Snatcher (video game)

Snatcher has been described as both a graphic adventure game and a visual novel. The player controls Gillian Seed as he investigates and hunts "Snatchers", dangerous humanoid robots disguised as humans roaming Neo Kobe City. The game's visuals are static images with some animations that display at the top of the screen. There is no point-and-click interface, with all actions made through a text menu with commands such as move, look, and investigate. The game's puzzles and dialogue trees are simple, lending to an emphasis on linear storytelling. Sometimes character panels are shown below the main graphics window during conversations to convey their facial expressions. The game allows exploration of a semi-open world. There are a handful of action segments where the player shoots at enemies dispersed across a 3x3 grid. The Sega CD version supports the Justifier light gun packaged with Lethal Enforcers for these segments. ==Plot==

Snatcher is set in the mid-21st century, fifty years after a biological weapon known as Lucifer-Alpha killed much of the world's population. In Neo Kobe City, a metropolis on an artificial island in eastern Asia, humanoid robots dubbed "Snatchers" have been recently discovered killing humans and replacing them in society. They use an artificial skin that is nigh-impossible to tell apart from regular skin. The Neo Kobe government quarantines the city from the outside world and establishes JUNKER, a task force to hunt Snatchers. The player takes on the role of Gillian Seed (Yusaku Yara/Jeff Lupetin), an amnesiac who can only remember that his past, along with that of his estranged wife Jamie (Kikuko Inoue/Susan Mele), is somehow related to Snatchers. He starts working at JUNKER in hopes that hunting Snatchers will bring his past to light. Act 1: Snatch After arriving at the JUNKER headquarters, Gillian Seed meets Mika Slayton (Miina Tominaga/Kimberly Harne) and Chief Benson Cunningham (Gorō Naya/Ray Van Steen), and receives a robot navigator named "Metal Gear Mk. II" (Mami Koyama/Lucy Childs) from JUNKER's engineer Harry Benson (Ryūji Saikachi/Ray Van Steen). Metal Gear receives a distress call from Jean-Jack Gibson (Isao Inoguchi/Jim Parks), the only other JUNKER agent, so Gillian travels there with Metal Gear, only to find a pair of Snatchers have beheaded him. They try to pursue the Snatchers, but are forced to make a quick escape as the factory explodes. Gillian begins searching for the identity of the Snatchers that murdered Jean-Jack, and after searching his house with the help of his daughter Katrina (Miina Tominaga/Lynn Foosaner) and speaking with his informant "Napoleon" (Gorō Naya/Jim Parks), Gillian identifies a pair of suspects. When hunting down the Snatchers, he is nearly killed but is saved by Random Hajile (Kaneto Shiozawa/Jim Parks), a Snatcher bounty hunter. Act 2: Cure Random joins Gillian and Metal Gear as they travel to a hospital Jean-Jack identified as suspicious during his investigation. They learn it has been abandoned for several years and harbors a secret basement where they find skeletons of Snatcher victims. Among them, they find Chief Cunningham, meaning the JUNKER chief is a Snatcher. Some Snatchers attack the group, but Random distracts them to allow Gillian and Metal Gear to escape. Back at JUNKER headquarters, Gillian speaks to Harry briefly before he dies, having been mortally wounded by the Chief, and kills the Chief after Mika is taken hostage. Immediately after this, Gillian receives a call from Jamie, telling him she has regained her memories and is being held in the "Kremlin". Act 3: Junk Gillian and Metal Gear travel to an abandoned church resembling the Kremlin, where they find Jamie being held captive by a scientist named Elijah Modnar (Kaneto Shiozawa/Ray Van Steen), who explains Gillian's past. He, his father and Jamie were involved in a secret experiment undertaken by the Soviet Union over 50 years prior during the Cold War to create Snatchers, which were designed to kill and replace world leaders, giving the Soviets more power. Gillian was a CIA agent spying on the project, who married Jamie (spurring Elijah's jealousy due to his own feelings for her) and had a child with her, Harry Benson. Gillian and Jamie were placed in a cryogenic sleep when Elijah released Lucifer-Alpha into the atmosphere. The pair were saved by the army, and lost their memories due to the extended period of time they had been frozen. Corrupted by his ambitions and obsessions, Elijah explains that he has been using the Snatchers to study the effects of suspicion within human society, and reveals his intention to use them as a means of achieving world domination. He also reveals that Random was an anti-Snatcher created by his late father based on Elijah's appearance and memories, and presents his deactivated body. At this point, Random reactivates and holds Elijah at bay, allowing Gillian and Jamie to escape. Metal Gear activates an orbital weapon, which destroys the Snatcher base, killing Elijah and Random. Having learned of a larger Snatcher factory in Moscow, Gillian prepares to embark on a mission there, hoping to destroy the menace and rekindle his marriage with Jamie. == Development and release ==

PC-8801 and MSX2 story and setting from Blade Runner (1982), pictured, were significant inspirations for Snatcher.|alt=A still frame from the film Blade Runner. A flying car flies between skyscrapers in a futuristic looking city. The buildings are covered with lights and advertising video billboards. Snatcher was created by Hideo Kojima, working for Konami. Heavily influenced by Blade Runner (1982) and other works of cinema, he wanted to develop a game with a similar style. The game was pitched as a "cyberpunk adventure". Kojima found it difficult to explain the meaning of "cyberpunk" to Konami's trademark department over the phone. The game was originally titled Junker, but the name sounded too similar to an existing mahjong game. The title New Order was also considered. Kojima did not like the final name because his previous game, Metal Gear (1987), was also named after an enemy in the game. They expanded to form a small team at Konami, about half the size needed for a typical Famicom game, which allowed them to work closely and quickly. The development of the original versions of Snatcher lasted around 18 months. Development took about two to three times longer than the average game. Originally Snatcher was going to be a PC-8801 exclusive, but it was also developed for the MSX2 at the request of Konami. The PC-8801 version supports FM and stereo sounds via the Sound Board II expansion card while the MSX2 version came with a special cartridge that provided an expanded soundscape beyond the platform's default capabilities and extra RAM, featuring different music track arrangements. Because neither platform was capable of accurately synthesizing speech, sound effects were used to represent character dialogue. and the MSX2 on December 13 that year. PC Engine Players began asking for a home console version soon after release. a decision they were criticized internally for as others believed the game was already long enough. The full version was released on October 23, 1992 and reportedly sold well for a PC Engine game. Audio in which a robot becomes aroused while watching a pornographic film was cut out entirely. The violence was not altered, except for one scene where a partially dead dog with twitching innards was made completely dead with no twitching. The game was translated by Scott Hards, with supervision from Jeremy Blaustein and Konami of Japan. According to Blaustein, it only sold a couple thousand copies in the United States and was ultimately a commercial failure. PlayStation and Sega Saturn Snatcher was released once again in Japan in 1996, this time for 32-bit game consoles. A PlayStation version was released on January 26, followed by a Sega Saturn version on March 29. As with the Sega CD version, Kojima had no direct involvement with these versions, with development being handled by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. The music and visuals were completely redone on both ports, with some music tracks being replaced entirely. The Saturn version, being released a bit later, has some additional graphical refinement in some drawings over the PlayStation version. Because the voice track is reused entirely from the PC Engine version with no newly-recorded material, these 32-bit versions lack the added scenes from the Sega CD version - instead the prologue comic is recreated as CGI animation on a pre-rendered video intro, and while Mika and Katrina still appears in the ending to see Gillian off with Jamie, the two characters are completely silent during the scene. ==Reception==

The PC-8801 and MSX2 versions received positive reviews in Japan and attained a cult following, but were not commercially successful. Famicom Tsushin reviewers commended its cinematic quality. The game was still listed on its "Reader's Best 20" list two years after release. Sega CD When Snatcher arrived to the West on the Sega CD, it received praise for its story, cinematic presentation, and mature themes. It was more cinematic and told a more mature story than gamers were familiar with at the time. Mean Machines Sega felt Snatcher was more substantial than other adventure games, calling it "one of the most involved storyboards and backgrounds of any video game". Mean Machines Sega felt the puzzles were challenging and the game was considerably longer and more substantial than Rise of the Dragon (1990), another cyberpunk adventure game. and best cyberpunk games of all time. In 1997, Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked the Sega CD version the 69th best console video game of all time on the sole basis of the game's story content, remarking that "not many people have played it, but almost everyone knows of its grisly story line." It has continued to receive praise for its story and presentation. Retro Gamer felt it was ironic how the game was more cinematic than games using full motion video. Destructoid enjoyed the plot, but complained about the interface. AllGame wrote that text-based menu driven games like Snatcher can become tedious, but felt the storyline and graphics made Snatcher worth its time. == Legacy ==

in 2007|alt=An asian man stands stoically looking at the camera. Critics have discussed Snatcher as setting the stage for Kojima's later works. Game Informer wrote that Snatcher foreshadowed Kojima's use of science fiction to explore philosophy, sex, and the human condition in Metal Gear Solid. The game has obtained a cult following. It has been an influence on other science fiction works, including Project Itoh's novel Genocidal Organ, and the 2015 adventure game 2064: Read Only Memories. Kojima has expressed interest in reviving Snatcher in some capacity, and has explained he does not have the time to work on the project himself but would welcome another director to lead it. Kojima left Konami in 2015, and the game remains a property of the company, which has not expressed interest in reviving it, either through a rerelease or sequel. Some believed it would play well on a Nintendo DS or 3DS, following the footsteps of successful graphic adventures on those platforms like Hotel Dusk and Phoenix Wright. The Sega CD version remains the sole release in Western territories. Demand has driven up the prices on these copies on the secondary market, making emulation a more reasonable option for most players. Japanese copies are far cheaper but the game's text-based nature makes it difficult for non-Japanese readers. Fans have experimented with porting the game to other systems. A demo of an early part of the game was made for the Virtual Boy in 2015, complete with stereoscopic 3D effects and PCM music. Another fan experimented with porting it to the Dreamcast with a remixed soundtrack and retouched visuals. Snatcher was the first translation project for Jeremy Blaustein, who went on to translate Kojima's Metal Gear Solid (1998). The game was to be directed by Blaustein with former Snatcher staff making up other parts of the team. SD Snatcher Snatcher was remade into a role-playing game called SD Snatcher for the MSX2, released on April 27, 1990. "SD" stands for "super deformed" in Japanese media, another way to reference chibi character designs. The game plays from a top-down perspective, where the player controls Gillian as he ventures through the environment. When the player encounters an enemy on the field, the game shifts to a first-person battle mode. The player must shoot down enemies using one of many different guns. Different parts of an enemy can be targeted and different weapons have varying abilities and ranges. Initially Hideo Kojima was not involved with the development of SD Snatcher, as he was busy with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake at the time, but he and his team were brought in during the late stages of development to help complete SD Snatcher smoothly so they could resume development of Solid Snake''. It was translated by the Dutch-based group Oasis in 1993, making it one of the earliest documented fan translations. Sdatcher An episodic radio drama prequel, Sdatcher, was released in 2011 through a collaboration between Kojima and game designer Goichi Suda. Suda credited Snatcher, along with works by Yu Suzuki, for igniting his interest in video games. He asked Kojima if he wanted to make a new game together, and the project led to a radio drama. It was announced in 2007. and the music was composed by Akira Yamaoka, who worked for Suda in his Grasshopper Manufacture studio and worked on the Silent Hill series. It was distributed for free and later sold on CDs. It was later translated by fans. ==Notes==