Phase Paradox: The Weird, Sci-Fi Horror Game That Never Left Japan
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- Check out Lost in Cult's new book MANSION for all that horror game goodness! Link here for pre-order: www.fangamer.c...
Join me on my second journey into Japan exclusive games, this time with a retrospective and analysis of Phase Paradox on the PS2! Despite being voiced entirely in English, it never made it to worldwide release. It's a horror, movie adventure game that's a sequel to the PS1 shoot 'em up Philsoma :) I dive into the development history and stories of both titles, as well as ranting about artwork, sci-fi and and my love for what people call "bad" games.
Information on Phase Paradox is extremely difficult to come by, but there's a lot of new info I can share thanks to the director of the game agreeing to answer some questions I had!
Thank you to Takayuki for the insight into developing the game! You can find the full interview here: www.tumblr.com...
And his website is: gade.jp/
Thanks to GeoH3x for the animation end screen! You can find their work here: / greeng3d1
For top tier survival horror content go check out @tangomushi !
And thank you to ThePepperRoni (twitter) for the voiceover mixing, @hotcyder for the thumbnail and @AdamLane4 for script proofing!
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Thanks for watching everyone! You can check out more info for Lost in Cult's new book MANSION and pre-order here: www.fangamer.com/products/the-horror-mansion-book
Awesome and informative. To bad there is no US release or continuation of a potential series. The world building what peak my interest the most along with the science terms.
I love this era of early 3D games that were still finding their feet and were willing to experiment with gameplay concepts. The look and setting of Phase Paradox really calls to mind that bizarre Final Fantasy movie, Spirits Within. Interesting how both of these projects are loosely connected by wanting to be cinematic and movie-like but were hamstrung by that ambition (and arguably by the avalaible tech at the time).
Thanks for shining a light on this game and massive props to you for tracking down and interviewing Mr Yanagihori as well! It sounded pretty cathartic for him to be able to tell his story about a game he clearly had so much passion for.
i really need the PUT YOUR HEAD INTO MY MOUTH clip isolated in entirety to savor. thank you for another incredible video!
7:04, 37:15.
Wow, without sounding condescending, I got to say its really impressive how often you manage to actually get hold of people related to the games you play.
Adds that professional and interesting layer of information.
Also great video, the game really reminds me of the Xeno series by Tetsuya Takahashi where if you look at his art books and plans he had soooooooooooo much ambition of a wide spread, cinematic, and beautifully detailed game universe (six stories with animes movies games and books) but had to condense it down to just one game Xenogears.
Really loving the finding games region locked series, as its really interesting finding these gems especially when they have such passion and interesting ideas.
Good luck on your next video!
It that kind of thing always amazes me. The difference between old school Devs Vs current ones it's like
" I reached out to the dev to ask about the game they are currently working on but I didn't hear back from them" Vs "I asked the dev about a game they worked on 20 years ago and they happily answered my question and sent me some notes from development they found on a old hard drive that was in a box in their attic"
Dayum! The Philisoma plot is hardcore sci-fi goodness, and for a shoot 'em up? Nice!
Your new ending screen is so cute. And I love hearing about niche games I've never played -- your attention to detail, obvious love, and dedication to the source material is immediately noticeable. Thank you for your hard work!
Respect for going the extra length to contact the director
I can't watch any of your videos because they're all on games that I really want to experience yet don't want to get spoiled on. Can you make a video on UNO or something?
Uno is way too scary, tho :(
Dang, I really feel that. I wonder if a list of potential upcoming video topics would help or not. I'd love to dive into the games first before listening to the history and context of the game
@@tgarcher720After the uno portion I was done, couldn't finish the game after that, Everytime I make an attempt the anxiety eats me alive.
You'll never end up playing them especially since they will never be translated, So why does it matter?
I feel the same.
Fantastic video as always, one of the few channels that shows actual obscure games. It's awesome that you got in touch with the director
Random fact, during military comms, you do not sign out by saying "over and out", as this is a contradiction, "over" implies you're passing comms over to the person on the other end, "out" means that comms have ended, and in a sense you're "signing out", so "over and out" would basically translate to "your turn to talk, actually, bye". Not sure if this applies for military forces all over, but this is how it's taught to is in the US.
This idea of a sentient planet and even the vibes of the CGI from Philosoma and Phase Paradox reminded me of the movie Solaris by Tarkovsky and the American version with George Clooney, kind funny that it was not even mention haha.
The aesthetic of Phase Paradox feels like Starship Damrey, an obscure puzzle, kind of a horror game for the 3DS.
Awesome video as always!!!
The metroid prime games i think also had the same idea.
I love that you went out of your way to contact Tokayuki, this is great
I love it when video essayists and game reviewers are able to get insider information, but getting the director himself is a cut above. Really good stuff, thanks for doing so much for obscure games like this
It was super interesting, thanks for talking about these odd games.
What a fascinating series that sadly never came to the west. I loved this video, so thank you for making it and thank Tangomushi for introducing me to the channel!
You know it's gonna be a good weekend when we get new eurothug! What a fascinating look into Philosoma and Phase Paradox, I especially appreciated the dive into the concept art in the artbook. I recognized Philosoma by name, so it's probably been mentioned in some old game magazines I read in the late 90s, but I don't think I've ever heard of Phase Paradox. I'm an absolute sucker for prerendered backgrounds and cinematic camera angles, whether it's in a horror or adventure game setting. How wonderful you got to interview the director of the game!
Genuinely LOVE the end screen!!! So cool!!
I'm very thankful for this vid. As a youngling I rented Philosoma, had an inkling of it's horror elements, and had dreams of somehow finding an import copy of Phase Paradox and playing it. These days I prefer lets plays and retrospectives (I guess 'digest format' stuff) and I'm very happy I am able to find out what this mystery plays out and sorta close out one of those "what if's" of my gaming life
The character models (especially the faces) look incredible for the time.
Hey I'm a new viewer and I have really been enjoying your content. Love the video!
Aside from my biased love of RE, so many titles deserve a remake because of unrealized penitential at the time, not just for nostalgia/modernization. But that feels like they should be remade because they wanted to be re-made by either dev (who probably moved on in most cases) and audiences (if they're aware in the first place...)
This game looks still charming with pre-rendered background despite on PS2 hardware. Also I'm glad Mr Takayuki felt proud about this title where it could have felt too "ahead-of-time-but-unachievable" to him. Thanks for covering this game, Maria. PS2 feels like there's always a new game coming out despite they had already come out.
Really wish that this game gets the remake treatment similar to Dead Space.
Unlikely unless it gets a fan treatment, it would be nice though. I don't see Sony bothering to, especially for a Japan only release from 23 years ago... And they'd likely not allow it...
Yakuza 3 - Aqua Sky playing around 10:00 minutes. Love it! ❤
I’m a little disappointed that D3 didn’t show up or was written out I wonder what the reason was. I was thinking there might be a big reveal about D3 or that he would save the day somehow. Seems only fitting to bring back the player character of the last game. I wonder if the director knows of a reason for that or if it was probably due to them having to cut features to launch.
Great channel btw the quality of these video essays really tickle my funny bone. Wonder why there are not more views
Omikron: The Nomad Soul from 1999 was the first David Cage written and directed game. So his works would have been early enough to influence Phase Paradox. It's main mechanic was that you jumped bodies when you died, which you would later master and need to do to finish the game. It was pretty fun, even if it had David Cage's usual craziness to it
yeah I didn't mean it as Fahrenheit being Cage's first game, but rather the start of his more "interactive movie" titles :) Omikron had a lot more gameplay involved!
@@eurothug4000 It was a mix bag. It was an adventure game, but it had platforming, FPS combat and hand to hand combat sections thrown in for good measure. David Cage even got David Bowie to do songs and music for it! Actually when you were describing Philosoma, I was thinking "this sounds a lot like Nier Automata - then you mentioned Yoko Taro being involved in Phase Paradox and it all made sense where Yoko Taro got some of the ideas for Automata
Hey look who it is, I never expected to see you here
great video! i love the heavy biocellular take they had in approaching world building. love your new outro, it's so cute!
Amazing video! I’m glad I was able to make an end screen for it 😸
Recently I've been really into Sci-Fi with failed first contact stories, the stories where alien life is not humanoid and incongruous with our expectations. Combine that with some really tight and cohesive biology for these aliens and this is just very up my alley.
It harkens to Parasite Eve in that regard...
can’t beat a new video from maria on a friday ✨
Wow, I had no idea Philosoma ever got a sequel. This is amazing 😮
Great video. I was always curious about Philosoma as a kid, but never got around to playing it. I would LOVE to see Grimbeard cover Psycho Phase.
Thank god TH-camrs like you are recording video game history-- especially with how conpanies are letting go of backwards compatibility and going all digital, games like these just fade away
great video, I hope there's thousands more to uncover
PS2 was peak gaming creativity sooooo many crazy ideas, I remember laughing my ass off while playing God hand ✋🏻
Great video! It's nice to see a spotlight shone on stuff that deserved a bigger audience and wider releases. This is one I'll be checking out myself at some point! Kinda gives me some Enemy Zero vibes as both intended to be an interactive movie experience set on a spaceship dealing with an alien infestation changing the ship and both having homages to Alien (well, E0 is more blatant 😂!)
Jamieson Price is giving BIG Leslie Nielsen vibes in his delivery for Massimo, and now I want a scifi Naked Gun
4:40 There's also an unused third end scene featuring Michau, but was cut from the game for some reason... (Or maybe the team ran out of time to put it in)
Philosoma Kickstarted my love of collecting video game artbooks, I've found some wild stuff in the "World of Philosoma" book, I was also utterly fascinated with the setting of the game, as it was a scrolling-shooter with light cosmic horror elements sprinkled in...
Philosoma really stands out for the time period it came out in. It has surprisingly great voice acting and pacing, it's not the most polished shmup or anything (the style shifting is still really cool though), but the way it all comes together is just emblematic of the weird things you'd find during the launch era of the PS1. Always wondered about the sequel since hearing about it, distinctly remember the last time I looked a few years ago nobody had anything on TH-cam and just had to be content knowing the genre shifted and thinking that was cool as hell considering how dark the ending felt in comparison to anything else like it. Good to know about the voice acting in Phase Paradox, I can at least fumble around in the game with that.
Ok so I just need to run an RPG campaign using thos exact plot
Sounds like a good Mothership or Call of Cthulhu adventure
the idea is awesome, it deserved to be a full survival horror game, it deserves a remake!.
to me that ending implies the alien thing evolved into another phase and "possessed" the captain, the menace is not over. the thing will now spread to the whole universe.
was busy today so sorry for the late comment but amazing video! both these games and their ideas were cool alongside you interviewing the games director! and love that outro so happy for ya1
11:39
"You're the best looking guy here" moment.
If you liked Philosoma with its techno organic feel then you will definetely enjoy the setting of R-type.
Both have a similiar premise with an alien lifeforms assimilating humans and machine with a lonely fighter sent out to dispatch then.
Just be warned that R-type games are extremely difficult and I would recommend that you start with R-type Delta for PSX as that one is the most fair
That artwork for the game is incredible.
7:18 Just enjoying the creepy atmosphere...and then suddenly Ape Escape 3's Training Room music starts playing. I mean it's a banger so this already great video got even better!
Discussion of pre-rendered backgrounds reminded me of Lumino City. Might be your type of game!
Another great vid. Thanks for all your hard work that goes in to researching these games. It's such a great time getting to go back to this time period and have a peek at the gems I missed. 👌
Great video! When it started, I really didn't expect to watch for very long, but the story in the games and behind them is super interesting!
This was so interesting! One of the things I miss from old games is the attention to its lore and environmental details! I need to play this game now!
You’re becoming one of my favorite horror gaming TH-camrs here!
Fantastic video, as always!
I’m sorry, but i’m in awe at a black woman being a playable character in this old game. it’s so cool
This game really holds up visually
I agree, the backgrounds are beautiful
37:06 An interview with the creator of Rule of Rose? That's Awesome!!!
as a biology major, your explanation of the philo soma was so interesting to listen to
Another great video. Really love seeing stuff about Japan exclusive games.
Crazy timing, I just finished watching Laila Dyer’s playthrough of Phase Paradox the other day
Massimo is a robot?
Massimo is a goddamn robot?!
I'm so glad i've found this channel :D
The algorithm requires engagement
engagement engagement engagement brrrrrrrrrr
A couple character models look so much like hot actors from the 90s, like Halle Berry + Winona Rider, that I wonder if that's deliberate or just the beauties of the era vaguely emulated.
"Is a long time, old one" is good to see you back U.U
Thank you for the discovery
Looking at the art book makes me wish Phase Paradox/Philosoma was made today with the budget and time it deserves. It could have been something truly revolutionary.
Also loved the video, your work is always really interesting. ^_^
Wow, someone else not only saw but remembers Pandorum!
It's always a good day when there's a new eurothug video. Can't wait to watch! I'm always in awe of the incredible presentation and research that goes into every one of your videos.
Such a huge disappointment that many exclusive Japanese titles will never be localized or even preserved.
looks like it could have been a sleeper hit or a cult classic. i really miss this era of gaming. the PS 1 and PS 2 era's is when companies let their creativity run wild.
Couldnt find it anywhere in japans local shops, so a friend there bought it from mercato and gve it to me the last day of our trip, I was soooo happy. 😂
"Philosoma" as a word means love-body or "The body of love." But likely os referencing the word philosophy as a whole. Yay, I helped.
Great video as always!
Great video.
Book looks excellent too. Preordered it.
the ideas they were playing with back then was fun. today's titles are neutered in all sorts of ways
Another pretty interesting video, thanks!
Thia feels like a game that would be so popular if it had a full remake!
I just got hooked on your videos today, gotta be my new favorite channel !!!
Happy holidays ╰(*´︶`*)╯
The concepts and designs are amazing. Maybe you should convince him for a remake?
Oh hell yeah. It's my homegirl Eurothug
If I had a Nickel for every game that came out early in a console's life cycle where the big twist is that all we did was help a space monster get laid I'd have two Nickels. Which isn't much, but it's weird that it happened twice.
SPOILER:
(the other one is Blue Stinger)
I wonder if anyone who worked on Dead Space played this game - from your description I see a lot of similarities in terms of story.
:D I kinda want to see a remake of something like this (that isn't dead space) with this same style and such, just updated graphics and a more populated world, like how the yakuza games have a ton of side content maybe. It's a shame that it never got to release in the west
So what happens to the ones you didn't choose when you choose a companion towards the end?
I wouldn't be surprised if the main reason this game didn't get localized is because they would not have been able to get away with all these famous look-alikes.
Wake up babe, eurothug4000 just dropped a new video
Y’all I need a list of the songs she used in this video it’s so good.
in the description ;)
@@eurothug4000 THABK U GODDESS I MISSED IT
One little 🤓☝️-ass note: the correct pronunciation of phage rhymes with age.
Edit: never mind the voice actors pronounce it the wrong way too lmao
yeah I just say it however they say it in game lmfao 💀
@@eurothug4000 I realised that when I heard it in a voiceline lol
Didn't delete comment so maybe other smartasses will see it instead of saying it again..
Thanks for the vid
this concept is so good what the fuck???
I am offended you didn't mention Patricia Jaa Lee having been one of the best Pink Rangers ever.
I was born in 97 😭
@@eurothug4000Well that's when her season was on, Power Rangers In Space. Given your taste in sci-fi I think you'd enjoy it quite a lot. It has a very camp sense of seriousness to it that feels like an updated version of a 50's serial.
that sounds pretty cool! I’ll have to check it out!
Holy shit, are those graphics amazing for a 2001 PS2 game.
Where did she find the Concept art for Phase Paradox? no results on google images
as I said in the video (and wrote on-screen in the top left) it's the philosoma official art book :) I took the photos you see in the vid
@@eurothug4000 they're a great find, in fact this whole channel is a great find. Been binging your videos 😅
What's that game in the beginning after the polar bear? (0:47) Looks amazing.
Deka Voice!
Renee was such a fashion icon baddie, Iove her
An interesting game, I'll have to look for it.
@14:35: don't forget David Cage's 1st game on Dreamcast/ PC called : "Omikron: The Nomad Soul" (99) which, yes is a cross genre game, but has all the elements of his proceeding games and pushed the boundaries of game development at the time. It's a true hidden gem featuring the late great David Bowie, who did the soundtrack as well as starred in the game! I highly recommend it!
I know, I meant it as the start of his “interactive movie” games :) but yeah omikron is on my list to play!! pretty sure I have it on GOG :o
@eurothug4000 I consider Omikron to be a predecessor in the same vein as the rest of his works. It does have a lot of interactive movie/ adventure game elements throughout. He said he wanted it to be "a movie-like experience - with total immersion," the ethos of game making he would continue to embrace and develop in his consequent efforts.
P.S.- Can't wait to hear your thoughts on Omikron! It's one of, if not my favorite from Cage. It has some issues like the 1st person shooter parts (he was kinda forced to include), but as a whole it was ground-breaking and experimental for it's time. Peace.
for sure! but it has far more traditional gameplay (like the combat) than his future stuff and also Phase Paradox too, hence why I didn’t mention it in the vid when talking about the movie game genre :) that being said there IS a doctor in Phase Paradox who does look a lot like Bowie in my opinion… so they both have Bowie in common too 👀
Im not done witht he vid, but i get FF:Spirit within vibes
I had to pause a few minutes in to comment because I'm confused.
If the game was fully voiced in English from the start why the FUCK didn't it get a USA release? Translation and dubbing is usually the hardest part and they didn't even need to bother with it!
Have you ever played Cry of Fear?
Very Intressting game and Story