Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS) Playthrough
A playthrough of Nintendo's 2007 mystery adventure game for the Nintendo DS, Hotel Dusk: Room 215.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is a point-and-click style adventure that was born out of a collaborative relationship between Cing, a short-lived developer known for their unique brand of interactive storytelling, and Nintendo. Hotel Dusk was Cing's third game - it followed after Glass Rose on PS2 and Another Code: Two Memories on DS - and it was arguably the best of the eight titles they produced before going bust in 2010.
You assume the role of Kyle Hyde, an ex-NYPD detective who has fallen from grace. Struggling to accept the circumstances that ultimately led to the end of his career, Kyle now spends his days as a down-and-out traveling salesman with a penchant for boozing.
On New Year's Eve of 1979, he finds himself checking into a run-down hotel on the California coastline. He has been sent to Hotel Dusk to deliver a package to a "special client," and as he explores the hotel and acquaints himself with its staff and guests, he begins to realize that there is far more to this place than first meets the eye.
Delving any further into the plot here would spoil it for anyone who hasn't played the game before, but I will say that it becomes quite the exciting rollercoaster ride once Kyle begins to connect the dots. The story suffers from a few too many contrivances and deus-ex-machina moments, but it manages to stay pretty engaging throughout. I wouldn't call the story the feature attraction here, though.
The real star of the show is its ensemble cast. Hotel Dusk: Room 215's story provides the backdrop for what ends up becoming a meaningfully realized character study.
I found Kyle to be far more endearing than your typical video game protagonist. He's an aloof and jaded grump who often rubs people the wrong way, but he's also a guy that means well and follows through on his word. He's easy to empathize with and is incredibly likable because of, rather than in spite of, his flaws.
The rest of the cast is similarly well-written. Some are better developed than others, but none of the characters feel like NPC sock puppets that exist solely to spoon-feed exposition to the player. They all feel like real people with real lives that extend beyond the scope of the game's narrative, and regardless of whether you loved or hated these people, their story arcs make them all memorable.
Speaking of memorable, the game's presentation is a huge part of what makes Hotel Dusk such a special experience. You play the game holding the DS like a book, and the hotel is a fully modeled 3D space that can be explored at your leisure. The intimate scope of the setting and the fact that other characters move freely about within it as time progresses makes Hotel Dusk feel like a window into a day in the life of the people inside.
And then you have the beautifully stylized rotoscoped animation that's used to portray the characters. It breathes a ton of life into every interaction, and it's a perfect match for the grungy, dreary look of the hotel. It looks a lot like A-Ha's video for the song Take On Me, and I think it looks fantastic.
So, if you couldn't tell by now, I really liked Hotel Dusk: Room 215. It's a low-key, experimental sort of game that doesn't quite always live up to its lofty ambitions, but it'll keep you completely enthralled for the three or four afternoons it'll take you go through it.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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