u/ReadyJournalist5223

I’m a very big Kojima fan but I have never delved into his more obscure works being policenauts and of course Snatcher here.

I won’t lie, I was blown away by this. There were moments in this game where I could not believe what I was looking at. Especially with how the 90s was with games. Not to spoil too much but people die, there is a lot of gore, swearing, strip clubs etc.

For those who don’t know, Snatcher is a visual novel game made in Japan for a Japanese computer that had a sega CD version that was localized for America in 1994 directed by Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear and Death stranding fame. It’s about rip off of blade runner as you play as Gillian Seed who is a Junker, his job is to find the titular “Snatchers” who are a kinda combination of a replicant and a terminator. It plays a lot like a point and click and adventure game without well… the pointing and clicking. If I had to compare it to something I’d say I was reminded the most of ace attorney. Being a detective, finding evidence, uncovering a mystery, showing people clues and so on. The story takes some crazy turns and the thing that shocked me most of all is a lot of stuff people credit metal gear solid with (amazing voice acting, crazy deep story and weird over the top characters) was all here a few years before. The voice acting is all pretty stellar especially for the time period. I never really was taken out of the experience by it… with one exception that I’ll get into later.

I’d say it plays as a sort of gripping 8 hour sci fi movie. It’s interesting to note there’s a lot of funny mechanics that you just wouldn’t see nowadays. Something funny to me is in the game you have to make phone calls, and each time you have to type the phone number in as opposed to say just selecting who you want to call. Something that I suppose could be considered annoying but I never found it too cumbersome. The story is also loaded with extra dialogue, a lot of the times if you talk to people 2 or even 3 times they will say something different. The attention to detail really does fit kojimas style.

The story plays out pretty great and has some horror elements at times. I think this may be a weird comparison but a lot of the time I got Earthbound vibes with the tone. By that I mean just wacky and over the top silly but with a deep meaningful story in the end. Earthbound is way more on the wacky side but I couldn’t help but they get that vibe from this title.

I do have a few negatives I have to point out though. Some of the gameplay does get a bit tedious. A lot of the time, to progress you need to check a certain object in a certain room multiple times before you can actually progress. So in something like ace attorney there would be a checkmark if you checked something, here it’s super easy to lose track of what you checked once or twice or even three times. That being said I never had to use a guide so with enough trial and error it’s possible to muscle through. I think my other negative comes from the story. The story is really amazing… until it kinda isn’t. I would say the first and second acts are absolutely amazing. The games ending though feels a bit anticlimactic and just sorta odd. I think it seems weird they almost seem like they’re building up to one thing and go a different less interesting direction. Supposedly Kojima ran out of time and wanted the game to have two more acts in it but development got cut short (which is funny considering this happened years later with the phantom pain).

My other real big flaw with the game is Gillian Seed. Gillian ain’t no fuckin solid snake and I mean that in a few ways. He’s not really that likable and seems to just be a weird creep a lot of the time. Obviously this is partially based on your choices as to what to investigate and who you talk to but I really didn’t care for his character. I also think his vocal performance is the worst in the game by quite a bit. I’m not sure what happened, maybe just poor direction but he stands out in a bad way with maybe the exception of napoleon. Napoleon is a weird character anyway though so I sort of forgive it. If they ever rerelease this just get David hayter lmao.

One last minor thing I’ll point out that’s interesting is this is sort of a sequel to the original Msx metal gear. I wouldn’t say you need to play that or anything but trying to find all the references was super fun and it’s cool thinking they exist in the same world.

So yeah I highly recommend this to anyone and I’m shocked not more people talk about this. Unfortunately the only way to play nowadays is tracking down a sega cd or emulation. Just emulate it, I don’t think Konami is going to release it again anytime soon. That being said though this would fit perfectly on a metal gear collection as a bonus. I don’t see why not just include the rom seems like a no brainer. Same with the genesis mini consoles that came out. Not quite sure what the hold up is, maybe it’s just that niche of a title? My recommendation is just use retroarch like I did. You won’t regret it

Was playing the game snatcher and at one point you go into a bar where everyone is dressed as Konami characters and your little robot companion mentions that teen suicide rate went up because people were frustrated that you couldn’t jump off the stairs

The devil wears Prada

Sure it might be good but it’s not even the same characters. Where’s Chris and Jill?? Everyone knows you need a resident evil game to have them! Who even knows who these two new people are?

Also where were all the bosses that were in the first game?? It’s not a resident evil game if I don’t fight exactly them. Someone also fucked up the location. Everyone knows resident evil takes place in a MANSION. What city even is this? How can they not know that? I mean maybe it’s a good game, but not a good resident evil game

Director Hideki Kamiya may have a perfect track record but man does he clearly not care about the franchise. I mean why even call this resident evil? Just make it some indie movi- erm I mean uh game!

Yes game…

Even though I’ve never once touched either game, this is an outrage! I’m going to back to nursing off my mommy and watching Elmo. “What’s that?… oh people are complaining about the movie?! Ohhhhh…”

Something I’ve noticed when re listening to Rlm’s coverage of x-men is that Mike seems to be a lot clearer in terms of memory compared to other superhero properties. He remembers characters, names, locations, actors etc. He seems to have a photographic memory of x men origins Wolverine which is the worst movie like… ever?! He’s admitted to loving it even. He name drops even the human characters like Stryker and trask along with citing the Moira mctaggart post credits scene in x men 3 which is a deep cut. He also brings up cyclops in the ready player one review.

He seems to love every subpar x men film including apocalypse and dark phoenix. He even admits to watching the x men cartoon in the apocalypse episode when famously RLM hate cartoons including never reviewing an animated film and Jay saying he hates lion king.

The next question is, how far does this go? Has he read the comics? Has he kept up with x men 97? Has he gone to x men camp and worn cyclops glasses?