, after purchasing the game from Target's clearance section, I never bothered to open it. I had seen the trailer at an earlier E3, so I know it was on my radar, but January 2007 was also the month I received my Nintendo Wii, and at the time, games like WarioWare: Smooth Moves and Excite Truck had a firm grip on my attention.It was really a bit more than a year after the release of Hotel Dusk before I played it. January 23, 2008, was the date. I was visiting with a friend, so I can recall the precise day. That morning, when I signed onto her computer to check my email, the top news on MSN about actor Heath Ledger's untimely death stopped me cold. His was the first celebrity death that really affected me as a newly out homosexual guy who watched Brokeback Mountain on DVD way too often. I was overcome with despair after hearing the news, and the only thing that would help me get over my sorrows was to pull out my Nintendo DS Lite and start playing this little puzzle that would take up my whole two days.
You are free to arrive whenever you like, and you may go without difficulty in about 12 hours
.Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is not a mystery book, despite what the box art said. Let me start by reassuring you of that if you haven't played it. Yes, there are secrets at play, but that's just part of the fun. Yes, there is a lot of reading, and you do hold your DS sideways like a book, but labeling it a novel when you've really released a DS cartridge containing just books might lead to casual gamers buying this up on the spur of the moment to be deceived.However, it has the substance of a mystery book. As you try to find out what the deal is with this hotel and why your room is called the "wish room," you'll come across a lot of mysteries, hints, and sometimes confusing riddles. The main character, Kyle Hyde, is a former NYPD detective who is sent by his present employers, Red Crown, to the hotel. An easy parcel recovery assignment soon devolves into a deeper investigation into Hyde's background and his search for Brian Bradley, his old colleague.
[Images Provided by Another Code Fandom]
To be honest, I am aware that the tale of Hotel Dusk isn't very noteworthy, despite its exceptional location. However, it served as my introduction to the mystery genre, which I had previously just briefly explored. I've always associated mysteries with stuffy, antiquated novels by authors like Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. For elderly blue-haired people on walkers, mystery books were meant. I belonged to the generation that read books like Harry Potter, Fight Club,, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. much older than I should have been when I read that.
And it wasn't only video games and literature that didn't interest them in mysteries. My dislike of the genre has caused me to miss a lot of excellent movies throughout the years. First off, neither Seven nor 12 Monkeys have ever appeared to me. None of the Pink Panther movies have yet to be seen by me. Sure, a few made it in throughout the years, such as Momento and Clue (which, if you had a VHS player, you probably had Clue ), but until I played this game, I had never even watched a Hitchcock movie outside of Psycho. That's how unfriendly the genre was to me.
I wouldn't be the mystery lover I am now, as this article's title suggests, if I hadn't needed a vacation from the pain I was experiencing on that chilly day in 2008. I bought an absurd number of games on the Wii and DS. After the first hour or so, I would move the most of them on my shelf to join the collection I would admire but never touch. If the world hadn't seemed to have hit me in the breadbasket, Hotel Dusk probably would have suffered a similar fate.
The Kyle Hyde Saga and Cing's demise
Outside of most Nintendo-centric circles, Hotel Dusk was relatively unknown, even with the popularity of numerous Touch! Generation games. It simply didn't connect with the DS audience the same way that, say, Professor Layton and the Curious Village did, a few weeks after I had closed the Wish Room and Osterzone case. Since the game's release, Kyle Hyde has made appearances in the Smash Bros. franchise as a trophy and ghost. However, neither the developer nor his flagship series made it to the Switch, Wii U, or even the 3DS.
The creator of Hotel Dusk, Cing, filed for bankruptcy in 2010 after receiving a negative response to three of their releases. The sequel to Trace Memory in North America, Another Code: R - A Journey into Lost Memories, was only released in Japan and Europe. Co-developed by Cing, Little King's Story debuted to great acclaim (indeed, it's one of the best Wii games ever) but average sales. Lastly, the Tecmo-published Again was essentially doomed due to the developer's reckless swing-and-miss performance. The last game it published, titled Last Window: The Secret of Cape West, was a follow-up to Hotel Dusk and took place in Kyle Hyde's apartment building. It was released in 2010. Similar to Another Code: R, it failed to reach North America. English-language versions of the game are still available on eBay for those who still own a Nintendo DS, however they are no longer as inexpensive.
It's unfortunate that Kyle Hyde's narrative may never come to an end because of the many unresolved issues with Hotel Dusk, Last Window, and the series' connections to the Another Code franchise. A few of the Cing creators would later work with Arc System Works on a similar mystery game for the Nintendo 3DS titled Chase: Cold Case Investigations - Distant Memories. Even if the visual direction was excellent, the eShop exclusive was unable to replicate the enchantment of the titles that came before it in the absence of financial support from Nintendo.
Undoubtedly, Cing, even in its brief existence, expanded my perspectives and persuaded me to examine a genre that I now feel was too traditional for my contemporary tastes. Since experiencing Hotel Dusk, I've made every effort to make up for that mistake of judgment. Over the years, I've binge-watched mysteries and film noirs, read a few whodunit books, and, while I doubt Chris Moyse of The Industry would like it, I've been trying since last year to convince him to see Knives Out,. In fact, I shouldn't be thinking about the cast of Death on the Nile, but I'm kind of enthusiastic about it.
Without Hotel Dusk, none of it would be true for me now. Therefore, without a doubt, Hotel Dusk is in my list of the top 5 video games. However, if you asked me a week later, I think I would replace it with something like Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime.