Summary
: Welcome to Hybrid Heaven. I think the title gets dropped once in the game, but it’s kind of a weird title given what actually goes on in it. Kind of like how Sorcerer is a movie about a truck.
: Like Aidyn Chronicles, Hybrid Heaven doesn’t have a battery save and relies on the N64 Controller Pak to save.
: This game also supported the Rumble Pak. Just in case you’ve never personally seen one, the N64 controller only had a single add-on slot in the back, so if you did choose to use the Rumble Pak you’d have to switch it out any time you wanted to save or load.
https://youtu.be/A5X_00E7Bzs
: This game has voiceacted cutscenes and no subtitles, so I did a recording of this so you can see it in motion. Don’t worry if you’re someplace you can’t watch, I’ll transcribe it like I usually do.
: This probably would’ve been pretty weird if you were playing this on a CRT. Unfortunately, I’ve never played this on a CRT.
: We cut to Johnny, who is sitting naked in what is apparently his apartment in New York City.
: I bet this is what all men do when they’re alone.
: The TV changes from cartoon noises to a news broadcast.
: “The U.S. and Russian presidents revealed today that they are all but ready to conclude talks on the reduction of existing nuclear arsenals and are prepared to ratify the historic agreement that promises to be a giant leap towards world peace in New York City on the 24th.”
: “President Weller is expected to arrive in New York City tomorrow and attend the ratification after some last-minute discussions with the Russian president, who is scheduled to fly in on the same day.”
: “In a press conference yesterday, a confident President Weller stated to the media that on the coming 24th, the United States and Russia should be delivering a very merry Christmas present to the world.”
: Two things here. First, this technically makes Hybrid Heaven a Christmas game along with Parasite Eve.
: Second, this is how you know this game was made in the late 90s. Right around this time, it was believed that the US and Russia were going to sign START II (STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty). They sort of did, but pulled out before it went into effect.
: The reason you’d know it’s the late 90s is that New START (the successor to START I) just expired in February and every policy analyst out there has pointed out it’s unlikely another START will exist unless China agrees to it.
: In the background, you can hear a doorbell ring and the water shut off.
: I have forgotten what the guy in the suit’s name is, but Johnny answers the door in the nude.
: This feels like a Hallmark Christmas movie gone off the rails.
: “We shouldn’t be seen talking so I’ll be brief. Let’s go over this one last time. The substitution of the President will be executed the day after tomorrow in New York City.”
: Yes, they one-upped Kojima by making a SNATCHER RPG. Yes, I’m aware Kojima had already made a SNATCHER RPG for the Sega CD.
: “You are not to leave the President’s side no matter what. Everything depends on that moment, when there is no one but our operatives around him. If we miss this chance, it will throw off the timetable for the invasion.”
: “We can’t afford any mistakes. One more thing: don’t forget to make contact with Mr. Diaz in New York. He’ll bring the tools and the weapons you’ll need. That’ll be all. Let’s make this work.”
: “But man, put some clothes on, will you? And don’t forget to act like a human once you’re over ground.”
: “Johnny? Are you there? I guess you’re out again today. Maybe you’re busy, but.. are you doing okay?”
: “Well, it’s Christmas soon. The year’s almost over. Johnny.. you haven’t forgotten our pact, have you? That we’ll meet again this year under the Christmas tree in DC on Christmas Eve? I don’t care how late you show up, just meet me there, okay? I’ll be waiting.”
: It’s incredible how close Johnny’s girlfriend is to Rose in MGS2.
: “Anyway, call me again when you get in.”
: Johnny deletes the message.
: Meet Johnny’s girlfriend. I have forgotten what her name is.
: And this is Mr. Diaz. Diaz is our protagonist.
: The men in black have voice lines here, so I’ll find an icon for them.
: “Mr. Diaz, he’s here.”
: “Johnny? It is you, isn’t it? Why didn’t you recognize me? Is it just someone who looks like him?”
: The camera does a close-up on Diaz, and you can hear a distorted voice saying “Shoot… that man.. kill him…”
: If they’re going to blame it on a demon, I don’t whisper like that.
: Johnny, or.. Not-Johnny, I guess.. starts evaporating once he hits the ground.
: “Why did you shoot?”
: “Not now! There’s something wrong with Mr. Diaz. We’ve got to get him below ground.”
: “There’s a witness!”
: “The evidence is gone. There’s no trace left.”
: The men in black grab Diaz and drag him off.
: Diaz hears whispers in his head again and starts struggling.
: Diaz has the upper hand, but then hears Johnny’s girlfriend say something I can’t quite make out.
: Once Diaz gets near the ground, he starts floating.
: And now the game has started. You can see Diaz’s HP bar in the top left.
: Diaz has a gun called a Defuser that only works on robots and some other inanimate objects.
: Hitting one of the drones (or getting too close to it) will cause it to go into an alert state and fire a laser after a few seconds.
: The devs at KCEO realized what they were working with and made it so that you don’t need to be precise with the defuser: as long as you’re somewhere near the target, it’ll hit even if they’re clearly a bit to the left or right.
: The next room has a tech in it who will teach us about Hybrid Heaven’s primary roadblock.
: No, I’m not talking about how “interact” and “jump” are bound to the same button, or how Diaz has a jump that would put an NBA star to shame. That’s a secondary roadblock.
: Those are some ups.
: Here’s our primary road block: the code key. We’ll see how it works soon enough.
: Down the ladder, there’s a door with what looks like a slot in it on the left. This is a code key door.
: Of course the guy upstairs gives us an expired code key. We need to find a machine to update it with the new code.
: The next room is another hallway with some drones in it, and introduces a new kind of drone.
: These drones will shoot at Diaz if he passes through their light. You can sometimes walk around these, but most of the time you just shoot them.
: At the end of the hallway is a room with a machine in it. This is a code key machine we’ve been looking for.
: Another room with some drones in it. This one has a pit in the middle to jump over.
: We’re going to ignore the NPC and get on the elevator. The NPC only tells you how to use the defuser.
: This hallway is a little annoying if you get turned around because it’s full of drones that respawn every time you leave and re-enter.
: Right across from the elevator is this room, with a chest hidden behind some boxes.
: This gets us a healing item. I didn’t show it, but I’m playing on Hard rather than the standard Normal difficulty.
: There’s another door on the opposite side of the elevator that leads to a ladder. Before we go down, let’s take a look at how the stats in this game work.
: You can see that we have offense levels for each limb, plus “body” and “head”.
: Similarly, we have defense levels for each body part. On my first attempt at this game, I went all in on Body. I’ll show you why that’s a bad idea in a bit.
: We also have a move list. The last part is something we won’t do much with until several updates from now.
: We know four punches and two kicks, plus a short list of techniques.
: Down the ladder, we run into a “puzzle” of sorts. You can see the drone and that big, glowing box up there.
: If we climb up, there’s a laser grid preventing us from going further.
: Shooting the box destroys it and reveals a switch, which we can also shoot to lower the lasers.
: Down below is our first save point. Save points restore all of your HP, but I used one of our spare life chargers to heal some damage I took from the drones.
: The next room is in the middle of a big hallway, and one of the doors is locked. We’ll take the one on the opposite side.
: Another laser grid. Can you guess where the switch is?
: Past that is this big egg thing, and this is where the game actually begins.
: Diaz interfaces with this cube, which gets angry at him in alien gibberish.
: An alarm sounds, but nothing else happens. Let’s backtrack.
: That’s all it took to kill him?
: This thing is called a Spica, and now it’s time for our first fight.
: Let me briefly explain how combat works. The Power bar works a lot like ATB in the PS1 Final Fantasy games - it increases when Diaz isn’t doing anything, and fills slower when you’re moving around.
: You can hit A to attack as soon as it reaches that white line, but you don’t get a full power attack unless the bar is filled completely.
: Before the bar can fill, the Spica steps forward and attempts to attack. We get three options: Step, Guard, and Counter.
: Step is a guaranteed dodge if you’re far enough away. Guard takes the hit (unless it would miss because the enemy is too far away) and reduces damage but doesn’t work 100% of the time.
: Counter only works if you’re way higher level than the enemy and interrupts their attack with one of your own.
: In this case, I take a step back (you can pick the direction) and dodge the punch. You typically don’t want to do that, and I’ll show you why.
: Our bar fills up, and now it’s our turn to attack. You can pick from punches or kicks - techniques are a little different and usually require you to grab the enemy first.
: We do some damage and the enemy is sent flying. The game doesn’t show it, but we also get experience to our right leg and to the R Middle Kick move.
: And that’s the strategy, right? Just use one leg over and over until it’s so overleveled that it kills everything.
: You can do that, and that’s absolutely a valid strategy. Ryan beat the game like that on stream, using nothing but one leg.
: However, if you know about the 2021 datamine, you know that you want to level either both legs or both arms equally. We’ll find out why much later when we have access to combos.
: The enemy then uses an Upper L Hook, which I intentionally get hit by. Why? Because in this game, getting hit with moves is how you learn them.
: Notice, by the way, the icon in the top-right with the red torso. The enemy’s punch damaged Diaz’s torso, which stops us from using it.
: I mentioned earlier that my first playthrough went all-in on techniques. Techniques all scale off torso level. If your torso gets damaged, you can’t use them.
: We get a letter grade after every fight, with the highest being SS. Getting an S or SS usually gets you an item.
: We also learn Upper L Hook and Upper R Hook because I got hit by it, but we don’t learn Mid L/R Hook because I dodged that one.
: Some moves (usually techniques) require you to get hit multiple times to learn them. Techniques sometimes require special activation conditions (like being on the ground) and can be hard to get enemies to use.
: Now I’ll reload this fight and show you how techniques work. First, you have to grab the enemy. This is done with the Z button.
: If you’re grabbed, you also have three defensive options: Take Fall (works like Guard), Escape (rarely works but dodges the attack), and Counter.
: You can see that the enemy is stunned, which allows me to get a second attack in for free.
: There are also techniques that require you to be behind an enemy and grab them to use.
: Techniques are really powerful, but are risky because most attacks tend to hit the torso. You can see that they also cost Stamina to stop you chaining them too hard.
: After our encounter with the Spica, we end up in what is apparently a bioweapon storage facility.
: There are enemies in the cells who will get up and bang on the glass if you get close.
: The only way forward has a shutter that’s mostly closed. All we have to do is crawl under it.
: You can see in the distance that there are little robots on the floor. Those are land mines. They’ll chase you and explode if you get too close, but you can usually run past them with no trouble.
: We pass through a command center room which tells us how to bring up the minimap. I’ve already done that.
: The next room is our introduction to enemy spawners. Most enemies don’t respawn once killed, except for rooms that have a spawner in them. This one spawns Spica.
: Because I reloaded to get both the Mid and Upper Hook punches, I take this one down with kicks before it can do anything.
: This gives us enough EXP to level up. If you look closely, you’ll notice there’s a tiny bar underneath the Power bar - at higher levels, you can store Power bars to use multiple attacks at once.
: This hallway has a lock that has to be shot off. You don’t see too many of these from what I remember.
: I’ve seen this one before. The alien’s going to burst through the damaged bulkhead, so you blast right through it before it can try.
: This enemy is called.. a Pollux. Yes, I have Salty Vanilla on it already.
: Pollux has the Middle Side Kick and Low Kick abilities. We’re going to need Low Kick eventually.
: One thing I got to show off in this fight that you don’t normally see before getting multiple power bars is using moves on downed enemies.
: When prone, your defense options are limited to rolling to the side and trying to counterattack. In this case, the enemy was already stunned and does nothing at all.
: Unfortunately, Low Kick is one of those moves you need to get hit by multiple times to learn. We’ll run into plenty more Pollux before long.
: In the next room, we run into this thing. This is called Seginus, and it is primarily a grappler.
: It starts combat by backing off and charging its power bar.
: Once fully charged, it runs in and tries to grab you. If you mash A when this happens, you can get an attack off instead.
: Techniques HURT. On this difficulty, we can take exactly one without dying - a second will kill Diaz.
: I defeat it with techniques instead of kicks, because it will guard every kick you try to hit it with and usually counter with a grab.
: There’s a switch on the wall we need to shoot to progress.
: There’s a save point here, so I’ll call it an update just to get one out. Next time, we’ll go through Area 1-2 and fight our first boss.
