Snatcher (1992)

After comparing various versions, I settled on the Sega CD release, as it’s the only official English translation and I wasn’t particularly drawn to the aesthetic of the PSX/Saturn ports. The game is a fascinating experience, though it’s impossible not to notice how shamelessly Hideo Kojima borrows visual elements from Blade Runner and Terminator.

The game humorously ties into Kojima's Metal Gear series with the introduction of a small robotic companion called Metal Gear, a nod fans will appreciate. Combat in Snatcher is simple yet engaging, resembling a “whack-a-mole” mechanic where enemies pop up in one of nine sections. It’s manageable, though later fights, like the one in the air duct, can get quite challenging.

I initially played the game via RetroArch on the Nintendo Switch but encountered persistent technical issues, such as endless animations during the factory transition—a problem reportedly tied to ISO+MP3 versions but oddly occurred with my BIN+CUE setup. Switching to RetroArch on PC resolved this, though further hiccups on Switch required workarounds like transferring save files and reloading the emulator. Ultimately, I continued on PC for a smoother experience.

One of the game’s intriguing mechanics is its approach to progression. Instead of relying solely on a "correct path," the story advances after performing a certain number of actions, allowing for experimentation. For instance, you can simply look around multiple times to trigger the next event, a refreshing change from the rigid design of many other adventure games.

There’s a lot of manual interaction required, particularly with the game's phone-call system. You must memorize numbers and manually input them each time, even after they're saved. Similarly, interactions with the informant require repeatedly handling cash despite having unlimited funds. It’s quirky but adds to the retro charm.

The story itself is a complex web of cyberpunk intrigue, complete with plot twists that feel ahead of their time. For example, in Act III, we discover that protagonists Gillian and Jamie were found in cryosleep, and the technician Harry, killed earlier, is actually their son, now older than his parents by 20 years—a twist reminiscent of Fallout 4, but Kojima envisioned it decades earlier.

The third chapter unveils the origins of the Snatchers: a Soviet project involving a virus, Lucifer Alpha, designed to decimate cities, followed by android replacements modeled after the deceased. Gillian, once a CIA agent embedded in the project, and Jamie were researchers on the team. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Elijah Modnar—an envious colleague—released the virus, placing himself, Gillian, and Jamie into cryosleep. Years later, he reawakens to continue the Snatcher program, with a god complex driving him to perfection. His ultimate foil is Random Hajile, an android built to hunt Snatchers, unaware of his true nature.

The final act is intense, with two grueling shooting sequences followed by a 20-minute exposition dump. It culminates in Random sacrificing himself to stop Elijah, proving his humanity. The story concludes with Gillian and Jamie resolving to rebuild their relationship and Gillian heading to Moscow to end the Snatcher threat for good.

Snatcher is an outstanding cyberpunk adventure that remains playable and engaging even 30 years after its release. Its mix of detective work, sci-fi storytelling, and retro mechanics is impressive, though the final shooting segments were frustratingly difficult—perhaps due to a higher frame rate in modern emulation. What once might have been seen as blatant plagiarism now feels like a love letter to the genre, with Kojima’s “references” coming across as more subtle over time. If you’re a fan of cyberpunk or classic adventure games, this is a must-play.

Preliminary: I couldn't find the original PC 88 version in English but I got the MSX2 version which was released just a month later. The intro sure was long and I hope the whole game doesn't move/text that slowly but this sure is beautiful and unique and interesting and a great title screen and great intro credits screen

So far, this is one of those rare adventure games that actually engages me with the plot, room descriptions, dialog etc. I even chuckled at this, struggled to get along with my wife because all our memories were gone. Yea that'll do it! (Blade Runner keeps coming to mind, of course)

It is beautiful and engaging but it sure likes to drag things out. Basically requires you to explore a lot. Guess I will have to commit to this one being a long one! I hope its Look and dialog keep me engaged for the long haul!

Day 1

Lol Metal Gear, quite literally. Blade Runner rules. So many references and cultural contexts. Okay lol so to make up for lack of weapon, the Metal Gear navigator has... a save system. Makes sense :-p

The Sound is quite sparse, as expected with a text adventure type game, but when it goes, it's quite a jam. But argh, I know this sounds weird but I can't seem to get in the "tricycle"/car lol. Like there's no Enter option, and I've exhausted all my options. I am going to take a break for a moment since I solved most these through exhausting menu options but seems weird. I also can't seem to get the Blaster option to select. Hm. Could just be an issue with the translated version.

Yep okay, turns out I just had to keep exhausting options. It seems a lot of things in this game are based on just wasting several turns? I hope that doesn't get me not to finish it. Cuz that one was particularly frustrating.

Day 2

Unfortunately, the trend of exhausting options/wasting turns continued. Plus with the slow loading, I just wasn't going to push through. Too bad too because the premise is great, the Look is fitting, and the overall Feel is excellent. Maybe some day I will return to it. (I only go to the Abandoned Factory, had been looking into Little John's Memory)

Snatcher is a classic graphic adventure game with an occasionally silly but exciting cyberpunk noir detective story. The presentation in the Sega CD version is impressive, with surprisingly good English voice acting, cool art and scene direction inspired by classic sci-fi films like Blade Runner, and a solid soundtrack fitting the futuristic setting. The story definitely has its moments of darkness and tension, punctuated by some unexpectedly gruesome moments of violence and gore. Like other games from creator Hideo Kojima, though, the seriousness is balanced out with a lot of fun personality in both dialogue and worldbuilding.

Gameplay-wise, this is pretty simple and straightforward in a good way. The menu-driven verb-object interaction does run into some awkward redundancy when, for example, you often need to use both “LOOK” and “INVESTIGATE” on something, or do something twice in a row even when it's not obvious that that needs to happen. Often you’re just kinda stuck exhausting all your options then picking things again until you stumble into the next event. This does make sense sometimes, and other times it rewards you with funny optional scenes, but I'd still rather it be streamlined even more. Combat is not great but I did still enjoy it a bit, almost like whack-a-mole with a gun on a 3x3 grid.

The story and its presentation are really what you'd come to this for, anyway. It takes a lot of inspiration from familiar sci-fi/cyberpunk tropes, but does have some relatively unique ideas and surprise twists. It does a very nice job at creating a compelling world with interesting little details and memorable characters. Most importantly, its storytelling is strong, with scenes and the narrative as a whole playing out at an engaging pace, and visually having a command of action and drama that's much better than you'd expect within these technical limitations.

While individual elements of the game can definitely be criticized, it's overall plenty enjoyable and worth going back to if the idea of an old-school Kojima cyberpunk adventure game sounds appealing to you.

Snatcher is an early sci-fi game from Hideo Kojima that showcases many of the elements that have come to define his style. Despite its dated character tropes and tacked-on light-gun based action gameplay, Snatcher is of interest as a study of Kojima's directorial development. However, its accessibility issues, unnecessary action gameplay, and lack of philosophical depth make it less appealing as an overall gaming experience.

Snatcher is primarily a classic puzzle adventure game, reminiscent of Shadowgate or a visual novel. The story is presented as a combination of animated, voice-acted segments and text-based segments which are not voiced. The animated sequences are not subtitled, which is a big accessibility miss -- this is definitely one area in gaming that, with apologies to Tim Rogers, has come a long way since Pac-Man. The puzzles in the game are well designed, with no strange leaps of logic. The player need only pay attention and they should be able to solve most of the actual puzzles within the game. However, some points in the game require repetitive actions with no indication that they are necessary, or that the repeated actions are making progress. This kind of thing is unforgivable now, but was not only accepted but expected at the time, so to complain about it would be like complaining that The Maltese Falcon (at least, untouched by Ted Turner) is in black-and-white.

Outside of the confines of this boilerplate visual-novel interface, Kojima makes his stylistic mark in a few ways. There is a videophone system that works like the Metal Gear codec (you even need to pay attention to find phone numbers), and the characters will directly reference the buttons that you must press to do various things, a clear example of Kojima's distinctive "semi-diegetic" style. However, the game's action sequences are a misstep, being poorly executed light-gun action sequences that can be played with a normal controller if no light-gun is available. These sequences are not very enjoyable and required the use of Turbo Mode on the controller to beat. One is left with the impression that these were tacked-on to add a bullet point to the feature list for the game.

The story of Snatcher takes clear influences from various sources, including Blade Runner and Akira for the visual style, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Raymond Chandler-style noir novels for the plot and characterization. The script's dialog is well-written and well-translated, with a twist that caught me off guard. The game also has a mostly optional backstory, which adds depth and is relevant to the plot in a more substantial way than most game backstories added just for fluff. Although the moment-to-moment story is exciting, the plot's motivation is somewhat thin, and there are missed opportunities for exploring philosophical ideas in the story, particularly surrounding the idea of "good" and "bad" robots. Given that the detective protagonist's partner throughout the game is a "good" robot, it seems like a serious oversight to not explore those implications.

Additionally, the main character of Gillian Seed is presented as a creepy womanizer, a common trope in noir mysteries, but this type of characterization is difficult to deal with in the context of interactive fiction like video games. As demonstrated by Mass Effect and LA Noire, which have similar problems with characters reacting in unexpected ways based on the abbreviated player prompt, this is a tough nut to crack. Until we do, it's probably best to keep the more controversial characterizations on side-characters instead of controllable protagonists.

In conclusion, Snatcher is a challenging recommendation for modern gamers. However, it is a must-play for those interested in collecting perspective on Hideo Kojima's illustrious career and for those interested in exploring games that may not "stand up" to time but certainly "stand out" in time. However, for those who are looking for a more modern gaming experience, Snatcher may not be the best option.

The podcast How did this get played is devoting a whole month to Hideo Kojima's oeuvre. After they mostly disliked the first Metal Gear, they were so positive about Snatcher that I decided to give it a try. And I'm glad I did, because this game is surprisingly good.

From a game released more than 30 years ago, it has aged well. Both graphics and sound are gorgeous, looking as good or even better than most modern retro-looking games. It's got minimal animation, but what it is there, is also great. The gameplay elements has some minor annoyances. There is both a "look" and an "investigate" commands, but most of the time investigating involves just looking at stuff, so it feels like needless duplication. Moreover, many situations force you to look and investigate stuff repeatedly in order to advance, and since the menu is reset every time you perform an action, this translates to many more button presses than necessary.

But still, those are minor problems. The moment-to-moment gameplay feels surprisingly fresh and enjoyable. It's filled with small funny moments brought by the charming chemistry between the main character and his robot sidekick.

The overarching plot is completely bonkers. As I was half-way through the 40 minute, exposition dump masquerading as the ending cutscene, I still could make sense of anything. Not in the sense that I couldn't understand the events, but in the sense that none of it follows any coherent human logic. I don't know a lot about Kojima's other games, but from what I've gathered, overly-complex plots that don't make sense are his staple.

Honestly, all the background of the story and the Shocking Revelations (TM) read like a first draft made by a kid who's into robots and soviet stuff. At one point, the big bad is explaining all of his bad plan and why he wants to kill everyone and he refers to the characters he is speaking to in the third person, as if he were reading the instruction manual.

Similarly typical of Kojima is his appalling treatment of female characters. Our hero (who is married) glares and hits on every single female character on the game. This includes a co-worker, a stripper/award-winning actress and an the 18 year old daughter of an investigator that was brutally murder that same day. Even towards the end, the main character is simultaneously talking about how he wants to be with his wife, accepting a date with woman, and also gawking at another. And all of this in front of the wife!

Oh, and of course there is a small bit of transphobic humour, why not?

But if you can get over these dated elements, this game is a hoot! Give it a try.

Playing this game thanks to How did this get played Hideo Kojember. Overall pretty cool, but it's so incredibly juvenile. If you think the whole thing with a woman that had to wear skimpy clothes in order to photosynthesise was ridiculous, play this game and realise how far has this guy came regarding female characters.

But then this...

YIKES

around 2014, I had played policenauts and was quite pleased with that game some time back. this game I found to be better in many ways. I think this game is still relevant in many ways and likely always will be. It's a very literate game that combines so many things together in creates a very lovely artform. The game itself is highly entertaining and feels like watching an anime half the time. It goes in and out from a game mode to a anime and the moods shift from insense suspense to very good natured humor.

For lack of too much I can think of to compare it to, the game itself plays like a mystery/adventure game like a kemco classic such as shadowgate or deja vu but with much smoother and enjoyable mechanics of puzzle solving that flow into the gameplay nicely and provides a player with an interesting narrative with really well placed bits of humor.

Some rather impressive highlights include -lovely PC 88 style art, references, cultural references. Allusions to other media works are done at times in interesting manner.

-really creative use of animation effects and tweening in anime style panels. The way this game attempts to communicate through new vehciles at times is pretty impressive. It's a game that like to surprise every now and then in it's methods.

-The voice acting is also excellent. (I also think that some of the voice intonations at certain points of the game are easter eggs/references to other things!)

-simple command choices, rather than lots of them. this makes the game easier and keeps puzzles more intuitive. I dont like games that make a puzzle out of finding the right command (such as Zork) This one keeps things even more simple than shadowgate.

-good deduction and puzzle tasks that dont ask too much of the player. i really liked the approach. solving puzzles also resolves major plot points in the story, and it's not all that complicated. this makes for a most excellent adventure game format. I never found myself frustrated with this game, stumped, or with the need to look at a walk-through. NOT ONCE!

-exhausting command prompt style interface that lets you know when you are 'done' with an area. areas often cant be left until they are resolved. prevents 'stump syndrome'

-easter eggs and hidden content that feels rewarding to find, yet doesnt feel out of place in the experience. simply exploring an area thoroughly is more or less the game, so making sure you look at everything uncovers most things like this

-game feels alive and dynamic as it shifts mood very much in the same way a movie does. To actually pace between light hearted humor one minute and white knuckled suspense the next in something like this through a video game format seems really difficult to pull off without being overbearing or demanding of the player, but i found the game managed to do this well. This is a visual novel but this is not some flat and boring experience that I feared a visual novel would be. It's a rather interesting media experience that feels rather participatory.

downsides to this game. -some rooms do feel like slogs if a player can't observe things in the exact anticipated manner. the look and investigate function can overlap at times. sometimes this aspects would get on my nerves and break up the flow and pace that exists elsewhere.

-Dpad alpha entry. in a way its kind of cool idea it serves the purpose of 'adding another layer' to the adventure. you can type on certain computer and make calls through a dpad entry but its a terrible interface for it. and i got to dreading having to do the typing of it. really its just one of those things that doesnt 'age well' These ideas themsleves reminded me a bit of the receiver in the classic metal gear. it also reminded me of the crazy puzzles in Enter the Matrix.

-being an adventure game it feels like a one shot. it's certainly enjoyable enough to play again, but yes, its a story based narrative, and part of the fun in a game like this is the puzzle solving and the mystery itself.

-combat sequences were so so. with a lightgun this might be a different experience. it adds variety which is nice but its not lethal enforcers.

in the end snatcher is pretty unique and stands out on its own as agame loaded full of game, it ranges like crazy through a wide spectrum of game design, with all of it being really good in both its conception and execution and manages to deliver a pretty impressive experience through the vehicle of a visual novel! (something i dont really find to be a strong genre) and communicates and engages with a player quite well. A lot of the visual stimuli and storytelling is reminiscent of that rich sprite art in chronotrigger, a game where you have text dialogue but you also have a big emotional spectrum being expressed through sprite sets. This game tries to do something a bit like that in it's own way with GIF like animations and scrolling sprites.

I'm sad that i finished this game i wish i could keep playing it as It was fantastic and enjoyable every minute. I will certainly have to check out metal gear now and other stuff this Kojima did. It seems like a shame this guy quit adventure games he got it down pat! How was this game overlooked when it came out? Blows my mind. I seriously thought this was a far more engaging and better game than GTA V, lol.