Long before he became a household name with Metal Gear Solid, a young Hideo Kojima was already channeling his love for cinema into groundbreaking video games. In 1988, he created Snatcher, a cyberpunk adventure that was a stunningly ambitious narrative experience for its time. It was a masterful blend of Blade Runner, Terminator, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and it showcased the cinematic storytelling that would become his trademark.
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Released initially for Japanese home computers like the PC-8801, Snatcher was a game that felt ahead of its time. It pushed the boundaries of interactive storytelling with its mature themes, detailed world-building, and memorable characters. Unfortunately, due to its niche genre and platform, it remained largely unknown in the West for years, only receiving a single official English release on the ill-fated Sega CD.
As a long-time Kojima fan, I’ve always been fascinated by this early work. It’s a game that laid the foundation for so many of the themes and techniques he would later perfect. Let’s take a trip to the dystopian city of Neo Kobe and explore the history of this cyberpunk cult classic.
🌆 A Future Drenched in Neon and Paranoia
The world of Snatcher is pure, uncut cyberpunk. Set in 2047 in the fictional Japanese city of Neo Kobe, humanity is facing a crisis. A mysterious new form of bioroid life, known as ‘Snatchers,’ is killing people and taking their place, perfectly mimicking their appearance and behavior. No one knows where they come from or what their motives are. This atmosphere of paranoia and existential dread is something I find incredibly compelling.
You play as Gillian Seed, a new recruit in a special police force called JUNKER, tasked with hunting down these replicants. Gillian himself is an amnesiac, haunted by a past he can’t remember, which ties into the central mystery of the Snatchers’ origin. He’s aided by his robotic assistant, Metal Gear Mk. II, an obvious and delightful nod to Kojima’s other famous series.
Kojima himself admitted that the story and setting borrowed heavily from his favorite sci-fi films. However, he always maintained that the world of Snatcher was just a stage for its characters. And it’s the characters that truly make the game shine. From your estranged wife Jamie to the shady informant Napoleon, each character is well-developed and adds depth to the game’s intricate plot. This focus on character-driven narrative is a trait I also admire in classic RPGs like Suikoden.
🎮 A Cinematic Adventure Game
At its core, Snatcher is a narrative adventure game that plays out through a menu-based system. I interact with the world by selecting commands like ‘Look,’ ‘Investigate,’ and ‘Talk.’ This system allows the story to unfold in a deliberate, cinematic way, with beautifully drawn anime-style cutscenes and high-quality voice acting (at least in the later CD-ROM versions).
The game is not without its action sequences. There are several shooting segments where the screen is divided into a 3×3 grid, and I have to quickly aim and fire at enemies. These sections break up the slower-paced investigation and add a nice bit of tension. They are simple but effective, and they showcase Kojima’s talent for blending different gameplay styles.
The game’s definitive version, and the only one officially released in English, is the 1994 Sega CD port. This version took advantage of the CD-ROM format with an incredible soundtrack, full voice acting, and even an exclusive animated intro. The localization, handled by Jeremy Blaustein, was excellent, though some changes were made, such as aging up a teenage character due to some suggestive content. This practice of altering games for Western audiences was common, and reminds me of the history of another horror classic, Splatterhouse.
A Legacy That Deserves to Be Remembered
Despite being a critical success, the Sega CD version of Snatcher sold very few copies due to the console’s small user base. This made the game an instant collector’s item, with prices on eBay soaring into the hundreds of dollars. For years, this masterpiece was largely inaccessible to a wider audience.
The story of Snatcher was later expanded in two other projects. SD Snatcher (1990) was a Japan-exclusive RPG that retold the story with super-deformed characters and added a third act that revealed the Snatchers’ origins. This third act was then incorporated into the main game for its PC Engine and subsequent re-releases. There was also Sdatcher, a radio drama prequel written by Goichi Suda (Suda51), which served as a prequel to the main story.
Today, Snatcher remains a cult classic, a testament to Hideo Kojima’s early genius. It’s a game that deserves to be remembered and, more importantly, to be played. While an official re-release seems unlikely due to potential copyright issues with its many cinematic influences, its legacy lives on in the hearts of those who were lucky enough to experience it. It’s a piece of cyberpunk history that feels just as relevant today as it did in 1988, much like the timeless appeal of another game from that era I’ve covered, the Capcom CPS-1 classics.
- A Tribute to Psygnosis: The Studio That Defined a Generation of Cool
- Dino Crisis: Unearthing the Secrets of Resident Evil’s Dinosaur-Filled Cousin
- Grim Fandango: The Unforgettable Noir Adventure of LucasArts’ Golden Age
- Sonic Generations: How a Tale of Two Hedgehogs United a Divided Fanbase
- From Game Boy Hacker to Star Fox Creator: An Interview with Dylan Cuthbert
- The 108 Stars of Destiny: A Deep Dive into the World of Suikoden
- The Arcade Revolution: A Guide to Capcom’s Legendary CPS-1 Games
