. It was first released on December 9, 1993 in the United States and on December 10, 1993 in Japan.
Plot
One night two siblings—Samantha and Johnathan—come across a butterfly while exploring a grassy field. Enchanted by the butterfly's haunting beauty, Samantha chases after it. Johnathan follows reluctantly, repeating Grandmother's warnings about ghosts who roam the area and turn people into butterflies. The butterfly leads Samantha into the Mansion, where she becomes trapped: as Johnathan, the player must explore the Mansion, overcome several puzzles, and escape with his sister before the pair of them become permanent residents.
While exploring the Mansion, the player encounters several ghosts, who appear in the form of butterflies:
A pampered young girl. She seems friendly at first, but is actually a conniving brat.
An Australian butterfly collector. He seems anxious for the boy to become a butterfly and join the collection.
A painter, who is in a perpetually dreamy, absent-minded state.
An Eastern European tavern wench. She cackles menacingly and seems amused by the children's predicament.
A piano-playing southern belle, who longs to touch the keys again.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very similar to that of D: the player travels between areas via 3D pre-rendered first-person
sequences, pressing the action button whenever he finds something of interest. Doing so sometimes reveals an important item, such as a key or matchbox, which is added to his inventory. Also like D, the number of actual puzzles is fairly small: the player spends most of the game exploring the mansion and searching for important items.
Immercenary - 3DO (1995)
Seemingly the first and last game from developer Five Miles Out, its premise is startlingly original for the time. Imagine a Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter, with 255 simultaneous players over an entire city, encompassing a stadium, power-plant, pyramid, graveyard, mansion, and various districts, each with their own unique architecture and texturing. Imagine the entire city and its inhabitants portrayed in a qausi-Lawnmower Man style.
Of course this was in 1995. The 3DO had no online capabilities and something like Ultima Online was still a few years off. So the game is actually a massively-multiplayer offline FPS, albeit for only one player. Even so, the vision created by Five Miles Out was way ahead of its time and, even today, is still incredible to behold. Take the map for instance: it's one gigantic city constantly streaming off the disc with no load times. The only loading is very briefly when entering a boss encounter, or the neutral healing zone.
What makes Immercenary worth playing, despite its clunky control scheme and staggered movement, is the feeling it creates. You're free to roam the entire city at your leisure. With the exception of the Stadium no area is blocked from entry - and then only because the penultimate battle takes place in the Stadium. Likewise any boss apart from the top 3 can be tackled in any order. It all works together to create a fascinating and unique atmosphere. As technology has progressed since 1995 the internet and virtual worlds have matured and refined themselves, and so the bizarre visions of the future people had at the time now make for enjoyable viewing. The surreal cityscape of Immercenary is filled with beautiful and horrifying structures, some adorned with flowers, others seemingly built out of human flesh. Some of them slant in haphazard ways, like an Escher nightmare come to life, while others defy description. The music is ethereal and ambient, pierced by heavy metal or techno as you approach a boss zone. The closest equivalent Immercenary might have is L.S.D. The Dream Simulator on PS1, but even then, that lacks combat.
Immercenary requires a lot of effort to appreciate now. You need to look beyond the low-resolution textures and acclimatise to the stiff controls. You need to invest the time to level up and move beyond the initially high difficulty level. But it definitely gets better the more you put into it and, once you've taken down a few bosses, its dystopian vision of the future should prove captivating. Failing that, since a sequel will never be made, one can only hope that someone creates a remake using a modern FPS engine. There really is nothing else quite like it.
Phantasmagoria Release: Jul 1995
Phantasmagoria is a game with an interesting mix of point and click adventure, horror and interactive movie. The game was released back in 1995 and its success led to a controversial sequel that was so horrifying it was banned in many countries.
The game was one of many interactive movie style games being made during the time and uses real actors. At the time of its release the game took up a massive 7 discs and is still a fairly large game even by today’s standards coming in at just under 2GB.
The story of Phantasmagoria revolves around a writer (Adrienne) and her photographer husband (Donald) who have recently purchased a large mansion in a remote area. The mansion was previously owned by a famous magician known as Zoltan Carnovasch. Adrienne hopes that the new surroundings will give her the inspiration she needs for her next book while Donald is excited about the remote location and the space to setup his own darkroom for his photography.
Soon after moving in to their new mansion crazy events start to take place around them. It quickly becomes apparent that Zoltan was no ordinary magician and that he enjoyed participating in dark magical rituals which eventually led to him being consumed by a demon. From here the player explores the mansion and learns more about how to dispose of the demon while also uncovering the truth about the last years of Zoltan Carnovasch.
Gameplay is predominately a point and click adventure with players moving through the mansion while interacting with the game world. Puzzles are also around every corner which the player will have to solve in order to discover the truth.
For a game released in 1995 the game has a surprisingly eerie feel that is maintained during the entire game. The interactive movie is also something most gamers would not have experienced before and there is no better game than Phantasmagoria to have your first experience with this once popular genre.
The following 1 user Likes Roy's post:1 user Likes Roy's post • panamacityeddie (12-13-2023)
Shivers is similar to the Myst point and click game. There was this professor that was making a museum of the strange and unusual. He disappear 20 years ago then not to long after him disappearing two kids went missing. The story starts with you so fascinated with the place your friends lock you up in the museum over night. The museum is beautiful and has a great story plus the sound is all so excellent. All said makes for a wonderful adventure.
I find remembering memories of games by viewing them is a lot of times more enjoyable then reading a book or watching a movie. Man... this brings back the memories. This was one of a lot of Sega CD games I owned and actually beat. I love the story and the gritty environment of this world. Being a single dad at the time me and my son and daughter would enjoy them together, and being fascinate by the cyberpunk, Blade Runner, role-playing scene, this story was fantastic to us. I was into point-and-click games at the time and I loved how this was the pioneer of its time considering the FMV and full audio dialog, it left a permanent and good impression on us. Ohhhh they were great memories.
Classic - Back In The Day![Games]
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