Policenauts/Snatcher

[Tirian]

Loved Snatcher ... and if you haven't got a Mega CD, then play it on PC by all means rather than miss out entirely.

However ... nothing beats the experience of sitting there, pad in hand, with the Justifier lying at your side, ready to grab and blast away as you encounter snatchers!

As with all adventure style games though, it does get a bit frustrating when you find yourself stuck and don't know what you vital plot-progressing activity you've missed

Tirian

[Yakumo]

Policenauts is a wonderful game but it was never released in English so most of us will miss the entire plot. In a way I'd say it's better than Snatcher due to the anime scenes produced by AIC (Bubblegum Crisis fame as well as many others) and the actual game. There's far more depth to it. I just wish that an English version was made. I hate playing in japanese. Even though I can understand 80% of it I get really tired having to use my brain just to read

Yakumo

[SuperDanX]

This may help anyone struggling with policenauts its an english language translation of the ps1 policenauts manual, but may be of some use for the saturn version too,

http://www.msxnet.org/gtinter/pnaut/pnaut-ma.htm

[Sketcz]

Cheers for the link SuperDan.

http://junkerhq.net/

These are the guys working on translating Policenauts, as mentioned on the page, they've been doing text dumps of the PS1 and Saturn version. There's not been much progress, but they're ardent Kojima fans, so... I'm still going to cling to some hope that some day I'll be able to patch the PS1 game into English...

[Kubrick]

Apparetly you can use the Konami Justifier gun for the shooting parts.

You can also use the Virtua Gun in the Saturn version of Policenauts (not sure about Snatcher..)

[112]

Ive finally started playing this mush touted game. And i must say it is truly great! im really getting into it but problem is i dunno how to save. Any ideas?

112

[Kaladron]

Once you have the little robot (called Metal Gear) just talk to him and he'll let you save. Just make sure you have enough space on the Mega CD battery.

[112]

Got it thanks! Man the intro sequence is so....... long that i thought a save option wasnt available! Not a bad game jus jumped out of an exploding factory. Especially luv the little kojima type influences, like the volume thing. Its funny where you see some of his old tricks from that have made it into more recent games. Luv the music at the begining! very jazzy and typical american type detective music.

112

[Stoise]

Theres a translated version of Snatcher (the MSX version as opposed to the Sega CD one which apparently is cut) here unfourtunateley though this means youll have to play on an emulator, but it shouldn't be too bad seeing as the MSX was actually a PC.

[vertigo]

Once you have the little robot (called Metal Gear) just talk to him and he'll let you save. Just make sure you have enough space on the Mega CD battery.

The MegaCD has a battery save? Is this on the MCD1 only, coz I'm sure I didn't see a battery when I opened my MCD2? Or is it on an EPROM like with N64 cartridges, as opposed to battery-powered SRAM?

[m0nk3y]

That SD Snatcher looks pretty cool, and I'm especially intrigued as there's an English translation.

Anyone played it?

[112]

Is there speach in the english translation on the MSX? Cos it helps a lot on the mega cd how the speach relieves yah eyes from reading endless amounts of text when looking and investigating.

112

[Sketcz]

That SD Snatcher looks pretty cool, and I'm especially intrigued as there's an English translation.
Anyone played it?

I know Kaladron will disagree with me here, what with him being the resident MSX expert, but I think SD Snatcher is fairly rubbish.

The combat, while intruiging at first, soon become an absolute chore. Not particularly difficult, just long and boring. Especially when you need money, or more importantly EXP. And your guns can take ages to kill the robots. Plus they move around, and sometimes they keep moving until you trap them in a corner of the battle screen. Due to the length of the animations, etc, it can take what? 30 seconds to trap them, and then longer to kill them.

I played it up to just past the cinema, to a run down part of town. But the 25+ or so bad guys I needed to fight past to reach some old house, not to mention the nauseatingly tedious length of these battles, forced me to switch it off.

The pacing is terrible, possibly the worst I have ever seen in an RPG. Played the original Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy games on the NES? Well this one is even more of a grind. There is simply no way to move quickly through the game.

For someone who has completed it... how long does it take? 100+ hours?

Oh, and I dislike the fact that due to the bright graphics, it looks like it's the middle of the day constantly. Non-SD Snatcher is set at night, and as a result has a lot more atmosphere.

One of the best ideas I've seen in ages (taking a graphic adventure with cool plot and turning it into an Super Deformed RPG), but sadly it has the worst possible execution.

IMHO of course.

[hudson]

What's the best/easiest/cheapest way to play these games these days? They sound like they'd be good phone games.

[doodledude]

What's the best/easiest/cheapest way to play these games these days? They sound like they'd be good phone games.

I finished Snatcher using Retropie recently and performed ok although my version had a tendency to pause for long periods. Maybe down to the rip I was using though.
I've started Policenauts (English PS1 patched version) on Retropie also so that's a good method if you don't have suitable console to play the original discs.