Why is Snatcher loved but Space Adventure Cobra was disliked and forgotten?

[RvR]

I recently played through both and while Snatcher has a better story I overall enjoyed them about the same and if anything liked Cobra more. Cobra is more varied, there are parts that are very serious, others that are relaxing, the setting is constantly changing to something new and fun. The cyberpunk setting of Snatcher is great but because it basically has the same serious tone for most of the game it felt like it all rushed by very quickly. Also Snatcher's sexual imagery was censored in the English version while Cobra shows a lot of it. So why does Cobra get negative reviews? It just seems odd to me. Interested to hear what the Sega fan community thinks.

[Barone]

Lack of hype.
Snatcher has Kojima's name associated to it so people are way more forgiving with its weak spots.

I had the exact same experience that you ahd; loved Space Adventure Cobra.
One thing that irks people is that voices are low compared to the music, so if you don't have a MD 1 + Sega CD setup where you can lower down the music volume using the headphones volume control, you're a bit screwed in terms of actually listening to the dialogs.

[GreyFox]

Number of reasons I suspect:
Kojima productions are both simultaneously familiar as they wear his influences on their sleeves e.g. Terminator, Blade Runner, Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the case of Snatcher while also having the clear influence of Kojima e.g. the detailed world building and backstory, long cut scenes, molesting ALL female characters persistently


Speaking of which Snatcher has more hidden Easter Egfs and a brilliant 4th wall break or two (the obvious one is turning up the volume, the explosion and being chastised for leaving the volume up as well as being able to call Kojima and the developers etc but the best one is the call to the Sex Line which gets Gillian questioning if he has free will or is being controlled by a higher power - e.g. the player

Retrospective game fans. Kojima released Policenauts and then Metal Gear Solid. So he got more coverage in the mainstream press causing people to seek out other works.

Also Space Adventure Covra was not released in Europe so therefore had less exposure (I was lucky - as I was interested in the game and my sister was living in the US for 18 months with her work I got her to send me over some of the US games we didn’t get)

Plus I believe it was a port from the PC Engine so perhaps a sense of familiarity

I too enjoyed it and in many ways it is more involving.

However there is a reason on many forums my user name was Random Hagile rather than Psycho Cannon

[Gryson]

Snatcher wasn't that popular when it was released. The translator Jeremy Blaustein said the following:

As for Snatcer: Sega CD, I think that counting you and me, the game only sold a couple thousand units at most in the US. I know the Sega CD sucked and had no software available for it, but where was everyone when Snatcher came out!? Boy, was that embarrassing - having it fail so badly.

That is reflected in the rarity of the game nowadays. Also, some magazine reviews were not so good.

I think Snatcher just had a really strong legacy due to its creator and its cyberpunk image and some of the eye-catching art.

[Ginoscope]

I was into sega cd when it was new and I never heard of Space Adventure until a few years ago. I got all the magazines and this one just slipped through. I heard about Snatcher and played it back then. Even when I got into Sega CD emulation back in the early 2000s I never heard of Space Adventure. I agree with you guys that it is a pretty good game. I need to go back and finish that one. What I have played of that game I really like.

[Silanda]

Given the price it currently commands, I wish it was disliked more! Anyway, IMO it's just not as good. Snatcher gives the illusion of freedom and has tons of Easter eggs, world building background information, and dialogue scenes that you don't have to encounter to complete the game. IIRC Cobra is pretty much entirely linear and has no such optional stuff. You complete it once and you've seen everything. Personally, I also think that Snatcher has better music and more interesting characters, dialogue, and plot.

Snatcher's censorship annoys me but not enough to swing things in Cobra's favour for me. The funny thing was that despite some nudity in Cobra, the BBFC in the UK only rated it PG, further reinforcing my opinion that at least some of Snatcher's censorship was unnecessary.

Also Space Adventure Covra was not released in Europe so therefore had less exposure (I was lucky - as I was interested in the game and my sister was living in the US for 18 months with her work I got her to send me over some of the US games we didn’t get)

It was definitely released in the UK, although it's probably less common than Snatcher and just as expensive. Where it wasn't released AFAIK is Japan, just like Snatcher. The PC-Engine original was, but not the Mega CD version.

[Team Andromeda]

IMO Rise Of The Dragon is better than both . All are good mind

[turboxray]

IMO Rise Of The Dragon is better than both . All are good mind

On PC it's pretty good, but the MegaCD experience is... very monochromish.

[Silanda]

On PC it's pretty good, but the MegaCD experience is... very monochromish.

The graphical conversion choices were weird in that one. I know they didn't have too many colours to work with, but surely they could have done better than turning everything green.

[turboxray]

The graphical conversion choices were weird in that one. I know they didn't have too many colours to work with, but surely they could have done better than turning everything green.

Right? The green tint is weird. But like, they had a few options. I mean, you get 31 colors if you use both BG layers. And if you used sprites, with shadow/highlight, you effectively get like 70+ colors (and 12bit-ish master palette) - and you still have two sub-palettes free to do whatever you want with. I mean, there's not a lot going on screen so it's perfect for that setup (a real shame because that's definitely a strength of the MD for graphic novel games). But yeah, the green tint thing is just weird. Bet the producers of the Matrix were fans though

[Team Andromeda]

On PC it's pretty good, but the MegaCD experience is... very monochromish.

The voice acting made the Mega CD version. So well done and I liked how it really felt like you were playing a adult cyberpunk game , thanks to the more grown up looking ART.

I love Snatcher too, but enjoyed Rise Of the Dragon just a little more

[turboxray]

I absolutely hate the voice of Gillian in the SegaCD version of Snatcher haha.

[Wesker]

Also Space Adventure Covra was not released in Europe so therefore had less exposure (I was lucky - as I was interested in the game and my sister was living in the US for 18 months with her work I got her to send me over some of the US games we didn’t get)

Plus I believe it was a port from the PC Engine so perhaps a sense of familiarity

"The Space Adventure" was released in Europe, I own the European version. It's rarer than the European version of Snatcher (which I also own) but the Hudson game doesn't reach the ridiculously high prices of the Konami game, even though it's obviosuly also worth a lot.

Plus, both Snatcher and The Space Adventure can be considered conversions of their respective PC Engine CD versions. Unlike The Space Adventure, Snatcher is not a game originally conceived for the PC Engine CD, but the Mega CD is obviously based on that one.

That is reflected in the rarity of the game nowadays. Also, some magazine reviews were not so good.

That's a shame. The press coverage that it got here gave it wonderful reviews and considered it an absolute must have. Not all the mags bothered with the game though.

[Punch]

I think the presentation and setting makes or breaks both games... coming off of the already on the public consciousness "Blade Runner"-like cyberpunkness is a clear advantage over the Anime Space Pirate story in The Space Adventure. Maybe The Space Adventure would have fared better if it was actually the first game in the series (as it's a PCE port of Cobra II), because I'm not sure about the first Cobra PCE game but the manga immediately kicks off with a "Total Recall" story thread which I think is as much appealing as Snatcher's.

Plus the worldbuilding at the beggining of The Space Adventure is pretty poor, on Snatcher you get an explanation of the world, JUNKER operations and snatchers in the first 10 minutes... in The Space Adventure you're just in some dingy bar and you're told you're waiting Lady Bioroid or whatever was the robot's name, and the main character's background isn't that expanded on even after the Crystal Boy encounter. It feels like stuff is missing and it probably is the first Cobra and/or manga.

Snatcher is just COOL all around, The Space Adventure is too but not as consistently.

[Gryson]

That's a shame. The press coverage that it got here gave it wonderful reviews and considered it an absolute must have. Not all the mags bothered with the game though.

You can see a sampling of review scores here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snatch..._game)#Sega_CD

Some good scores along with some mediocre ones.

The Japanese adventure game genre has always been a hard swallow for many in the West (I am a huge fan, though). Snatcher is one of the few titles to break through and gain recognition, although I do think its reputation has grown a lot in hindsight due to its creator and its art. It's probably one of those games where a lot more people are familiar with it and recognize it than have actually played it.

That review in Video Games (US) that gave it 6/10 says: "The art is relatively generic, Robotech-style Japanese animation. Women with big, Keane-like eyes and men with pronounced jaw-lines abound... It does suffer from the 'cuteness' of other Japanese RPGs, perhaps more so than most, because of its heavy subject matter."

Their primary criticism is that the art is Japanese. OK.

Basically, it wouldn't matter how great the game itself is, there was (and still is) a lot of blanket rejection of the ADV genre. Nowadays, Snatcher seems to get more of a pass from people, but games like Space Adventure Cobra not so much.