Policenauts - Hideo Kojima's follow-up to Snatcher (PC-98 Paradise) also on 3DO, PlayStation, Saturn
Vložit
- čas přidán 26. 05. 2024
- In this episode of PC-98 Paradise I play the original version of Hideo Kojima's "Policenauts", for the PC-9821. Long before Death Stranding, before Metal Gear Solid, Kojima made another unique adventure game in 1994. How is it different from the 3DO, PlayStation, and Saturn versions released later?
I want to give a special thanks to Bowl of Lentils for lending his voice for the Kojima quotes in this video. Subscribe to his channel if you haven't already!
/ @bowloflentils
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Patreon!
basementbrothers.net/
/ basemntbrothers
/ basementbrothers
/ basementbrothersyoutube
/ basementbrothersmrjakes
Become a member to get access to perks:
/ @basementbrothers
00:00 What is a PC-9821?
02:28 Packaging
04:32 Installation
08:16 Opening
11:12 Fake PC-9821 game?!!
12:26 Sound and voices
14:42 The Story (finally!)
17:52 Gameplay
20:02 Why no English patch?
20:57 Shooting parts
21:29 Bomb disposal troubles
24:02 Easter eggs and version differences
25:27 Similarities with Snatcher
25:27 Credits
27:03 3DO version
28:08 PlayStation version
28:29 Saturn version
29:43 Wrap-up - Hry
A very big thanks to Bowl of Lentils for lending his voice as Hideo Kojima again in this video! Here's a link to his channel!
www.youtube.com/@bowloflentils
Very happy to contribute my voice to another great video! Thanks again for inviting me to read some Kojima quotes.
@@bowloflentils Good to know you're still doing well. I'd love to see you make another video.
@@fmsyntheses Thank you. Still slowly working on my next video in my free time. Hope to have it out sometime this year.
@@bowloflentils Looking forward to it!
Game installation is always the best part of any old game.
I say without a hint of sarcasm.
Ideally with the KCHUNKVRRRR of an old floppy drive.
That is my immersion!
Creating a boot disk brings back so many memories. Especially messing around with HIMEM.SYS. Unfortunately, we usually had to do it all manually since it was expected that the game would be running in some sort of Pure Land where extended memory availability was never a concern. Along with the idiosyncrasies of individual configurations, driver needs, and the like.
Especially on old Westwood games like Command & Conquer. They tried to bring back that experience with the intro to C&C Remastered but it wasn't as cool
Those Kojima's games surely deserve a re-release on Steam
Play em on OG console or dont
@@2006Mercury why?
@@2006Mercuryor you can not be a nerd
There's enough trash on Steam already, no thanks
@@wallacesousuke1433Cuck
I like the pixel art style of the PC98 version. So that would probably end up being my favorite version. Also RIP to the old disc drive.
Having to connect the headphone jack on the CD drive to the input on the back of the PC-98 reminds me of how on PC in the 90s you used to need a separate audio cable on the back of the CD-Rom drive which connected to a port on your soundcard inside the PC. Eventually they worked out how to just stream it through the data cable I guess.
There is a Policenauts poster in Hal Emmerich’s lab in MGS1
As someone born in the 90s, watching you fumble around with CDs and floppy disks really takes me back.
I think Vinny Vinesauce read those game credits in one of his streams.
“Kojima, Kojima, Kojima, Kojima. KOJIMA”.
I’ve never seen a pop out top-loader CD drive like that before, it has a lot of charm
Probably more reliable too, since it doesn't need an extra motor and pulley for a tray. And unlike a caddy system you won't lose an integral part, like so many of the old caddy based CD drives lost the caddy over the years.
Yeah at least I know the tray mechanism will never break, like my old one was when I first got it. Another under-rated advantage of toploaders is that you can remove/insert discs even while powered off.
This channel is what all other "I'm doing this for preservation" types of creators should aspire to be even 1/8th as good as.
An early birthday present is a new Basement Brothers PC-98 Paradise video!
I actually do really enjoy the installation portion of the videos.
I find it hard to believe this is only 16 colors… the palette work that was done in this game is seriously incredible! 🙀
It looks great but the heavy dithering is a pretty good giveaway.
I think Jonathan at his desk is used for a lo-fi music stream on CZcams? Can I also say that I still adore how his name's pronounced in Japanese? And yeah, I feel you on the Saturn vs PC-9821 graphics. The added details look cool and all in the later ports, but the images seem kinda blurry. Good, crisp pixel art is nearly timeless.
It is. Prime Thanatos has had a recurring stream with it for several years and I love putting it on in the background when I'm doing work around the house.
I was born in 1989. I played old DOS games growing up but never had to install or set them up until windows 95.
Watching you explain how to set up these older games is so satisfying, like troubleshooting nostalgia I never had.
As the great Super Mario Brothers Super Show cartoon once said
"youll be hooked on the brothers"
Wow the PC-98 version looks great. I played (and made a video about) the PlayStation translation a while back and really enjoyed the easy flow of the game. You never get truly stuck, since it’ll automatically give you clues if run in circles for too long. I think I prefer Snatcher over the two, but maybe because how much it impressed me when I played it for the first time in 2008. Feels very modern, compared to Sierra games from the same time period.
Great video as always!
Thanks to your videos, I'm now aware of how often PC-88/98 games came with goodies and supplementary material. So when I in Akihabara for the first time a few weeks ago, I took a chance on a Dragon Slayer and fortunately it still had what I really wanted: that sweet, high-quality world map!
Great review once again! I love the pixel art on the PC-98, hopefully a translation will be possible one day. I don’t really know how much development resources exist in English for the PC-98/88 because I wouldn’t mind taking a shot at getting text injectable.
I just played through Policenauts (Saturn version, with the Virtua Gun!) for the first time last year - glad I was able to experience it finally. This is a neat look at the PC-98 version - I didn't realize this and the console versions resembled each other that closely, outside of the redone art and whatnot. Thank you for making this!
I had to give up on the light gun in the end, it was too inaccurate made it very frustrating.
playing snatcher and policenauts really put things into perspective for me in regards to kojima and where he gets his ideas from lmao
I see the old meme of Kojima's name being every other credit wasn't new to MGS3.
I love ending my weekend with your videos, they cover topics I never knew I was interested in!
Oh and thanks for more PC-9801/9821 info, that's always my favorite part to see some info about how these old machines work. Most videos it's people who have imported one and don't really seem to know much about how it works or what is distinct about their particular model, and they've always fascinated me as the last non-IBM compatible x86 platform, and one that made it so long at that.
Nice editing. I got so frustrated at the museum trying to click everything to progress the story and not sure what I’d missed.
Been on my radar for years, this video gave me the push to grab the Saturn version.
The Lethal Weapon in space we deserved, Kojima style 😁
Edit: typo!
Great coverage!
The pc-9821 installation seems like a pain 😅
I usually prefer spoilers to be included but I'm glad it didn't in this case and that I could watch the whole video.
The PC9821 graphics look amazing! Wish this would get a release.
When you mentioned that Japanese CD-ROM games use the same bass that reminded me how I noticed that a lot of PC engine CD games have a similar sound which surprised me since they're using CD audio but I guess they all used the same synthesizers
Yep. Exactly. Most PCE CD games (that don't have awesome real instrument soundtracks like Lords of Thunder) tend to use mostly Roland midi modules for the arrangements.
This game was so cool on Saturn, especially with the light gun for those shootout scenes. This is neat too
Just watched a long play of snatcher over this weekend, what a way to cap it off. Thanks BB!
Was very excited to see this being covered. Both Policenauts and Snatcher are titles I've had on my "to play" list for what feels like a life time at this point. With all the fan projects I really need to eventually bite the bullet once I get my new PC built and get into them. That I've managed to dodge story spoilers yet know the general premise of both pretty well is kind of crazy at this point.
Always nice to see a PC-98 paradise! This computer’s 16bit style speaks to me greatly. Awesome!
Hoped snatcher was going to be on the north american sega genesis mini 2.
I was literally butt-hurt though over the lack of lunar 1&2 😵💫😂
I love the box art, which is totally not Mel Gibson and totally not Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon...a police movie...
I love how if you lookup Basement Brothers CZcams on google images just to see what you look like, you get these two guys called the Woodford Brothers, lol.
Poured a cup of coffee, got settled in, pressed refresh on CZcams, and let out a very boisterous "Yay!" upon seeing the thumbnail!
Thanks so much for all you do
Fantastic upload and THANK YOU for not once making a meme or joke about Kojima. It seems like people are incapable of talking about him in the current era without turning him into a joke when he isn't. You guys have a vibe, pc-paradise is a vibe and that is why I love it.
It would be so cool if you also had a 'X6800 Series'
You gotta do this one for me Billy…McGarnagle
As always great video and now i really want to play this game :D And it was interesting to see that installation process of original version was as much adventure as playing the game itself.
A U.S. release of the Saturn version was teased in a few promotional flyers, but never happened.
This was fantastic and brought back fond memories! Because the PS1 was region free, I played an import version of it back in the day while studying Japanese in undergrad.
It's a great game for studying Japanese I'd say! With the high amount of spoken dialog with captions. Thanks for watching the video!
I think you may be misremembering slightly, though. The PS1 was never region-free without a mod. :)
I really liked the intro, subscribed !!! so this a police buddy point and click game in the space, nice combination and the inspiration from Lethal Weapon it's great.
I bought the 3DO version of this game back in the days and borrowed a 3DO from a friend to play it :D
I've always wanted to play the PC98 version...I love the talking heads (psycho killer rocks...) and the pixel graphics. I own all the other versions and have always wanted the 3DO version to be translated. Which iirc they actually used a lot of different art for many of the scenes in comparison to the PS1 and Saturn versions and it's the only port out of the 3 that doesn't have the CG scenes towards the end of the game.
Thank you for time and time again delivering a flawless pc98 video!
My adventure to create the user disk from the system disk took 3 hours. How do i rank?? :D
That's about the same amount of time it took me! I remember spending a whole morning on it.
@@BasementBrothers ahhh so soothing when the game finally booted! (i needed a peculiar neccd driver as everybody does...) then hung at the konami logo 😂
You're the one who directed me to where I could get the 3D printed driver for my old drive, so thanks for that! Too bad I was never able to get the lens to work very well...
I always liked Snatcher a bit more than Policenauts because of the atmosphere, however I find the pixel art in this version to be superior to the PSX cool but blurry cinematics, is charming and it also recover a bit of that missing atmosphere I was looking for.
Thanks again for your hard work! Always a delight when I see you've got a new video out
Great review, A collection of the various versions of Snatcher and Policenauts for modern consoles and PC would be amazing.
Get to it, Konami/M2!!!
Say what you will, I believe Tokimeki Memorial will always be Hideo Kojima's masterpiece.
Wasn‘t that Koji Igarashi‘s masterpiece?
@@cybercop0083right. I don’t think Kojima was involved with that one.
Kojima was a producer for the first two Tokimeki Memorial Drama series games on the PS1 and Saturn, and he was a supervisor on the third game. He never had any involvement in any of the other Tokimeki Memorial games, however one fun fact is that there’s a cameo from the woman in the purse store in Policenauts who appears in the first Drama Series game, and there’s a Policenauts movie you can watch in that same game.
Wow, I didn't even know he was a part of those.
I really have to wonder when Kojima is just going to start making films. He's clearly wanted to for decades.
Maybe he can't or there's be 5 hour movies. He's pretentious and his own game was terrible in story and world building. Also sledge hammer grade subtitle real life allusions and symbols.
@@napoleonfeanor I mean if Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese can get away with it I don't see why not Kojima
I think he's more comfortable with making videogames nowadays because of the narrative possibilities that the added layer of interactivity offers and the player-player character dichotomy it enables
I'm pretty sure he's announced he's helping write or produce a show of some sort?
@@crism8868what Tarantino movie is 5 hours?
Policenauts is one of my favorite games. I was beyond thrilled to be able to play an English version. I really wish I knew Japanese. I tip my hat to you sir.
I also wish I could read Japanese.
@@RemoWilliams1227well time to learn Japanese,chop chop!
The Saturn version also allowed for much more touching of the female characters for some reason with added reactions from them.
Always impressed by depth of your coverage.
Good work!
Hey this did age really well, compared to other game systems.
Great video and since finally playing the English translation for the PS1 and Saturn, Policenauts has easily become one of my favorite games of all time.
Great stuff, I love the coverage of adventure games. The last time you guys did Snatcher it made me finally try that game. This one I have actually played before but it's been a while. Maybe I'll try again.
Been waiting for this one. This is your magnum opus
one of my favorite games❤
Thanks for this episode pc-88/98 paradise and neo geo generation always make my nights.
Seeing a floppy really warms my heart
I've been waiting for this one. I played it on PC9821, Saturn and PSX. What a score, what a game.
Another game I've meant to play for years and years . . .
Excellent video.
I've been learning Japanese so I can play this game and it just looks so awesome
There are translations for the Saturn / PS1 versions.
@@Something9008 you think I don't know? 💀
I've had the Saturn version sitting on my shelf for so long. I really need to get off my lazy bum and play Policenauts already!
Saying the main characters were based on "buddy cop movies" without specifically mentioning "Lethal Weapon" as the obvious source seems mildly odd.
but it's obviously lifted from Blazing Saddles
Mel Gibson doesn't have blue hair
Policenauts? That sounds like a lethal combination.
Kojima just bootlegged American movies. Snake was always Snake Pliskin from Escape From New York.
@@liamconverse8950doesn’t need to
Played Policenauts on PS1 with the mouse...I switch to my controller for this part. It is the Psycho Mantis boss of this game ! :P
Great video as always.
wonderful video!
Great and interesting video!
We're closer to the date this game is set in, than the date of this game's original release. I feel old 👴
Yeah, you can pretty much see which of its future predictions were correct and which weren't.
Any day with a video by Basement Bro is a good day
The 'Lethal Weapon' vibes on the cover art are overpowering
I was really hoping you'd do the police cops reference, been in y head for years whenever I hear of this game. XD
Wow, it looks a lot nicer than the PSX version. PC98 games are beautiful.
This series is so cool 🥰
Omg xms and ems and suddenly I'm convulsing on the floor due to nostalgia OD.
I made a little boot menu on my 386 sx to choose with each load which one to load.
8 year old me was convinced this made me programmer
I thought that the 'tricking women into jiggling their boobs' thing was weird in this game.
I absolutely love this game. Any version.
Great video, a real treat getting a tour of versions.🙂
It is kind of a funny aspect of the era but 4bpp global color was common in 640x480/400 across a lot of platforms. Real shame it didn't reach more global PCs since before SVGA that was the same color depth limit DOS operated under.
Performance is interesting in that it does kind of seem slow and static in graphical movements, something that would be more taxing to do in 256 colors. Not just the PC-98 but I find a lot of platforms from that time being a bit weak for 480p, like screen modes of 384p or 360p could have been snappier to rendering speeds. Side note, would be neat to see Policenauts in Classic Mac 1bpp 512x342 form.😁
Funny I was just writing about that in my FMV research, the assumption that voice tracks meant you would never need text ever again Ie. like the deaf and hard of hearing didn't want story driven adventure games anymore heh. There's a big black space below the picture window so...🤨
I always thought similarities to Snatcher were kind of suggesting both were in the same universe, like Alien and Blade Runner, or Alien and Predator. I found the Metal Gear connection to be a stretch in Snatcher but it is in the far future of those events so it kind of works.
I nearly played the SS English version as I found a well made copy locally that included the little art book but couldn't get it to work so I returned it, in hindsight I think needed a cart that assists with CD-R reading. Something to know if anybody tries the reproduction path.😉
usually I'm a little late to commenting on these, but for this one I could not wait! Ever since I heard about it back when Kojima was becoming a household name with MGS on playstation I've always wondered what Policenauts was like. fast forward to 2009 or so and junkerhq's debut of the english patch, so I finally got my first taste of it! it was quite an amazing story and definitely unlike most any other game I'd played before (minus SEGA CD SNATCHER, of course, which I also got to play via emulation) would love to own a legit copy someday, but at the moment I have a reproduction copy using the english translation I was able to find for the Saturn version. I might have to go back to it soon! at least that way I'm able to play through it, cause I just don't know enough Japanese, lol.
(PS. the police cops simpsons redub bit was hilarious! well played.)
My favorite visual novel game next to Ace Attorney, I really wish Kojima could buy Policenauts IP so he could continue the game. The plot and the characters are peak.
dang it i loved this game, played the psx translated version, now i want to try the saturn translated one
I hope that someday one of the studios well known for porting old games manages to get a deal to port and translate this game to modern platforms, like imagine a Nightdive or M2 re-release including all of the content and the ability to chose between the PC-98 and console graphics. I bet that a custom emulation patch could simply trigger superimposed subtitles whenever a certain voice line is played, similarly it could simply swap the text sprites in the rendering pipeline instead of having to modify the original code, when you're making an emulator that only has to be able to run a single game you can do a lot of highly specialized and hacky stuff to streamline the gameplay's experience.
And yeah I must agree that the original pixel art looks a lot more charming than the redrawn anime graphics, specially for the static shots.
Could you please make a video about last amergedon im begging you
These are the type of games that can do with remasters to modern consoles, etc. Not games that are being remade and remastered that are barely a week old.
PC-98 aside, these games are seriously perfect as light gun games. It sucks, because that's how I played Snatcher for the first time as a kid, and it felt so badass grabbing your gun, aiming, and firing during those sections. Now, when I played games like Policenauts with just a controller the shooting sections feel more like a hinderance than anything, and I feel like I'm just missing out playing them that way.... I'm hoping if I get the Sinden light gun-thing it will work well for games like this. If I ever get one Snatcher and Policenauts are the first games I'm playing.
I've always liked how much this game borrows from Universal Century Gundam aesthetically. Between how that shuttle looks and the O'Neil type cylindrical colony.
Wait - Did anyone else notice that the 2 cops in the story are Mel Gibson and Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon?
The redhead in Ed's office reminds me of Meryl from Metal Gear Solid.
Oh and her name is also Meryl.
huh.
"Meryl Silverburgh (メリル・シルバーバーグ, Meriru Shirubābāgu) in the Metal Gear series is based on a supporting character of the same name in Hideo Kojima's earlier game Policenauts (1994) where the character was originally designed by Tomiharu Kinoshita. Kojima liked the character so much that he used her name, likeness, voice actress (Kyoko Terase) and other characteristics for the Metal Gear version." - from wikipedia
A Nintendo Switch re-release of these two games. Come on Kojima San, you can do it!
thanks for making such an interesting video
Snatcher was (and still is) one of my all time favorite adventure games (I've completed all versions, as I did about policenauts)
at the time Policenauts was released, I just could find in a store the pilot disk for the 3DO, at that time, 3DO prices were getting damn low, so I ended buying a 3DO to "play" the pilot disk
I hoped to find the full game, but I never managed to
Someday, I could find the Ps1 version, so I bought both the game and a Ps1
Once, a friend of mine brought me back from Japan the 3do version, so I could complete it too, then, thanks to emulation and ODE, I could complete missing versions
As you mention, I believe PC98 version has a special unmatched charm, probably due to the more classic japanese PC adventure games appearance, and the resolution (and color choices)
but still, there are some differences between consoles versions
I can't mention all, as I never took time to compare, but I remember some lighting FX on Ps1 (can't remember about saturn version), missing or different on 3DO
Also, cutting scenes featured CGI on Ps1/saturn, instead of classic animation on 3DO
(nobody cares, but anyway, I prefer Snatcher ... especially PC88 version, followed by Pcengine)
It's funny cause now the 3DO version is the cheapest and most common version of the game.
@BasementBrothers not many people are interested by the 3do
I would wager Konami printed up an excessively high number of units for the game, hoping it would be the title to make the 3DO take off in Japan.
@@BasementBrothers possibly, well, it seems they failed 🤣
damn that is some fancy dos action. i dont remember any dos games in the west being so elaborately dos
Oh for sure plenty of Western dos games were very dos!
POLICENAUTS is the Japanese version of "Lethal Weapon" in Space 😂
wow i never knew it came out for the PC-98. I thought it was just the 32 bit consoles
Also, Textractor has been shown to work with the np21w version of the emulator to help with text translation.
I can't help but think that Policenauts would be improved if it could somehow star the characters from Police Squad.