Snatcher is one title that is so good but so damn painful at the same time. If you were gaming in the early 1990s, seeing this new thing called the Sega CD on store shelves then you probably remember seeing Snatcher. It was one of the few exclusives on the platform I always wanted to play. I was heavy into point and click adventures and storytelling games far more than quick action the Atari 2600 and Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) were known for – well, console gaming in general was mostly fast action. Snatcher was quite the opposite. Then we got nothing. Policenauts, the sequel, was never officially released in North America and the drought we are still fighting began. Chords by Pixel Pusher is looking to open the rain clouds a bit.
Don’t Call It A Digital Comic
This is a misnomer about games like Snatcher that bothers me. They are much closer to point and click adventures closer to early graphical text adventures like Maniac Mansion and LucasArts point and click games. Snatcher is not a digital comic, I never understood how that was thought of and why it stuck all these years.
Probably due to a lack of more titles in this style is to blame.
The Sega CD did get at least one non-Konami title that was like Snatcher, The Space Adventure by Hudson Soft, but other than these two titles, fans of the once hopeful genre have been left in the dark as far as playing anything on Sega CD.
Calling Snatcher a digital comic would be like calling Déjà vu 1 and 2, Shadowgate, and UnInvited digital comics. They all share a similar style to Snatcher as far as how you play. For some reason, this style of game never caught on with console gamers (Déjà vu 2 never saw release on consoles, probably due to poor sales of the other games).
Light on Story at the Moment
Right now, Chords is very light on the story. All Pixel Pusher Games have said is a blurb about this being like Snatcher and a handful of screenshots that don’t really reveal much about the game.
What is shown so far is interesting, we do get a taste of the game world. Two of the screenshots show two rooms in a modest living situation. One hints that the rest of the game world is dark, gritty, futuristic. The remaining shots show off a bit of graphics and gives an idea of how much detail the developers are going for here.
Sadly, outside of that, there is not much available for Chords. It was enough to get me excited about the game, I just hope they dole out more to keep fans interested while we wait for Chords to release.
Let me know in the comments, how do you feel about this style of game? If you have a cool grand burning a hole in your pocket and want to experience Snatcher then check eBay via my affiliate link. Just sit down before you click, the English version is only going up in value.