Policenauts in English plus Snatcher memoirs

As many of you may have heard on the other end of the internet, the Policenauts translation has finally been finished. Some of the lesser informed may wonder why exactly this seemingly average looking anime game is getting the attention that it has been. Well, Policenauts has two things going for it really. First and foremost, it's probably getting the most hype as it's the last Hideo Kojima gem that the west hasn't seen, more importantly however(atleast for me), it's the spiritual successor to Snatcher.

I'll be really honest here, I hadn't discovered Snatcher until last year when thanks to the wonders of emulation, I was able to play on my PSP. Normally, I wouldn't cave into piracy for disk based games, but as it's known to cost around forty-eight billion dollars on eBay and me being completely unwilling to deal with Sega's tower of power, I really had no other choice.

Snatcher is Sega CD adventure game based in a cyberpunk world where the world fears mechanical bioroids known as Snatchers. These beings are essentially Terminators who have a penchant for brutally murdering people and taking their places. Naturally, us humans don't like that too much and the government appoints a task force to deal with the problem. This group is known as JUNKER, or Japanese Undercover Neuro Kinetic Elimination Ranger for the finicky. You play as Gillian Seed, a new JUNKER who just so happens to be an amnesiac who can only remember the word Snatcher.


The game itself plays like most Adventure games, you're presented with several NPCs and puzzles which must all be worked out to progress through the story. Unlike other Adventure games of the time, you don't have a point an click interface to deal with, instead you get a streamlined list of choices. Personally, I prefer this to the clicky approach, you aren't faced with situations later on where you realized you can't progress due to not clicking on the magic Macguffin that you really should have known about. The list simplifies things quite a bit in that regard, but that isn't to say the puzzles aren't difficult. Being observant is required and basic world knowledge doesn't hurt either.

The plot is the main point of the game and believe me, it's a great one. It's hard to articulate exactly how I feel about it, but there's enough outlets for you to get more information. HardcoreGaming 101 has a great article on the game and it's odd MSX2 RPG remake.

Well, I just got my copy of Policenauts in the mail, so I'm off the rip and patch.