Move over Clock Tower 3, Athena was the first magical girl trapped in the world of survival horror... Here's a look at Athena: Awakening from the Ordinary Life! Follow me on Twitter if ya want: / guilewinquote
@@rosiehaircolor2299 "Pretty Decent." Ehh, sometimes. Seems like it can give you multiple definitions. Sometimes they are spot on and sometimes they are wacky.
It's like the J-pop idol sensation Athena Asamiya gained so much hype worldwide, that she decided to also pursue drama/acting big breaks that didn't pan out and only was a one-hit wonder in a horror movie.
- Athena gets an edgy survival horror spinoff - Nakoruru gets a melancholic and darker Visual Novel spinoff that spawn a cancelled OVA Now where is my Ninja Gaiden style Action game starring Mai Shiranui ?
The Samurai Shodown RPG was once a thing too, SNK during their experimental phase is just weird It's probably less obscure but the KOF Sky Stage and its sequel the Neo Geo all star shmup(forgot its name) was a hilarious spinoff too, particularly since you can fly by the Howard Building and attempt to kill a falling Geese before he can safely land As for non SNK fighting game spinoff, there's the SFII FMV game, and does Cannon Spike count?
Honestly I kind of miss this era of games that exist out of nowhere. I know games cost more to develop and market now so you can't just do this as often but God i want more unreal concepts like "our platform to fighting game character now has a horror game" Give Mario a shooter, give Link a shoot- wait.
*SNK:* went bankrupt in the early 2000's due to being unable to adapt to a console-based infrastructure *Also SNK:* publishes a survival horror game, a genre that's specifically meant for consoles
They went bankrupt because they were bought and gutted by a pachinko manufacturer. Their handheld console wasn't doing that great, but it wasn't a disaster and just git killed before it could flourish.
I think one of the most impressive things in this game is the way the humans move and emote in the in-game cutscenes. It's almost as cinematic as the FMVs and looks better than many in-game cutscenes in PSOne or even PS2 games. Also, the post-credits guy looks kinda like Geese, doesn't he?
Koudelka, (which I think SNK either published or developed) also had impressive in-engine cutscenes, complete with motion capture and very good voice acting, especially for ps1 games. The va's did the same technique as SH2's where they acted out the cutscenes irl before eventually mocapping and recording their voices.
I can't believe Athena murdered King of Dinosaurs! Jokes aside, excellent video. I read about this game before but never saw any actual in-game footage of it. It's such a weird title, the genre, type of story and ideas feel so different to what you usually see in an SNK game. Can't wait to see more similar videos about obscure spin offs like this.
Survival horror is a genre where things try to survive against a heavily dangerous and immortal (through resurrection) protag. I fail to see the issue.
I'm pretty fascinated by SNK's non-fighting game endeavours especially by the time the king of fighters became a thing, and the game looks really good, almost looks like a dreamcast game at times
@@tedjomuljono3052 i'm so glad shadow hearts is starting to get attention. Loved the series. Also glad i bought them all for arounx 20 bucks a piece before they spiked n price 0.o
This is easily the best looking game Ive ever seen on the OG Playstation. It looks like a Dreamcast quality title graphics wise. The mouth movement alone is impressive.
I think this was probably more based on taking the concept from Psycho Soldiers, having Athena and Kensou fighting monsters, but putting it in a different genre which isn't a terrible idea.
GALERIANS!? THATS THE NAME OF THAT GAME!? I saw screenshots in a "Coming soon" part of a magazine as a kid, forgot the name, and have been wondering what it was since. The screenshots of the FMV models with neck syringes has haunted me for so long and looking for "Horror game with the neck syringes" was never gonna cut it lol. Oh, good Athena vod too.
The magazine ads for Galerians were burned into my memory as a kid too! Most of my love and nostalgia for the game comes from the pages of EGM and not the game itself, haha.
For real: I suggest you emulate it and give the game a go, it has a pretty steep learning curve but the overall gameplay is solid not to mention the entire thing oozes that same atmosphere that inspired the traumatizing ad campaign. Also thanks for bringing back those repressed memories, geez even replaying the game wasn't enough to open THAT mental vault.
I didn't know much of SNK growing up but I did somehow know of Athena. She's proven to be a surprisingly adaptable character, as evident with this vastly differently styled spin-off game, which still doesn't feel completely out of left field given it's heavy emphasis on psychic powers. Great coverage of the game with this video and interesting to learn about. Humour was present but never sidetracked from the main topic and you continual disdain for Rika proved entertaining.
Never even heard of this game, and the production values alone are really impressive. Those character animations look more like Dreamcast or PS2 at times than they do anything on PS1. Good stuff.
Super ancient humans are now known as Those from the Past. Please someone tell me that in Kof XV has interaction between King of Dinosaurs and Athena, and that she says she exploded a relative of him at school.
It's honestly really stunning that you managed to make a full review of this game with having to rely on auto translating all the text with your phone, especially in a game like this which looks like it relies a lot on text. Like seriously man, good job, that must've been a lot of work.
Could you imagine if Masato was actually Bao hahah Really cool video! I've genuinely never heard of this game before. I know SNK experimented in the mid-2000s again to do spin-offs. I think Iroha was supposed to get some now-cancelled DS game.
There's a ton of weird spinoffs in their catalogue. There's a spinoff Visual Novel all about Nakoruru of all characters. This game even had the debut of Rera and (I think this was her first appearance, not sure) Rimururu
Man, I didn't even knew Athena had an origin story. And this is coming from an Athena stan who's played Days of Memories and get the walkthrough just to get her ending. Still, now that I get a better idea of what her PS1 venture is actually about, I do wish there was an English patch or hell even a remake just to experience it for myself. I appreciate you making this video, Guile. I hope we get more stuff like this in the future.
I was actually hoping for more KOF connections lore-wise or even Easter eggs, but they really went for the alternate universe route and stuck with it! It's very strange to me how little info there is about this game that's not in Japanese, and I had to piece together a lot of the plot from shoddy translations, Game FAQs, and Japanese fan sites 😅 I hope we'll see a true fan translation someday. Thanks for watching!
Wow! I never knew SNK made such an interesting spin off! I love the look of the game too! The low poly, simple but sharp look is my favorite from this gen, so seeing it for an Athena spin off is a real treat. Thanks for giving us a nice summarized look to this neat oddity.
Long ago in the late 90's i had heard of some weird athena spin off game, i saw like one or two of those CG cutscenes from some website that compiled fighting game cutscenss (where i found the anime intro to kof98) and i always wondered wtf that was Some 20 years later, now i know, so that's somrthing. Now moving on to wtf that power stone anime was
Huh, what an oddity! The art for this is pretty cool there really is a lot galerians looking stuff i see in those labs too, guess its just the art style of the era. Wonder if the neogeo battle coliseum underwater elevator stage was a reference to that underwater aquarium ?
@@blackwind677 I thought the SamSho RPG was pretty well known, but I guess it is pretty old by this point. It was a decent if easy RPG, retelling (or re-imagining expanded versions of) the events of SS1 and SS2. Unfortunately, the load times were a killer. There were promises and hopes of a fan translation patch for decades, but no group that I know of ever finished such a patch.
Imagine a survival horror-action game starring Kyo Kusanagi, possibly years before The ‘94 Tournament, or after the events of ‘97 that kickstarts the events of The NEST Saga. I can imagine the game having a beat-‘em up mechanic, alongside use of fire-arms and short-range weapons while enhancing it with pyrokinesis.
Imagine a world where this game was successful enough to become a sub-series that gets referenced in KoF. It’s probably the same world where SNK remembered the Dragon Spirit plot line
@@ertuio20002 @GuileWinQuote The Patlabor movies in particular are eternally relevant. Excellent movies, regardless if you like anime or not. The animation is incredibly well done and the theme, topics and general storyline is eternally relevant, especially in these times of war.
After discovering this game… I’m actually disappointed a sequel never happened. This is one of the most bizarre and awesome spin-offs I have ever seen for a fighting game character and it’s for Athena Asamiya of all people. SNK must’ve been high AF on those shrooms to have made such a masterpiece.
Right? Well, I guess I'm really lucky to play this game when it came out (And to have my friend translate the whole story for me while playing the game... Lol). The battle system is really unique, but yeah, I like that challenge (I remember I continues countless times just to escape from that Lift... Lol). And yeah, it will be great if we can get the sequel to this game.
Maybe it can be popular now... But above me is right; When this game been released, I don't think it would be popular... And yeah, that's too bad actually.
I think if there would've been more interesting combat scenes and pacing, this could've been a hit! The presentation, animations and FMVs were surprisingly well done. It's a shame it took Athena somehow reviving Rika for her to be like "Omg you're so cool I luv your powers now" 😂
Live the lack of textures and how consistent the fmv models are with the in game models. Looks great emulated without that weird psx z buffer texture warping
Thanks for covering this, I was always curious about it. Still believe it deserves a fan translation patch of some sort, or at least a dedicated and reliable guide. I don't imagine you still have the rough translations you did for your play through but, if you do, I'd be happy to smooth them out if I can, at least give the internet a working model of some kind of script to go by, you know?
Dude, this was great! I heard about this game on HardcoreGaming101, but never thought I'd see any English-language RU-vidr cover the whole thing like this! As someone who actually has a bit of an interest in obscure Japanese adventure games like Gadget: Past as Future, The Book of Watermarks and Kowloon's Gate as well as survival horror oddities like Galerians, I've always wanted to know more about this, so thanks for diving into it! I love your fighting game content, but if you ever find other weird & interesting side-game/spinoff type things, feel free to explore them from time-to-time. Don't care if its stuff like Virtua Quest, the Street Fighter 2 Interactive Movie game, MK Shaolin Monks, SNK Card Fighter Clash, the BlayzBloo games, Toshinden Card Quest, _just whatever..._ I say go for it. If anything catches your eye, I'm sure it'll be fascinating to learn about!
So the game spawned a live action series and a novel, line the opposite of Parasite Eve that was first a novel, then a live action movie and finally a game (that weirdly serves as sequel for the movie adaptation from the novel) But NGL the graphics are top notch like this is the kind of graphics I imagine when thinking PS1
How the hell have I never known about this? Haven't heard Super Best Friends (RIP) talk about this ever, haven't seen TheGamingBrit or ThorHighHeels mention it either. Could be that I just missed it, but holy hell. This is... precisely the type of stuff that I keep in the back of my mind at all times, for absolutely no reason. Weird, obscure, and regardless of how good it is (if at all), the sole EXISTENCE of it is a treat. damn, what a find
3:36 No blocky characters and no staggering animations when moving. They look like they would make it to the PS2 era, this game did come out during the development of PS2.
Thank you so much for bringing about this game. I know really a few people know about the existence about this game, even from Athena's Fans. I always consider myself lucky, because I played this game when the game was out (Eventhough since it's been a long time ago, I kinda forgot the whole story). I can't understand Japanese, so at that time, I had a friend who Translate the whole story, and of course, all the option and Menu. The battle was kinda unique (Started from level 3, and if we failed, we must use lower level Attack... Lol). And about the story, I think it's good (Poor Masato). Once again, thank you so much to bring this game to the light, Guile. That Scene with Athena had T-Rex Blood in her face, was really Memorable.
I'm not that big into horror games, but if one piques my interest enough, I'll watch a playthrough of it or a video on it. And sure enough, this video on an SNK published, Yumekobo developed game starring KOF's Athena Asamiya sure did have my interest! I would never think in a million years that there would be a sort of spin-off sub series starring a fighting game character that is usually depicted as plucky and cheery of sorts, in a more thriller/horror themed setting, with a more subdued personality. I do like it when a spin off game takes a video game character I'm familiar with and either builds on their established character traits, or does a different kind of interpretation of said character, and this game is no exception. The graphics and presentation are very good too, going above and beyond the usual stiff and robotic PS1 animations. I'm very glad watched this video, as I would have never known that such a game would exist. I'm now tempted to see the TV show that spawned from this game! The fact that a Sci Fi Horror game would have novels and a TV Show is insane! Sure, the game itself does have its rough edges in both gameplay and plot, but it isn't an overall bad game. It certainly is better than Mortal Kombat Mythologies and Street Fighter 2010! Actually, speaking of Mortal Kombat, I'm surprised that there isn't a Horror game spin off in the MK universe. Given the series' trademark blood and gore, it could be a prime target for a horror game spin off. A man can dream...
Athena is my most favorite SNK female character and SNK character overall. As weird as this game is and even though I never got to beat this game due to the language barrier, this was a game I'm glad to have gotten to experience. I honestly would like to see SNK try again with this game by remaking it and fixing it up here and there, but that may be asking too much. Only thing I want is just a translation that I hope some fan(s) of some kind are working on.
Never knew this game even existed, such a interesting take on a classic SNK character! Weird that SNK themselves never acknowledged this game after all these years
Thanks for sharing your experience with this obscure game. The only SNK obscure non fighting game I knew it was the Nakoruru game for dreamcast and PC, maybe you could talk about it as well.
Finalmente alguém traduziu as legendas e isso me deixa feliz, o You Tuber e o tradutor brasileiro são verdadeiros heróis, um beijo ao brasileiro que traduziu esse vídeo e o You Tuber que nos explicou passo a passo do enredo!! Aaaaaaaaaaah!!! 😍😍😍😍
This feels like some kind of fan project that actually got a budget. even though it's bad it still feels more interesting than a bunch of other games that exist.
when the man with the red tux appears on the post-credits I automatically assumed that was Rugal. And now I just really want a video like this on king of fighters Kyo since I'd probably never have the patience to actually play it.
Wow, the fact that I only downloaded Disc 1 of this before realizing how impossible to play it was with all the text is even more pointless knowing I would have only been able to play for 10-15 minutes max.
Sounds like a fun time honestly. I love the look, it's genuinely beautiful and I love how short it is. I wish the story was really good tho, but hey camp is fun too.
