Snatcher



"This story is dedicated to all those cyberpunks who fight against injustice and corruption every day of their lives.

All controversy begins with DOUBT"

On June 6, 1996, a chemical weapon known as Lucifer-Alpha under development in Russia, is released into the atmosphere, resulting in the death of 80% of the Eurasian and Eastern European population which in turn results in the death of half of the world's population. The contaminated area becomes uninhabitable for a decade, when Lucifer-Alpha mutates into a non-lethal form. This tragic event later becomes known as "the Catastrophe".

Fifty years later, a breed of artificial life-forms or bioroids known as "Snatchers" began appearing in the artificial island of Neo Kobe City, killing their victims and taking their place in society. Nobody knows exactly what they are or where they come from. It is up to Gillian Seed, an amnesiac working for an Anti-Snatcher task force called J.U.N.K.E.R., and his Robot Buddy, Metal Gear, to track down the source of the Snatchers and discover Gillian's mysterious connections to them.

A graphic-adventure game written and directed by Hideo Kojima, set in a Cyberpunk universe (with clear Blade Runner overtones), with all of the quirkiness the game designer is known for, and more than a couple Shout Outs to other Konami games and the Metal Gear series. In Japan, Snatcher was originally released for the PC 88 and MSX2 computer platforms in 1988 and then remade for the PC Engine in Super CD-ROM-ROM format in 1992, followed by another set of re-releases in 1996 for the Play Station and Sega Saturn. The only English version produced is the 1994 Sega CD version, which regularly sells on eBay for about $200, thanks to the game's limited distribution of a quarter million copies (due to the decline of the Sega CD add-on at the time of its release).

Highly recommended for anyone with old Sega equipment (or KEGA Fusion); everyone else can follow along with the Let's Play's of both the original (in both screenshot and video formats) and SD Snatcher by Something Awful's Slowbeef.

Though no sequel to Snatcher was ever made, the game was remade on the MSX2 as a Super Deformed RPG titled SD Snatcher, and a Spiritual Successor titled Policenauts was released for various platforms.

Snatcher provides examples of:

 * Abandoned Hospital
 * Adventure Duo: Somewhat inverted as the main character is the Handsome Lech, and the Robot Buddy is the down to earth one.
 * After the End
 * Alien Blood: Snatchers leak green 'blood' out of theirs mouths once defeated.
 * All There in the Manual: The manuals for the PC-88, MSX2, and PC-Engine versions all featured an elaborate plot guide with information about the game's backstory and setting. The American Sega CD manual is unfortunately very basic by comparison, including only the character bios and a guide to JUNKER HQ. The European Mega CD manual thankfully has the whole plot guide translated.
 * All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Well, when you only have three people staffing your HQ...
 * Always Night: Subverted in the ending sequence, when daylight finally returns to Neo Kobe..
 * Amnesiac Dissonance
 * An Asskicking Christmas: The plot of Snatcher takes place in the last week of December. "Jingle Bells" plays in Alton Plaza, and Napoleon even greets you in a Santa outfit at one point.
 * And the Adventure Continues: In the ending, . "THIS CONFLICT HAS JUST BEGUN."
 * Attack Its Weak Point: Snatchers have a conveniently-placed "vent" on their cranium, used to adjust the size of their skulls, which is their sole vulnerable spot.
 * Audio Adaptation: The Snatcher Sound Clip, a mini-CD that was given out as a Preorder Bonus to people who purchased the PC-Engine version, featured a short radio drama which involved
 * Badass Biker: Random Hajile, a Badass Billy Idol/Sting/Yazan Gable/Roy Batty look-alike.
 * Badass Longcoat: This seems to be standard JUNKER attire. Both Gillian and his predecessor Jean wear one.
 * Badass Mustache: Benson Cunningham.
 * Big Shadow Little Creature: Metal Gear's introductory scene. Doubles as a Mythology Gag.
 * Blood From the Mouth:.
 * Bounty Hunter: Random.
 * Bowdlerized: In coming to America, some bits of Fan Disservice nudity, some off-color jokes and some of the gore was removed. Katrina's age was also bumped up from 14 to 18, which makes Gillian's (largely untouched) Handsome Lechery all the creepier in retrospect.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: It's Hideo Kojima... what did you expect?
 * Painting the Medium: At one point, the player is asked to turn up the volume to listen for a faint noise. When a loud explosion occurs shortly therafter, Gillian complains his ears are ringing. "That's because you turned up the volume," Metal cheerfully replies. To which Gillian blames the Snatchers.
 * Captain Obvious: Metal Gear would like to remind you that you are now on the trope page for the game Snatcher.
 * Chivalrous Pervert: An extension of Video Game Cruelty Potential, as Gillian can hit on most every woman he comes across, despite being married. Including in front of his wife.
 * Though this is justified, at least somewhat, by Gillian and his wife having split apart because neither of them can remember each other anymore.
 * You can even choose to hit on the 14-year-old daughter of the man whom's decapitated corpse you were looking at just a little while ago. So, maybe drop the "chivalrous" part, depending on how you play the game.
 * City Noir
 * Concealing Canvas:.
 * Console Cameo
 * In the 8-bit versions of Snatcher, the computer used by Jean-Jack Gibson is either, a PC-88 or MSX2 depending on the platform the game is running. In later versions Gibson uses a PC-68, a completely fictional model.
 * A much more subtle example comes in the model numbers of Metal Gear and Little John in the 8-bit versions, which referenced the platforms that Snatcher was originally released for: "Metal Gear Mk. II/SR" (the "SR" was a specific model version of the PC-88) and "Little John msx011".
 * In the end of the CD-ROM versions, the console the game is running on depending on the version (i.e. a PC Engine Duo, a second model Genesis with Sega CD attachment, a PlayStation or a Sega Saturn).
 * Cool Car: Gillian's turbocycle. Contrary to the name, its actually a 3-wheeled hover car, with joysticks instead of a steering wheel.
 * Coolest Club Ever: Outer Heaven.
 * Creepy Cathedral:
 * Crusading Widower: Jean is out to avenge his wife, who was slain by the Snatchers.
 * Cut and Paste Environments:
 * Cyberpunk: And a fair-sized Kitchen Sink thereof.
 * Da Chief: Cunningham.
 * Death By Origin Story / Off With His Head:
 * Death Cry Echo:
 * Defictionalization: Now you too can enjoy the delicacy that is Neo Kobe Pizza!
 * Desperately Looking for A Purpose In Life: Gillian joins JUNKER in hopes of recovering his lost memory.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Gillian is a very perverted guy.....
 * Dirty Communists:.
 * Drool Hello:
 * Dynamic Entry:
 * Early Bird Cameo: Dr. Elijah Modnar and his father Petrovich were mentioned in the original PC-88 and MSX versions, but didn't actually appear until the CD-ROM versions. However, they both make an appearance in the SD Snatcher RPG remake.
 * The Engineer: Harry.
 * Evil Laugh:.
 * Explosion Propulsion: Gillian and Metal Gear after outrunning a Time Bomb planted inside the factory.
 * Exposition Break: The finale is one comparable in length and impact to most Metal Gear games.
 * Family Relationship Switcheroo:.
 * Fan Disservice:
 * Fantastic Aesop: Tries to claim we should all trust each other more... by besieging us with Ridiculously Human Robots who exploit that trust for the purpose of destabilizing society. Clearly a Broken Aesop as well.
 * Fantastic Drug: Liquid Sky.
 * Faux Symbolism: "My Neo Kobe Pizza! It sank just like the rest of this city's gonna!"
 * Flashback Effects:  flashbacks are shown in a blood-red negative exposure, like an undeveloped roll of film.
 * Floating Timeline: All the dates in the Sega-CD were moved five years ahead from the Japanese version. Thus, the date of the Catastrophe was moved from June 6, 1991 to 1996 (allowing the translation to shoehorn a 666 reference), while the actual year the game takes place was changed from 2042 to 2047. This was because the English version was made in 1994, three years after the date when the Catastrophe took place in the Japanese version.
 * Fortune Teller
 * Forgotten Phlebotinum: There's an easy, portable test to determine if someone is a Snatcher or not. It requires a search warrant to use on civilians, but in true Blade Runner fashion,
 * Fun With Acronyms: Who wouldn't want a business card stating their occupation as a "Japanese Undercover Neuro-Kinetic Elimination Ranger"? Probably the ones who would want "Naked Kind" in the middle, vis-a-vis the Japanese versions.
 * Judgment Uninfected Naked Kind & Execute Ranger, for the sake of completeness.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Even in the censored dub,you could get Gillian to call a phone sex line.
 * He can also call a prostitute with another number from the same source. She correctly deduces that the reason people in the game can only talk about sex in double speak is because someone is watching them.
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom:  reveals his true Snatcher nature in this way.
 * A God Am I:.
 * Going By the Matchbook:
 * Gratuitous Foreign Language:
 * The Great Politics Mess Up: The game predicts the destruction of the Soviet Union by an airborne biological weapon in 1991 in the Japanese version and 1996 in the English version. Never mind the fact that the Soviet Union was dissolved by the time the English version was released in 1994. (The original PC88 version was released three years before the Union's collapse.)
 * Gross Up Close Up: When you find the decaying skeletons. Bit of advice: when exploring the hospital, don't eat anything. Just trust us on this.
 * Hair Color Dissonance: Katrina's hair color is blue in the game, even though it's listed as "dark brown" in the Snatcher Pilot Disk and colored that way in most official illustrations (as shown in the cover above), while Lisa Nielsen (a witness in Act 1) is described as being raven-haired by Metal, despite her hair being green in-game.
 * He Knows About Timed Hits: Mika explains how to shoot your Blaster at the start of the game. Metal Gear will take over in explaining other new game controls for the rest of the game after you meet him.
 * Hello Nurse: Jamie.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hostage Spirit Link: A game ending one.
 * Hover Board: While inspecting the board in Surfer Dude Ivan Rodriguez's apartment, Gillian comments that he must be a recreational "air surfer".
 * Human Popsicle:.
 * Human Shield:
 * Info Dump: Reading through every entry in JORDAN's Fact File can easily take an hour or more, depending on how fast of a reader you are.
 * The Informant: Napoleon.
 * Kill and Replace: And how...
 * Kill Sat
 * Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Gillian shoving his gun barrel into Ivan's mouth.
 * Jump Scare: Used liberally. Jamie answering the videophone while wearing a Snatcher mask is the most glaring example.
 * Just Between You and Me / Nothing Can Stop Us Now:.
 * Laser Guided Amnesia:.
 * Lawyer Friendly Cameo: The original PC88/MSX2 version features people dressed up as Kamen Rider, C3PO, a Xenomorph, Cornelius and Kanegon at the Outer Heaven costume party, along with a bartender dressed as a Metaluna Mutant. The PC Engine version adds Guyver to the mix. They were all replaced by Konami characters in subsequent versions (including the bartender, who dresses up as the Golem from Salamander in the 32-bit versions), avoiding this trope altogether.
 * Let's Play: Done by slowbeef twice.
 * Love Makes You Evil:
 * Luke Nounverber: Mika Slayton.
 * Mad Scientist:
 * Magic Brakes:
 * Magic Floppy Disk: Somewhat justified, as Gillian notes that "nobody uses those things anymore" upon finding a floppy disk.
 * Master of Disguise: Napoleon.
 * Misanthrope Supreme:
 * Ms. Fanservice / Token Mini Moe: Katrina.
 * Mister Muffykins: Referenced rather darkly, as a new pet craze in Neo Kobe is animals that can be used as cute purses, and tend to be internally lacerated by sharp objects.
 * A Nazi By Any Other Name: Not exactly subtle.  expressly compares the Snatcher's fear-mongering tactics to that of the Nazis.
 * New Neo City: Neo Kobe.
 * Nice Hat: Harry's red cap.
 * Nightmare Face: A recurring theme with the Snatchers, whose faces usually end up in bad shape.
 * No Animals Were Harmed:
 * No Ending: In the 8-bit releases, the planned ending was actually left out due to time constrains. This was fixed for the CD-ROM versions.
 * No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me:
 * Not My Driver:
 * Not Quite Dead:.
 * Nuke Em:.
 * Obvious Beta - The original PC-88 and MSX2 versions released in 1988 were rushed for release due to the fact that Kojima and his team were taking too long to finish the game. The originally planned ending was omitted from this version and the game ended on a much darker note than originally planned. Elements from the unused ending appeared in 1990's SD Snatcher before the full ending was added in the later disc-based remakes of the original Snatcher.
 * Oddly Small Organization: JUNKER consists of a mechanic, a "Chief" who does nothing but sit at his desk all day, a glorified receptionist, and only two agents who are on active duty. There were supposedly four other guys, but they were killed or incapacitated just before the start of the game.
 * By the end of the game, Gillian has become JUNKER 's  by default!
 * One Steve Limit: Averted, since there are two Bensons working for JUNKER.
 * Only a Flesh Wound:
 * Patrick Stewart Speech: "You're Insane Humanity won't be so easily dominated! You underestimate the strength of the human spirit!" - Gillian.
 * Peek a Bangs: Isabella Velvet
 * Production Throwback: Since this was Kojima's first game after the original Metal Gear 1987, there's quite a few references throw in. Most notably Gillian's robotic partner, who was built after the "Metal Gear menace from the late 20th century" and whose leitmotif theme is the "Theme of Tara" from the original MSX game. Other references includes Benson Cunningham's former membership within FOXHOUND, the Outer Heaven nightclub, and the inclusion of Dr. Pettrovich as one of the developers behind the Frankenstein Project that created the Snatchers.
 * Ransacked Room: Katrina's apartment.
 * Removed From the Picture: Harry's childhood photograph of himself cuts out the portion showing his parents.
 * Replicant Snatching: The Trope Half-Namer. Fittingly enough, Blade Runner is the other half.
 * The Reveal:.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
 * Robot Buddy: Metal Gear, Gillian's partner in his investigation.
 * Robot Religion:
 * Robot War
 * Rubber Band AI: Doing well in the practice gun shooting sections makes the in-game sequences almost impossible. It is recommended to do intentionally poorly to keep the difficulty down. And even then, if you're running the game on an emulator (and, let's face it, in this day and age, you probably are), you'll either have to be a keyboard magician or, if you're using your mouse as a Light Gun stand-in, aim high with your cursor to compensate for that tiny arrow not lining up directly with your shots.
 * Say Your Prayers: You have the option of saying this to Metal Gear
 * Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You
 * Secret Underground Passage:
 * Shooting It Out of Their Hands: Gillian blasting the gun out of Ivan's mitts.
 * Shout Out Video Games: In the Sega CD version, the Outer Heaven bar is filled with clients dressed in Konami costumes, with characters dressed as Goemon, Sparkster, Simon and Dracula, Bill and Lance, and Mr. Ueda. The Play Station and Sega Saturn versions replaces Bill and Lance with Light and Pastel, Sparkster with Pawapuro-kun, and Mr. Ueda with "Designman". The bartender was also redesigned to resemble the Golem boss from Salamander.
 * Shout Out Theme Naming: In the Japanese version several locations in the game were named after popular 80's bands such as the Joy Division costume shop (which became Plato's Cavern in the English version), the Alphaville computer (Alpha-One in the English version), and.
 * Signs of Disrepair:
 * Sinister Subway:
 * Spell My Name With an S: Several characters have their names spelled differently depending on which version of the game. Notably, Random Hajile is known as Randam Hajile in Japan.
 * Suicide Attack
 * Suddenly Harmful Harmless Object:
 * Super Identikit: The JUNKER computer room's "Montage Mode".
 * Technology Marches On: Jean's floppy disk. Partially justified in that Jean is shown to have old-fashioned tastes, since his computer is a PC-68 from the 1980s.
 * Throwaway Country: Most of Russia and continental Eurasia a good 50 years before the game begins, due to a seemingly unrelated virus.
 * : Double Poly Subverted
 * Translation Correction: JUNKER originally stood for "Judgment Uninfected Naked Kind & Execution Ranger", a random string of English words that doesn't have any coherent meaning together. In the Sega CD version, it was changed to the (slightly) more sensible "Japanese Undercover Neuro-Kinetic Elimination Ranger".
 * Transplant: Metal Gear Mk. II eventually found work as Old Snake's Item Caddy in Metal Gear Solid 4, while Cunningham got a Race Lift and was turned into a Scary Black Man in Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops. Half of everyone else, though, couldn't score anything bigger than their own cards in the Metal Gear Acid series.
 * Two Keyed Lock: Actually a three-keyed lock.
 * Updated Rerelease: Since the original PC-88 and MSX2 versions released in 1988 were Obvious Betas, Kojima and his team saw fit to remake the game four years later as a CD-ROM game for the PC Engine, adding not only the originally planned ending, but also improved graphics and voice acting. The PC Engine version was released as Snatcher CD-ROMantic. The later Sega CD localization and PS/Saturn rereleases are based on this version.
 * Used Future
 * Voodoo Shark: Why does nobody ever use the easily portable, perfectly effective, completely non-invasive Snatcher detector without a warrant? Respect for civil rights! This would be a perfectly fine explanation if
 * What Happened to The Mouse:
 * You Didn't Ask:
 * Your Head Asplode:
 * You Didn't Ask:
 * Your Head Asplode: