So I just finished this game, and I have to say, it was an awesome and refreshing experience (especially considering it came out 20 years ago!). It really is a shame that the North American version of this game never got officially localized back in the day, but the English patch that was released finally gave me the chance to play through this (my Japanese isn't great enough for the more technical, space-y terms, etc) without losing anything. I can't recommend the patch enough, as the translators really did a great job with it (and I'm usually a stickler for grammar/spelling).
Let's get the bad things out of the way - no, the game isn't perfect. The shooting bits range from bad to frustratingly awful, since you're stuck using the d-pad in the PSX version. There is also an obscure "puzzle" and a crappy mini-game part (for those that have played it I'm talking about the
). BTW, I just found out that the Saturn version had light gun support, which I'm sure would have made the shooting part of the game vastly better.
But the game sets such an amazing atmosphere. The combination of 90's era anime-like visuals and awesome music sets the perfect mood for the adventure. There is so much content for a game like this; clicking on virtually anything in the world gives you multiple responses compared to pretty much anything else I've played. It really is impressive how "deep" the game is in this regard. Policenauts also has a tremendous amount of voiced acted dialogue, pretty much all of which was well done, in my opinion. And unlike Snatcher (another title I greatly enjoyed), the game isn't short, clocking in around 11-12 hours.
The story is well done, with characters you actually care about, and touches on themes that at the time I'm guessing were very novel/original for a video game. I was also surprised at how educational it was on some topics (ie space, anatomy, etc)
I'm just really bummed that Kojima is stuck churning out MGS games and not working on things like Snatcher/Policenauts, which are both tremendous in my humble opinion.
Let's get the bad things out of the way - no, the game isn't perfect. The shooting bits range from bad to frustratingly awful, since you're stuck using the d-pad in the PSX version. There is also an obscure "puzzle" and a crappy mini-game part (for those that have played it I'm talking about the
family crest and bomb diffusing parts respectively
But the game sets such an amazing atmosphere. The combination of 90's era anime-like visuals and awesome music sets the perfect mood for the adventure. There is so much content for a game like this; clicking on virtually anything in the world gives you multiple responses compared to pretty much anything else I've played. It really is impressive how "deep" the game is in this regard. Policenauts also has a tremendous amount of voiced acted dialogue, pretty much all of which was well done, in my opinion. And unlike Snatcher (another title I greatly enjoyed), the game isn't short, clocking in around 11-12 hours.
The story is well done, with characters you actually care about, and touches on themes that at the time I'm guessing were very novel/original for a video game. I was also surprised at how educational it was on some topics (ie space, anatomy, etc)
I'm just really bummed that Kojima is stuck churning out MGS games and not working on things like Snatcher/Policenauts, which are both tremendous in my humble opinion.
