Snatcher
Sega CD
Nostalgia Factor:
Snatcher is one of those games that I have always known about, but never had much interest in playing. It was for the Sega CD, a console I didn’t have. It was a text based adventure, a genre I didn’t have any interest in. As the years passed, the game started to slip out of my memory to the point where I began to forget it even existed. I was randomly reminded of Snatcher’s presence in a Facebook group about retro games. The OP ranted and raved about Snatcher, saying how it was such an amazing game and how it had completely changed his mind on story-based adventures. He even went on to say that Snatcher had become his favorite game OF ALL TIME – a pretty bold claim that is not one to be taken lightly.
Since I’m emulating now and have access to the Sega CD library, I figured this would be a good time to check out Snatcher and see if it was any good myself. Read on for my full thoughts.
Story:
Seeing as how this game is almost 100% story-based, this is probably going to be the longest segment of my review. I don’t want to spoil too much, however, as one of the joys in playing Snatcher is making discoveries and uncovering the truth yourself. But hey I can still give you a quick rundown of the game’s premise.
It’s the 2040s and the world has become the cyberpunk fantasy we’ve seen in things like Blade Runner and Shadowrun. Prior to the events of this game, a lethal bioweapon had wiped out a significant chunk of the Earth’s population. In present times, strange Terminator-like machines known as Snatchers have started appearing, killing affluent people and replacing them with near-perfect replicas. It seems as if there is some connection between these two events, but no one can figure it out.
That’s where you come in. You control an investigator known as Gillian Seed, who arrives in the Japanese city of Neo Kobe. Gillian is hired as a Junker, someone in charge of hunting down and destroying Snatchers. Gillian is paired with a robotic assistant that goes by the name of Metal Gear. If you think this name is a coincidence, think again. References are made later on in the game that your little helper was named after destructive weapons that nearly tore the world apart during constant wars years and years ago. Is it possible that Snatcher is actually a futuristic sequel to the Metal Gear Solid series? I like to think so.
Gillian is an amnesiac. Both he and his wife have no memories of their life before Junker training. Hmmm… that’s pretty suspect, don’t you think? Of course this will come into play later, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Things start out fast for Gillian, as one of his fellow Junkers (Jean) is killed during an investigation. It becomes clear that Jean was on the verge of a major breakthrough regarding the Snatchers, so it becomes your job to search through his office, investigate his findings, and retrace his footsteps through Neo Kobe. This comprises the bulk of your adventure. If you ever wondered what it would be like to be a private investigator in a dystopian cyberpunk future, then boy do I have the game for you.
This is where we wander into spoiler territory. Without giving too much away, you eventually uncover one of Jean’s most significant findings regarding Snatchers and possible “tells” that give away their identities. Investigating even further, you uncover an underground hospital where Snatchers are serviced and created. Before long, things get really crazy as Gillian’s past is revealed, the secret of the Snatchers is uncovered, and several bombshells (figuratively and literally) are dropped on the characters.
You know a lot of the crazy twists and turns that take place during the Metal Gear Solid games? Some of the same kind of stuff happens here. I really, REALLY wish I could dive more into the intricacies of this story with you, but like I said the discoveries you make in this game are just so so satisfying when you uncover them for yourself. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that.
Gameplay:
If you come into this game looking to find intricate and detailed gameplay, you are going to walk away disappointed. Most of this game’s action takes place from a text menu. Here’s an example. You arrive at the Junker Headquarters. One of the characters starts giving you a tour of the facility. From the menu, you get to pick which room you’d like to check out next. When you arrive in the room, you’re given the option to either Look, Investigate, Talk, or use something in your inventory. Generally when you arrive in a new area you’re going to want to exhaust all of your options. Look at everything, investigate everything, explore all conversation paths, and show the items in your inventory to everyone you encounter. When you are done, you move on to the next area.
While this is fine and dandy to begin with, it does become a chore after a while. There were several points where I got completely stuck because there was ONE thing I didn’t look at, or ONE conversation branch I missed. Missing these things is easy to do, because often when you are checking things out, new options appear in a menu you’ve already looked through. So let’s say I’ve investigated everything in the room. I talk to the person in the room and explore all conversation branches. One of the conversation choices opens up an option of something new for me to investigate – but because I’ve already investigated everything I don’t think to go back into my “Investigate” option menu and look for new entries. I think I’ve explored everything in the room, so I leave, and I proceed to get stuck for 20 minutes looking for where the hell I am supposed to go next. It’s a pain in the ass.
Oftentimes you even have to explore all of your options multiple times before you are allowed to advance in the game. I remember one specific area where I looked/investigated/checked out everything in the room like 8 times before a new option opened up – the one I needed to advance the storyline and move on to the next part of the game. I don't know what triggered that option to appear or what I did differently to make it happen, but it was something. This became especially obnoxious about halfway through the game, when I had to investigate two locations with possible Snatcher activity. No one was home at either location, despite me having gone through EVERY possible look/investigate/talk/show item in the game. I was beginning to think my copy of the game was busted. I must have wasted at least an hour looking around for something I’d missed. I come back to the suspected Snatcher apartment and bam he’s there. I have no idea what I did to trigger his arrival, or why he wasn’t there to begin with. But again – it was something. I think. And it wasn’t just something simple like I needed to leave and come back. I had already done that multiple times without triggering his arrival.
You play as an investigator, so you’ll find yourself doing investigator things like checking out crime scenes, making phone calls, creating suspect photos based on their physical descriptions, questioning people, meeting up with illicit “contacts”, searching for things on a computer, and getting into the occasional fire fight. While most of these things are handled from a menu, like always, combat is a little different. The screen is split into different sectors and you use the keypad to move your cursor around from sector to sector, firing at the enemies that pop out at you. It’s almost like a light gun gallery ala Virtua Cop, but much, much simpler. If you have played the bonus stages of the SNES version of Sunset Riders, it is like that.
Graphics:
I think this game looks freaking fantastic. The art style in Snatcher is so distinct. They really did a great job creating the living, breathing cyberpunk world of Neo Kobe. The characters look great, the settings are magnificent. Everywhere you look this game just exudes charm. My favorite area of the game has always been the Computer Room in Junker HQ. I can’t even really explain why, but this room is just so cool to me with its colors and displays and blinking lights. Reminds me a bit of the bridge of the Ebon Hawk, if you’re familiar with the KoToR games.
I imagine some debbie downers out there will say that this game looks outdated or that it could do with a complete overhaul, but I disagree. I think it is absolutely perfect as it is. It has this comic book/anime feel to it that I just love.
Sound:
Snatcher has some truly terrific music too. It really helps add to the sometimes haunting/sometimes humorous atmosphere of the game. Wherever you go, the music is going to fit whatever’s happening onscreen perfectly. Okay, maybe sometimes the music is a bit too overly dramatic, but I’m willing to forgive it because even at its most dramatic, the music is still catchy as hell.
The voice acting is a little spotty. Sometimes it is perfect and other times it makes you scratch your head a bit. I think some of this can be blamed on the writing. While I didn’t have any problems with it, the game’s characters do make some outdated sexist/chauvinistic remarks from time to time. There were a few occasions where I was like “did he really just say that?”
Overall, though – the game sounds good. I hate to come back to Metal Gear Solid again, but remember the Codec conversations from these games? Oftentimes in Snatcher conversations play out in nearly the exact same manner onscreen. Another reason to think of this game as a distant sequel to Metal Gear, or at least heavily inspired by that series. But wait, this game came out long before Metal Gear Solid. Is it the other way around? Was that game inspired by Snatcher?
Snatcherception, yo.
Overall:
Despite the limitations I experienced with Snatcher’s gameplay, I really liked this title. I would recommend this game to anyone, with one caveat: you have to know what to expect coming in. This is a heavily story based game. 99 percent of the time you spend playing is going to be spent going through text menus. Don’t expect Heavy Rain. Don’t even expect something from Telltales. Snatcher is much more text and menu intensive than any of these games.
While the gameplay may be a bit weak, everything else makes up for it. The graphics, the music, the story, the incredible atmosphere. I could not put Snatcher down. This is one of those games that sticks with you. I found myself thinking of it quite often, even when I wasn’t playing the game. It has that kind of hold on you. And when I was done with the game, I actually began to miss it. No, this isn’t a flawless game by any stretch of the imagination. It certainly has its limitations, but I find that the pros most definitely outweigh these cons.
If you’re a retro game fan and you’re interested in checking out something classic and unique, you definitely need to check out Snatcher. It’s a Sega CD game, so I know that not a lot of people got to experience it. That needs to change!
Final Score:
A-
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