Snatcher - Hideo Kojima's Cyberpunk Masterpiece! - Retro Review

hello everybody and welcome to another video now when I first decided I wanted to make videos about retro games there were two games in particular that I wanted to speak about on the channel the first of which was paner draon Saga for the Sega Saturn and I spoke about this last year made a video about it and it's a game I absolutely fell in love with the other game is one called snatcher this was released in Europe in United States in 1994 for sega's somewhat ill- fated Sega or Mega CD ad on for anyone unaware it was an add-on for the Mega Drive Genesis it originally released in late 1991 early '92 and it allowed for the ability to play CD ROM based games on the system as well as bringing in a few additional enhancements now discussion about the mega CD as well as Sega later addon for the Mega Drive the 32x would be an entire video in of itself but the mega CD when it released had a fair bit of hype behind it but really it kind of has something of a mix Legacy there were a handful of really really good games for it in particular Sonic CD is held up by some fans as one of the better 2D Sonic games but there were also a lot of really poor ones as well there were a lot of companies that were trying to get in on the whole FMV game trend of the early 90s thinking that because we would move to CD ROM it would allow for movie like games and it didn't it really really didn't so ultimately 1994 by the time snatcher came around support for the CD ROM add on the mega CD was dwindling and Sega were about to release the 32x as well as going into the launch of the Saturn and make a few more po business decisions however we are here to speak about snatcher so what exactly is it it is a graphic adventure game and it didn't actually start its life on the mega CD the original version of snatcher was actually released all the way back in 1988 it was developed for the PC 8801 and MSX 2 systems the PC 801 is a kind of home computer made primarily for the Japanese markets the msx2 is another home computer system I kind of saw popularity in Japan South Korea Argentina Brazil and a handful of other countries the game would go on to be ported to and enhanced for the PC engine in 1982 and then Konami looking for a project for the Mega CD to release in the West decided that a part of that would be ideal for the system instead of going for a night trap inspired FMV title a wise decision interestingly the mega CD version of snatcher is actually the only Western release of the game it was actually ported to the PlayStation and in Sega Saturn at later date but remained Japan only the other really notable thing about the game is that it is the second game to be designed and directed by a certain hide Kima it was his f is over work after the original Metal Gear now I'm fairly sure a lot of you for a lot of you kajima needs no introduction but I don't like to assume knowledge so for a very brief rundown hior kajima is a game's designer writer producer and director he's best known for being the Mastermind behind the metal gear franchise which with the inry Metal Gear Solid helped usher in the stealth Action genre of games beyond that though kajim was worked on game like polien zone of the Enders de stranding he worked on the ill fated Silent Hills project and its playable teaser PT which took the World by storm all the way back in 2014 unfortunately Silent Hills was cancelled after something of a falling out between kajima and the publisher kanami this led to PT being delisted entirely kajima walking out and forming his own Studio which would go on to release the critically acclaimed de stranding kima's work is known for being incredibly cinematic it takes a lot of inspiration from movies and TV shows but it also manages to blend this with engaging and creative gameplay in addition there's this really key attention to Dil across all his titles with players being rewarded for trying things off the beat and path being rewarded with additional content or funny moment the Metal Gear Solid franchise or metal gear franchise is typically held up as one of the biggest and best examples of his work and style with Metal Gear Solid one and three typically being held up as some of the greatest games of all time and for me being someone who grew up in the 90s my first encounter with his work was Metal Gear Solid I remember getting this demo uh with a copy of official UK PlayStation magazine the demo for that month was just Metal Gear Solid there was no other ones on the on the dis at the time and it kind of gave you a good chunk of the opening of the game from the initial Landing to rescuing the darp aever or finding him and for a short while my 10-year-old brain didn't quite get it it was unlike anything I had played before I didn't actually like it at first it was uh too hard it was too complicated but I persevered I learned how it all worked I learned how to manipulate the guards and such I found all these little secrets and Easter eggs and I really fell in love with how it played admittedly the story kind of went over my head but it was such a cool game and so much of it stuck with me now as I got older I had similar experience with the other Mia solid titles I played through and adored M geia Solid 2 I played Metal Gear Solid 3 and I got a PS3 just for Metal Gear Solid 4 so I always took note of things that kajima was working on and I was one of those who was absolutely good to learn on the cancellation of Silent Hills even if PT was just a little bit too scary for me so this is partly why snatcher has been on my radar for a while knowing it's one of his earlier games always intrigued me but then also seeing what it is this sci-fi influenced Adventure game just intrigues me even more but what's it about what is the story here so you play the role of Gillian seed he's an amnesiac who's been assigned to the junkers a special task force created in response to the appearance of the game's titular snatchers robotic beings that have turned up start snatching people away before adopting their appearance gilean is also married to a woman called jery who unfortunately also suffers from Amnesia you see both you and her were picked up at the same time brought to this city you can't remember much of your past except that you were both married and the only thing you do really know beyond that is that there was a strong tie to the snatchers so in his role as a junker Gillian must investigate the snatchers try to figure out who or what is behind them and a means to stop them so whenever this game was released it always received pretty high critical claim fortunately it was not matched with high sales it kind of did quite poorly commercially this is no different for the Mega cd part when it released the mega CD was kind of nearing the end of its life we were had the aformentioned 32x being released for the Mega Drive we had Sega about to release the Sega Saturn so there wasn't really much room for this to be promoted it was said to have only sold a few thousand copies and of course that's led to it becoming quite the rare commodity copies of it go for between £4 to 500 last I checked I actually did see a copy of this in a CeX in midlesboro once and it was going for about £400 so when you add on the costs of a mega Drive which can be gotten quite cheap but then the mega CD add-on playing it legally is quite a difficult and expensive task but with all that said let's actually take a look at the game itself our game begins with somewhat lengthy cut scene telling us about the state of the world so far it turns out Moscow and a large chunk of Eastern Europe were taken out in 1996 by a biological weapon doed Lucifer Alpha many years after this incident in the city of neoc corbe a new threat to the world has emerged the snatches a being which absolutely looks like a Terminator it's a really well animated narrated cut scene it does a good job of building Intrigue giving just enough information without actually being overwhelming even from this I can see how lovely the visuals are in the game it's got a pixel art style that really pops and shines and I guess at the time really took advantage of what the mega CD could offer let's go into act one there's not too much set up here we're straight into junk HQ ready to play the game the game play here is it's a menu driven interface you've got your image up top showing you your environment um you know it's where you are you can see people who you can potentially speak to and you select an item from a menu below for what you want to do be itow look investigate talk or move there are other context sensitive options that might appear based on situation it kind of feels a little bit like a mix between a a visual novel and a point and click so we have an nice not discussion with our first character ma the reception this gives us more information on Gillian who he is why he's here and we get to go on a tour of junk HQ and what it can offer all flows really nicely the dialogue's mostly voice acted and it's decent enough there's nothing awful going on here it does sound of the time graphically it's really really lovely the characters evoke a sort of late 80s anime style environments look great and I have to add at this point that the main character actually reminds me a little bit of Columbo I think it's the court whilst we're in junk HQ we get a quick introduction to some of the to one of the other major gameplay mechanics game has to offer which is the shooting now I did like it there's this little section here to practice this before you encountered it properly in the game World it reminded me of the ability to do a round or two aspiring in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade point and click for anyone who has played that the shooting isn't really too complicated you've got this free by3 grid you move a reticle to the appropriate square with a d-pad shoot with a c button when over an enemy no reloading no ammunition it's just a shooting gallery of sorts also in the HQ we are introduced to our robot companion this sweet little robot called Metal Gear Mark 2 as you probably guessed it is named after the titula robot machine from kima's previous title they actually referenced this in game the engineers stating that he built it based on specs taken from the metal gear of the metal gear incident only this one wasn't made to harm people only help so it actually kind of establishes what this game happens somewhat in the future of the original Metal Gear timeline at least it did before kajima added a lot more stuff later on I don't know where it will fit in that timeline I'm presuming well after the events so probably revengeance or such all of that done time for our first assignment another junker Gan Jack Gibson needs help in the runs of a factory outside of town so into our turbo cycle we go in the factory it is a case of looking at examining everything progressing through the various rooms we find Gibson's robot navigator at one point before running into Gibson himself or in quite a gruesome scene what is left of him we examine his b we find various Clues and try to move on but not before being attacked by a wave of small spider-like robots to close out the area so a couple little things from this section unlike a lot of point and clicks of the era and I don't know if it's fair to compare them with this as this is a different style of game but I know that people are going to be asking about how this might compare to something like beneath a steel Sky it is not difficult to figure out what you meant to do in the game so far there was one bit where I got a little bit stuck but all it came down to really was making sure you exhaust your options for looking at and investigating the scene until it naturally progresses there wasn't really anything up CH there were no real puzzles here that said I did really enjoy the interactivity it did make me feel like I was pushing the game forward through my actions and actually investigating something the first proper shooting segment wasn't that difficult either it was just a matter of spotting the robot as it appeared getting yourself set up at some points it's a little bit frantic I don't think anyone's going to struggle with this first bit but my first impressions here are really really good I'm already looking forward to seeing how this continues to develop so we return to HQ we're given our next task to find out why Gibson was targeted what he was investigating so we want to do some initial investigation at junk HQ going through the different rooms seeing what he might have left behind before going to Gibson's home to speak to his daughter when we get there though his daughter Katrina she won't let us in without verifying our identity and answering a few questions about her but we don't have those answers to hand so it's back to HQ to consult Jordan the hq's computer now I mentioned earlier that the game has a great way of making you feel like you are investigating the case and this is a good example of that you go to the computer you can enter the name of a person you want information of in this case it'll be Gibson or his daughter and you have to go through that information and remember it because when you go back you are going to be asked a question question about it you actually have to type in the answer instead of just picking it from a menu so what I would say is be ready to write things down in fact I had to write a few things down over the course of the game and this is something I really really love I remember playing I think it was a game called cruise for a corpse as a kid and me and my friend going through it writing down what we had to do in order to trigger the next stage I do like it when games kind of make you do things like that I'm playing Riven at the moment and that is a game where you have to take down notes while playing it and I just I really like that I like games that make you do something a little bit beyond and this is a mechanic that will pop up again in the very next bit so we speak to Katrina we get the information we find out Gibson has this informant called Napoleon you need to speak to him but he won't speak to you without a password and that's one you can only learn by reading up on Napoleon the historical figure that is not the informant block so you arrange just meeting with Napoleon he directed you a public square and again this is such a lovely environment and this shows off some of the attention to detail in Easter eggs the game actually has you'll see these Billboards in the background some of them have phone numbers attached but you can you you can call them via the in-game phone whilst we're there we can also investigate and examine the area and get Gillian to do other little amusing things I found a scene where he orders a lot of food for a place there's apparently a scene where he can order a pizza at some point as well um there's also one particular bit I found which I've kind of shown here you get a phone number for Konami and it has a message from someone's talking about snatcher and how excited they are for people to play the game so one thing I recommend for people playing it is take your time examine explore everything because you never know what you're going to find now a little bit more investigation here leads us to a place called our Heaven another lovely reference to metal gear and while you are in Out Heaven you will see more references to Konami titles while you're in there apparently in the original Japanese version these were references to various bits of Pop Culture but when they brought it over fearing you know legal action they changed it to Konami references now here we get a description of what our snatcha were looking for might have looked like in their human form we go back to the computer junk HQ or put it all together this is one section I found a little bit awkward as some descriptions could have matched two or three items in certain situations in particular the Bony face through me and I ended up getting that wrong the first time that said I liked what I had to do here it does make you feel like a detective like you are piecing this investigation together after you get our suspect it's pretty much a straight Sprint at the end of the First Act we do uncover who the snatch Awards we get into some shootouts it wraps up really nicely we have plenty more questions but more Avenues to explore now I won't go in at what happened in Acts 2 and three but I will say I had a really positive experience for act one and things just kept getting better as the game went on my investigation took me on many brilliant twists and turns it kept me guessing but in a really good way and it was completely engaging puzzle wise nothing really in the game that was too difficult or stumped me for a long time everything was pretty intuitive are quite easy and solve by just exhausting my options except for one puzzle there is a section in the game where you need to decipher the name of a hospital from a picture you have this picture says all on it and you learn that this is wrong and you have to figure out remembering what Clues you have what it could actually say unfortunately when it asks you for the answer it locks you into that moment so you can't P you can't back out and check your inventory or anything like that the answer ultimately does make sense but when I came across it it did frow me for a little bit because I had forgotten that I had a particular item in my inventory that said beyond that moment which was a little bit fiddly there isn't much here in terms of difficulty it's probably below a game like a ATT turny in terms of how hard it is definitely not on the level of something like a monkey island or a Bene a steel Sky not that this is a bad thing because I do feel bad comparing it to them point and clicks but I know that is what people are immediately going to jump for but everything about this game the story the characters the general feel of the world is brilliant how hard it is doesn't really matter but I know there are going to be many of you who might come here for the puzzles something else worth mentioning here and it's a minor Minor Detail but the very original version of this game actually ended at act two act 3 was created I think for the turbo Graphics version onwards it didn't actually have much involvement from kajima if anything at all but it was based on some of the original plans for the game which I think was meant to have up to about five Acts or they were thinking of doing a sequel for it even without his involvement though the ending is really satisfying it wraps things up nicely and has a nice length he C scene there so it feels like it was made by kajima so all of that said game complete let's wrap this up it's probably going to come as no surprise to anyone watching this but I absolutely adore the game it's an absolute must player and I would recommend it to anyone interest in point and clicks cyberpunk Thrillers visual novels or hioc gima's work I wasn't 100% sure what to expect going into it I tried to avoid reading too much to avoid any spoilers as I knew it was quite a narrative driven work and I'm really glad I did because it has led to me finding what I think is one of my favorite kind of adventure games sitting alongside the likes of brokensad curse of Monkey Island and beneath a steel sky where the game might fall down for a few of you is is a lot more straight for forward then the point and clicks I mentioned above there aren't too many puzzles here they're not especially tricky to progress it's a matter of examining and talking to everyone nothing madly obtuse there's no weird combining of objects and there's no Rubber Chickens with pulley in the middle action sequence wise they are what they are they're simple they're a little bit of a shooting gallery they break up some of the investigative gameplay but I don't think they're going to cause anyone any issues that said any of those criticisms are really really minor I am strongly urging everyone to check out the game regardless because what it might lack in Puzzles and action it makes up for in everything else there may be a few awkward moments of dialogue here and there in some of the scenes but nothing I think is going to ruin it for anyone I think it is a really really it's a great game it's a really interesting part of gaming history that came from the mind of one of the biggest names in our industry in snatcher you will see a lot of the DNA that would go into shape some of kima's later works the pop culture references cinematic style the themes present and the flow of dialogue the one big kicker here is that if you want to own this game legally you're going to have to Fork out a lot of money for the actual Western version Mega drives they're meant quite cheap as I mentioned before Mega CDs I think they're about1 and as a rare game it's got a very high cost on top of that like I mentioned earlier 4 or500 so I think it's probably going to be an emulation job and on that point it really does surprise me that this and kima's other early work please Nots have never seen a re-release on modern day platforms uh given the respect his name commands I am really surprised that even back in the early PS3 early PS4 era when they were kind of getting on k um Konami didn't put together a double pack of sorts although strangely enough the turbo Graphics mini which released a couple years ago did have snatch on it be it it was the Japanese version and speaking genuinely I do think that if a double pack were to happen now I think it would do really well in the last few years we've seen a Renaissance in the world of point and clicks and visual novels you need to only look at what Capcom have done with things like the re-release of GS trick the Ace Attorney packs that have came out you look at the success of the dangen Romper franchise things like Stein gate coming out and making it big they have pushed visual novels out there um you've seen various dating simulators come out and make it big and of course you go back to that one thing the association with kajima but that said the well documented falling out with kajima and Konami does make it feel somewhat unlikely kajima kind of went H sorry Konami did go a big effort to distance themselves from kajima scrubbing his name wherever they could even going so far as to D list to critically Acclaim PT from online stares it would be nice if something could be done either kajima gets the rights to the franchise and sorts out himself or Konami kajima patch things up for just this one thing who knows I for one would bloody love to see it happen and I think it deserves to see it happen so on the million to one chance that you know someone from Konami or Mr kajima himself sees this please please make it happen this is a damn good game and I think more people need to play it and have an easy way to play it with all that said thank you all so much for taking the time to watch the video I would love to know if the title you did play yourself back in the day if it's one you've played since or if you're going to check it out after this cheeky little review do let me know in the comments below as always please do give the video a like subscribe to the channel for more Retro Gaming content and until next time thank you once again for taking the time to watch this and goodbye for