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{{quote|''Is it a challenge from man to space? Or a challenge from space against mankind?''|Tagline.}}
[[Spiritual Successor]] to [[Hideo Kojima]]'s interactive [[Visual Novel]] cult classic ''[[Snatcher]]'', ''Policenauts'' is basically what you get when you let [[Konami]]'s resident sci-fi author retell the story of Rip Van Winkle using the characters from Lethal Weapon... then [[No Export for You|forget to tell America]] for about a decade until [[Let's Play|Comrade]] [[Slowbeef]] [http://policenauts.net/english and pals] whang the fandom upside the head with [[Fan Translation|the digital equivalent of the Rosetta Stone]].
[[Zeerust|In the year 2010]], the United Nations handpicks five police officers from around the world to undergo astronaut training and become [[Title Drop|Policenauts]], specially trained to bring law and order to Earth's first orbital colony Beyond Coast. But tragedy strikes in 2013, when LAPD representative Jonathan Ingram (above, with mullet) has an accident with his "Yuri" spacewalking vehicle and spends the next 25 years drifting in low Earth orbit thanks to his suit's [[Suspended Animation|emergency cold sleep system]]. Upon finally being recovered by the probe ''Propaganda'', he returns to Earth and sets up a floundering [[Private Detective]] agency after developing a severe case of cosmophobia.
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{{tropelist|LOOK > TROPES}}
* [[Adventure Duo]]: Following the lead of Gillian and Metal, Jonathan is the [[Chivalrous Pervert]] and Ed is the straight man.
* [[Alien Blood]]: The "Frozeners" carry white blood, which accounts for their green-skinned appearance.
* [[All There in the Manual]]: The translation project's website features a massive compendium of glossary terms gleaned from the PlayStation release's omake disc. Strangely enough, there's a mode [[Dummied Out]] here but available by default in the Saturn copy that allows players to call up the [[Encyclopedia Exposita]] on the fly.
* [[Author Filibuster]]:
* [[Awesome McCoolname]]: Jonathan Ingram.
* [[Badass Beard]]: Gates Becker sports one.
* [[Badass Long Hair]]: Tony Redwood.
* [[Badass Mustache]]: Ed.
* [[Best Her to Bed Her]]: If you're able to beat Meryl's high score on the shooting range, she'll let you grope her breasts. Kind of subverted in that the person she eventually reveals real interest in is her friend Dave, who could never outshoot her.
* [[Better to Die Than Be Killed]]
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]:
* [[Bland-Name Product]]: Jonathan's favorite brand of cigarettes, "Moslems", are sold in a Marlboro-style red box. [[Aluminum Christmas Trees|Moslems are (were) real]], and they are (were) 'break' cigarettes: required no lighter, but had a sulfuric compound in the tip that activated when you broke the end.
* [[Blonde, Brunette, Redhead]]: Chris, Karen, and Meryl.
* [[Blood From the Mouth]]:
* [[Boom! Headshot!]]: Ed shoots
* [[Buddy Cop Show]]: Much like ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'', if it was an anime.
* [[The Call Knows Where You Live]]
* [[Casual Interplanetary Travel]]: Jonathan gets to Beyond Coast on a commercial shuttle with even less hassle than one would get on an international flight circa 2011.
* [[Chase Scene]]: A ''very'' lengthy chase with a motorcycle gunman. Twice.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Various.
* [[Coincidental Broadcast]]: Karen's BBC news reports.
* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: Tokugawa.
* [[Cowboy Cop]]: Guess.
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* [[Da Chief]]: Gates.
* [[Darkened Building Shootout]]
* [[Deal with the Devil]]:
* [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]: Take everything you know about [[Snatcher|Gillian Seed]] hitting on women. Now ramp it [[Up to Eleven]] with a mouse pointer that allows you to LOOK at women in specific spots. In fact, groping a woman is [[But Thou Must!|integral to advancing the plot]] at one point.
* [[Doesn't Like Guns]]: Ed can't bring himself to draw a gun anymore because of -- in true ''[[Die Hard]]'' fashion -- a [[My Greatest Failure|traumatic moment]] in his past.
* [[Doppelganger Replacement Love Interest]]: This seems to be the case with Karen, whose resemblance to her mother Lorraine does not go unnoticed by Jonathan, while Karen herself tries to make a move on Jonathan, much to Jonathan's confusion. {{spoiler|This is subverted at the end, when Karen is revealed to Jonathan's daughter, having been conceived before Jonathan's accident
* [[Due to the Dead]]: Nearly everyone who dies in the game is shipped off to BCCH, where their bodies are put into [[Suspended Animation]] while their organs are sold on the black market.
* [[Dummied Out]]: The aforementioned [[Encyclopedia Exposita]], along with extra firing range targets depicting Snatcher heads (oddly, with green eyes vis-a-vis the international releases of that game, rather than the original [[Terminator]]-esque red ones). The patch actually also dummies away graphics that just didn't want to cooperate with the new code offsets, rerouting to displaying new, uncompressed images rather than slogging through Konami's proprietary compression code.
* [[Elaborate Underground Base]]: Tokugawa's secret warehouse on the moon.
* [[Elevator Action Sequence]]: Jonathan's shootout with an EMPS while climbing Tokugawa's H.Q.
* [[Engineered Public Confession]]:
* [[Everyone Is Related]]: Ho boy.
*
* [[Evil Gloating]]:
* [[Evil Laugh]]: As Jonathan is being framed for murder,
* [[Evil Tower of Ominousness]]: Tokugawa H.Q. (leading into a [[Climbing Climax]]).
* [[Face Heel Turn]]:
* [[Family Relationship Switcheroo]]:
* [[Fantastic Drug]]: The opium/pharma-hybrid Narc, whose 33% per-capita usage on Beyond Coast is rivaled only in America, where "[[Moral Guardians|the War on Drugs is still being fought]]." (BTW, that's a [[Shout-Out]] to the tacked-on Ivan Rodriguez/Liquid Sky miniplot in ''Snatcher''.)
* [[Fiery Redhead]]: Meryl.
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* [[Frame-Up]]: Hojo's body is uncovered right in the middle of a police raid. And wouldn't you know it, Jonathan Ingram's shell casings are conveniently littered around the corpse, how strange!
* [[The Future]]
* [[Gag Boobs]]: Jonathan finds [[Fan Service|a myriad of excuses]] to touch womens' breasts, complete with [[Jiggle Physics|jiggle animations]] and a sound effect (Meryl's twins [[Fan Disservice|sound like elephants]]).
* [[General Gaming Gamepads]]: The PS1 version is playable with the Playstation Mouse, while the shooting sections of the Saturn version can be played with a [[Light Gun]].
* [[Genre Deconstruction]]: Not so much the [[Buddy Cop Show|buddy cop]] angle
{{quote|"Of course, just as ''Metal Gear Solid'' was screaming "[[Nuclear Weapons Taboo|NUKES ARE BAD]]" at the top of its lungs, the prevailing theme in ''Policenauts'' is "[[Anvilicious|SPACE IS BAD]]", which is pounded into your head on several occasions."}}
* [[A God Am I]]:
* [[Goggles Do Nothing]]: Dave.
* [[He Was Right There All Along]]:
▲* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: Ed & Jonathan.
* [[His Name Is--]]:
* [[Hot Scoop]]: Karen Hojo.
* [[Human Shield]]:
* [[I Have Your Wife|I Have Your Kid]]:
* [[Ill Girl]]: Lorraine and Kenzo's daughter, BBC (not [[BBC|the British one]]) news anchor Karen Hojo. Thankfully while she's waiting for a bone marrow transplant, she can phone it in via CG duplicate.
* [[I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin]]: Before she dies, Lorraine hands Jonathan a black poppy leaf.
* [[Important Haircut]]: Karen,
* [[Incest Is Relative]]:
*
** Tokugawa's "Rebirthers" are clones of celebrity women throughout history, existing solely to have sex with him and his clientèle. More disturbingly, they're also registered as [[Squick|legal blood relatives]] of Tokugawa himself.
* [[It Was Here, I Swear]]: Ed
* [[Japan Takes Over the World]]: The Japanese-bred Tokugawa is the biggest employer on Beyond, so much so that his employees have taken on the [[Salaryman]] mindset.
* [[Just Between You and Me]]: Toscanini.
* [[Killed to Uphold the Masquerade]]: Hojo.
* [[Laughing Mad]]:
* [[Let Me At Him]]: Jonathan ''really'' wants to get his hands on Tokugawa.
* [[Lock and Load Montage]]: Jonathan before setting off to Tokugawa's tower for a final showdown.
* [[Luke, I Might Be Your Father]]:
* [[The Mafia]]
* [[Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy]]: Dave and Meryl.
* [[A Mech by Any Other Name]]: The police mobile suits (EMPS).
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* [[Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot]]
* [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Too many to list.
* [[Mysterious Informant]]: Nine Stars ({{spoiler|
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: Jonathan bears a suspicious resemblance to Mel Gibson in ''Lethal Weapon'', complete with shaggy mullet and baseball jacket. The similarities between Ed and Danny Glover are also hard to miss.
* [[Off with His Head]]:
* [[Old Save Bonus]]: If you happen to have a ''[[Tokimeki Memorial|Tokimeki Memorial : Forever with you]]'' save completed with at least one girl in the same Memory Card as your ''Policenauts'' save, an additional dialogue [[Shout-Out|spoofing]] ''[[Tokimeki Memorial]]''[[World Tree|'s Legend of the Tree]] [[Shout-Out|and commenting on the girl you completed]] will appear at one point of the game.
* [[Only a Flesh Wound]]:
* [[Parental Substitute]]: Ed gunned down Marc's biological (and [[Ax Crazy]]) father while on the job. Guilt-ridden, he took in the orphaned boy as his own.
* [[The Password Is Always Swordfish]]
* [[Peek-a-Boo Corpse]]
* [[Perpetual Smiler]]: Dave. Even
* [[Police Are Useless]]
* [[Portmantitle]]
* [[Powered Armor]]: BCP's "EMPS" suits, designed to quickly patrol the entirety of the colony.
* [[Production Foreshadowing]]: If you have the ''Pilot Disk'' for the 3DO, or the ''Private Collection'' disc for the PS (doesn't matter which), you can see early concept of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' (back when it was titled ''Metal Gear 3'') if you look up FOXHOUND in the glossary.
* [[Production Throwback]]: The game is filled with several ''[[Snatcher]]'' and ''[[Metal Gear]]'' references. From cameos by Randam and Napoleon, to the presence of a 2042 ''Snatcher'' calendar in Dr. Ishida's office.
* [[The Professor]]: Victor.
* [[Prophetic Name]]: Plato Crater is a location on the moon where Tokugawa keeps his [[Organ Theft|organ farm]]. As Toscanini points out, if you change one letter, you end up with "Pluto"
* [[Recycled in Space]]: Sure enough, as ''Snatcher'' was ''[[Blade Runner]]'' <small>WITH ROBOTS INSTEAD OF CLONES!</small>, this is ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'' <small>IN AN O'NEILL CYLINDER!</small>.
* [[Retirony]]:
* [[Reverse Psychology]]:
* [[Rip Van Winkle]]: Jonathan Ingram.
* [[Sacrificial Lamb]]: Lorraine.
* [[Salt and Pepper]]: Jonathan and Ed.
* [[Scary Shiny Glasses]]: An [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|extremely rude cop]] manning the BCP front desk.
* [[Secret Keeper]]: While visiting Karen at the hospital, her doctor recognizes Jonathan as a wanted fugitive. Luckily, he's a nice fellow and decides not to turn Jonathan in.
* [[Sexy Stewardess]]: Zero gravity has ''many'' advantages.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
* [[Shout-Out]]: The shooting range's combat mode lifts several distinct sound effects from Konami's light gun game ''Lethal Enforcers''.▼
** Ishida's [[Snatcher|2042 calendar]] [[Feelies|that he got from a video game]]. [[Lampshade Hanging|It's even mentioned by one of the characters]] that, given a haircut and a trench coat, [[Expy|Johnathan would look just like the guy in the middle]].
** The ''Metal Gear'' series, from ''Solid'' onwards, feature various shout-outs to ''Policenauts'' in turn.
▲*
* [[Shout-Out Theme Naming]]: {{spoiler|The Redwood siblings are named after Tony and Ridley Scott.}}▼
* [[Shout-Out Theme Naming]]:
** The original EMPS prototype is named Yuri Gagarin, named after the first man in space, while the three later models (Goddard, Oberth, and Von Braun) are named after real rocket scientists.▼
▲*
* [[Shown Their Work]]: Kojima pulled together a lot of conjecture about the effects of zero gravity and cosmic radiation on space-bound humans, along with the rigid environmental conditions needed to keep an O'Neill Cylinder running...then capped it off with [[Author Appeal|his own speculation]] about what zero gravity and virtual reality could do [[Power Perversion Potential|for sex tourism, legal or otherwise]].▼
▲** The original EMPS prototype is named Yuri Gagarin, named after the first man in space, while the three later models (Goddard, Oberth
* [[Sickbed Slaying]]: {{spoiler|Chris}} tries to kill Ed while he's unconscious in the hospital, but gets caught in the act.▼
▲* [[Shown Their Work]]: Kojima pulled together a lot of conjecture about the effects of zero gravity and cosmic radiation on space-bound humans, along with the rigid environmental conditions needed to keep an O'Neill Cylinder running... then capped it off with [[Author Appeal|his own speculation]] about what zero gravity and virtual reality could do [[Power Perversion Potential|for sex tourism, legal or otherwise]].
* [[Smoking Is Cool]]: Jonathan, noting how smoking is frowned upon in the future, indulges in a "smokeless" brand of cigarettes. Even that isn't enough for Ed, who constantly reminds Jonathan that ''all'' smoking is outlawed on Beyond.▼
▲* [[Sickbed Slaying]]:
▲* [[Smoking Is Cool]]: Jonathan, noting how smoking is frowned upon in the future,
* [[Snowy Screen of Death]]: When
* [[The Speechless]]: Marc watched his father get gunned down, and was rendered mute by the trauma. He communicates mostly through drawing pictures.
* [[Streetwalker]]: Hanging out at the BCP's front desk.
* [[Swiss Cheese Security]]: BCCH.
* [[Technology Marches On]]: Subverted. A key [[MacGuffin]] is stored on a CD-ROM, precisely ''because'' it's an "archaic format" which nobody would look twice at.
* [[Transplant]]: Meryl, into MGS.
* [[The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter]]: Anna Brown. ''Good lord'', Anna Brown.
* [[Wait Here]]
* [[We Have Become Complacent]]: This is the gist of
* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|Why Did It Have To Be Space?]]: Jonathan's spacewalking accident 25 years ago left him riddled with cosmophobia.
* [[Why Won't You Die?]]: Nuthin's gonna break
* [[Wire Dilemma]] : The bomb planted inside an Elles designer bag
* [[Would You Like to Hear How They Died?]]:
* [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair]]: Jonathan literally has blue hair, along with Tokugawa (whose hair is green) and Ed's children. Redwood's hair is purple, although in that case, it's a side-effect of his biology.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Science Fiction Video Games]]
[[Category:Visual Novel]]
[[Category:
[[Category:The Nineties]]
[[Category:Adventure Game]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Konami]]
[[Category:Sega Saturn]]
[[Category:Science Fiction Visual Novels]]
[[Category:Policenauts]]▼
[[Category:Hideo Kojima]]
[[Category:PC-98]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Video Games of the 1990s]]
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