Hideo Kojima is one of the most legendary video game developers out there. His efforts weren’t well known outside of Japan until the release of Metal Gear Solid, but he had already been making games for a decade before. One of the forgotten classics he gave us is an obscure graphic adventure entitled Snatcher. It was first released for the PC-98 and MSX home computers in Japan in the late 80s. English speakers didn’t get to experience it until a remake was made for the Sega CD. Today I’m taking a look at the rare MSX version. Is Snatcher worth playing? Let’s dive right in.
Snatcher begins with quite a lot of backstory. In 1991 a biological weapon called Lucifer-Alpha is released into the atmosphere. The atmosphere quickly spread it around the world and the devastation kills off half of the world’s population. Just like that. The scenario begins fifty years later as the world has rebuilt following the aforementioned even that is now dubbed ‘the catastrophe.’ The protagonist of this story is a man named Gillian Seed. He’s an amnesiac with military experience which makes him a perfect recruit for a task force called Junker.
What do Junkers do? Well do you remember the film Blade Runner? They’re basically blade runners. Their enemies are bioroids called snatchers. They earned the name because they’re robots that kill humans and take their place in society. This is done with a technology that gives them skin, blood and even allows them to sweat. Snatchers are becoming a serious threat to mankind and it’s up to the Junker organization to terminate them. Gillian isn’t alone in this effort and has several colleagues we are soon introduced to. These include the chief Benson Cunningham, engineer Harry Benson, Jean-Jacque Gibson, and the Mika Slaton. The story begins on our hero’s first day of duty when headquarters gets a request for backup from Gibson, and Gillian is sent to his aid.
Because Snatcher is a text/graphic adventure story is everything. I’m happy to say that this is one wild and unforgettable ride. Snatcher has one of the best stories in a video game, ever. Most of the characters get very little screen time but somehow they’re among the most memorable in the medium. What’s more is that Snatcher creates such an incredible world. Kojima touted this as a cyberpunk game, and that’s the best way to describe it. Neo Kobe is lit with neon lights, features futuristic technology like flying cars, and more. It feels like a world that has been lived in, is extremely foreign, and has some truly dark things going on in the shadows. You never feel comfortable or like Gillian is safe. There wasn’t a time where I wasn’t eager to see what was next.
With that said gameplay is a bit limited here in the world of Snatcher. Environments are mostly static backgrounds and you’re given an interface on the right side of the screen. Characters in the area usually appear on screen and in front of them. Different actions correspond with buttons on the keyboard. You can interact with characters (and even steer the conversation in many different ways) as you gather clues and progress the plot. Other commands include look, go, check, etc. When you choose options more than once you’ll sometimes get different results. Possible outcomes come in the form of a dialogue tree. It’s a functional system, but it can be pretty vague. I found myself getting stuck a lot. In these cases you must just select each command and option until you pick the right one. Snatcher can be one big guessing game at times.
You even have some areas where you need to type in text on the physical keyboard. Using the central computer at Junker you can research the various characters introduced to you in the story by typing in their name. At one point you have to enter a character’s measurements (found in the database) in order to proceed. One of the more clever puzzles involves you pressing the ‘home’ key as a password. It’s vague, but interesting nonetheless. Physically typing numbers and names makes Snatcher feel surprisingly interactive. At times I felt like I was doing actual research.
It’s not entirely text and dialogue. Throughout the story there are brief action sequences where you’re given a small grid and must use the keyboard to choose where you’re shooting your blaster. Snatcher does an excellent job of keeping you on your toes with this. Almost every target you shoot is a snatcher, and because they have human skin you don’t always know when the prompt comes up. Sometimes you have only a brief window to execute a shot. In the longer segments Gillian has a life bar at the bottom of the screen. When this is depleted it’s game over, and you have to pick up from where you last saved your progress. This aspect of the game really keeps you on your toes, and though clunky, I enjoyed the shooting sequences. For the most part, at least.
Now we arrive at the most annoying part of the game. Snatcher comes on three floppy disks. You’ll be returning to the same environments throughout the game, and so Konami was not able to store the data in a linear fasion. What I’m trying to say is that you’ll constantly be forced to swap discs. At first it’s not that bad, but you soon realize this happens constantly. Need to return to Junker headquarters? That’s on disk 1. How about the city square? That’s disk 2. It is much more frustrating than it should be. I didn’t grow up gaming on computers, and so this aspect of the game was very foreign to me. This is one reason I recommend going for a CD based version of the release instead.
Snatcher is absolutely incredible looking for a title released in the 80s. On an 8-bit computer no less. Sure, the backgrounds tend to be grainy and details can be hard to make out. There’s minimal animation as well, but little effects such as water dripping from the ceiling or computer screens in the background really pop. I’m not usually a fan of anime style characters, but that’s not the case here. The artists made dark and brooding characters that convey a lot of personality. It’s pretty obvious that Gillian was modeled after Harrison Ford in Blade Runner (there’s a whole lot of inspiration from this movie throughout the game). Sometimes the characters mouths hang in weird positions when they’re not speaking, but that’s just about the only issue I have.
The soundtrack is really good as well. It’s best described as pop/techno, but with some very dark and brooding overtones. The opening theme is dramatic and helps set the mood extremely well. Other pieces such as themes for the city square (which is oddly Christmas themed) as well as the music that plays during the action sequences are extremely memorable and set the mood well. I wasn’t a big fan of the little effects for text. These are the bleeps and blips that some games use to simulate speech, but I’ve always found it annoying. That’s still the case here.
Forget Metal Gear Solid. Forget Zone of the Enders. This is truly the best game Hideo Kojima has ever created, and I’m generally not his biggest fan. This is a true testament to video games being considered art. The visual novel/graphic adventure genre isn’t even one that I traditionally enjoy. There’s just something undeniably gripping about Snatcher. It’s a shame that it has just a cult following because it deserves to be played by everyone. The future releases of this title improve on a lot of things and are much more approachable, but there’s something grimey and dark that this one has and the others don’t. Simply put, Snatcher is incredible.
