Snatcher Review

The debts are enormous and openly declared. Neo Kobe City is Blade Runner's rain and neon, the Snatchers are body-doubling machines out of a Carpenter film, and your robot partner is a walking Hollywood reference. What lifts it is that the writing is genuinely good on its own terms, with a mystery that pays off, a partner relationship that earns its ending, and a tonal command that moves from procedural to horror to farce without whiplash.

It is a command-driven adventure game, which means you select look, ask and move from a menu rather than solving puzzles by manipulating objects, and the exhaustive examination the design rewards will bore anyone who does not enjoy reading. The English release on the Sega CD is the version to play, with full voice acting that was remarkable in its year and a localization that keeps the humor intact. It has been effectively unavailable for decades and secondhand prices are absurd. As an argument that this medium could carry an adult script, it arrived a very long time early.