For myself, characters are the most important element of a story. Bad narratives can have great casts, but you can’t have good stories without at least decent characters.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 goes far beyond decent personalities. It not only features a likable cast but you also have complex interactions with them. The player is a detective. While you have to build relationships with the other residents of the hotel, you also have to pursue your own interest. Sometimes you do this by deceiving, lying and working behind their backs while also befriending them to gain their trust.
It’s a fine line to walk and in some ways is a fair exchange. Most of them have a motive or personal history they’re trying to hide. It can be simply to protect their image or because they have a greater aim.
One of Hotel Dusk’s most impactful moments for me was a bad ending. When you’re exploring a floor of the hotel that’s off-limits, it’s possible to get caught by the hotel’s owner. He never really got along with the main character in the first place. Both are stubborn men who often butt heads with each other. Yet there’s still a relation and friendship between them built from their small talk, maybe more than they’d both like to admit.
As with every other character you deal with, you’re walking on thin ice. When you’re caught, he basically yells at you to get out of the hotel. It sounds like a typical fail state, but I came away with the feeling that he was disappointed in me as person. I put a lot of emotional investment into him at that point and it felt like I betrayed him.
It’s been almost a decade since I’ve played Hotel Dusk, but that moment and feeling has remained clear in my mind.
(Header Image Source: Kotaku)
