Snatcher

Snatcher is a menu-driven cyberpunk adventure set in 2047 Neo Kobe City. Players guide amnesiac JUNKER agent Gillian Seed as he investigates humanoid machines that murder people and assume their identities, while searching locations, questioning characters, using items and consulting Metal Gear Mk. II. Story scenes and dialogue drive most of the experience, punctuated by a small number of 3-by-3-grid shooting sequences.

This Japanese PlayStation edition was released by Konami on February 16, 1996. It was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (KCET), with Konami as publisher, and follows the 1992 PC Engine Super CD-ROM² version as a complete three-act telling of Gillian's investigation. Like the other Japanese console releases, it uses Japanese text and voices; the Sega CD edition remains the only official English release.

The PlayStation port refreshes the presentation rather than changing the adventure's core. It redraws portions of the artwork with more color and detail, replaces much of the in-game music, and adds CG sequences at the title screen. The Sega CD's newly recorded English material is not carried over: its extra voiced prologue and dialogue in the final farewell scene are absent, though the PlayStation version presents its own CG introduction.

Its version-specific additions include a new maze sequence during the escape from the Queen laboratory and extra dialogue and an item thread concerning Jean-Jack Gibson's candy. The PlayStation edition otherwise retains the menu investigation, conversations, travel and target-grid combat that define the PC Engine and Sega CD versions; it does not turn Snatcher into a different genre or a free-roaming action game.

Compared with the PC Engine CD version, the PlayStation release removes the earlier version's nudity and tones down graphic material. It no longer shows the dog Alice's exposed, moving innards, and alters the view of Jean-Jack Gibson's body. The PlayStation also obscures some violent imagery with grayscale, distortion or mosaic effects, including a maggot-covered corpse.

The Sega CD localization had already changed or reduced some sexual material and cultural references from the Japanese PC Engine game, while adding English dialogue, an extended introduction and extra interactive content. The PlayStation uses the later Konami-themed background references rather than the PC Engine's assorted science-fiction and manga cameos, but its censorship of gore is more extensive. The Sega Saturn port released shortly afterward is broadly similar in content and presentation, yet lacks the PlayStation's grayscale and mosaic obscuring in the noted violent scenes.