Spoiler Friday: Hotel Dusk

Hotel Dusk, a point and click adventure game heavy on dialog, kept me playing till the end thanks to its twisting and turning plot. Kyle Hyde, a retired detective comes to Hotel Dusk to pick up some things for his boss and discovers clues about his left-for-dead ex-partner who was suspected of coercing with some art thieves as well as some fishy things going on in the hotel.

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Throughout most of the game, players are led to believe that Kyle Hyde is after his partner Bradley because of his involvement with "the Nile," a crime syndicate.  I thought that Bradley had turned into a traitor because the business of stealing art was so lucrative. 

 

When it’s revealed that Bradley wasn’t actually involved in the whole Nile case out of personal gain, but in order to help alleviate the pain of Dunning, who was full of regrets for his past.

 

So what did Dunning do that he regrets so much?  Years ago, Robert Evans (Mila’s dad) and Dunning, who were old school buddies, came up with a get-rich-quick scheme that involved Robert, who ran an art studio, and Dunning, who was a painter, coming up with a fictional dead painter, Osterzone. Dunning would paint the paintings while Robert would sell it.  This scam became more and more lucrative. The duo made some money, but things got out of hand and a crime syndicate, Nile, started to get involved.

 

What does Hotel Dusk have to do with this?  Robert bought Hotel Dusk in order to give Dunning a place to hide while he painted.  Unfortunately, Dunning wanted out of the whole scheme, and Nile held Jenny, his daughter, hostage in order to force him to keep painting.  Mila, who was Jenny’s childhood friend, fell into a coma when Jenny was kidnapped by Nile.

 

The Nile forced Robert to continue his art scheme and forced Dunning to keep painting.  It wasn’t until Bradley discovered all this, shot Robert, returned Dunning’s prized angel painting to him and then informed Dunning that his daughter Jenny was dead, that the whole Osterzone scam stopped.

 

As if that weren’t confusing enough already, there’s also a side-parallel-plot that has to deal with a sham of a writer stealing the work of an old friend, passing it off as his own and becoming a famous author.

 

While the game’s story started off slow paced, by the time I finished it, my head was reeling with all the information I uncovered.  It was a bit  overwhelming how the mystery unfolded.


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Author
Louise Yang
Former Siliconera staff writer who loves JRPGs like Final Fantasy and other Square Enix titles.