SEGA's 'lost' erotic thriller has resurfaced online, and good lord

Look, I’m going to be honest with you. After subjecting myself to whatever the heck I just watched, I’m genuinely lost for words. There’s no fun opening line for you here to set the scene. Just, brace yourself for what’s to come, okay?

The Sacred Pools was an FMV (full-motion video) game originally set to release in 1997, and was essentially supposed to be an “erotic thriller” for older audiences. It was first shown during E3 1996, where journalists ripped it to shreds for looking like, well, like it does, and after that, it disappeared from whence it came. That is until now, as Gaming Alexandria has managed to locate alpha builds of the game via one of its associate producers, who happened to own a number of CD-ROMs from its production all these years on.

These days, SEGA's works tend to be a bit less strange - take a look at the trailer for Sonic Frontiers below.

“If you crave mystery, power and seduction, step into the world of The Sacred Pools,” a press release from the time reads (via Gaming Alexandria). “The once secure, safe and beautiful island of Amazonia is now a land of temptation and danger. SegaSoft's The Sacred Pools exploits today's technology creating a new level of game play so unreal you have to feel it to believe it.”

A trailer for the title resurfaced earlier this year, and, well, you’ll just have to see it to comprehend its absurdity. It teases the game’s “beautiful creatures”, which essentially appear to be women in tight-fitting animal print bodysuits, and “awesome special effects” which are, frankly, terrible.

The new alpha build gameplay footage is somehow even more baffling - after watching the whole thing, I can’t say I have any idea what just happened. You’ll also notice that none of it seems to be particularly erotic - it turns out that the game never featured any total nudity or sex scenes, but rather just some revealing costumes.

All in all, even though it’s sad to see any game cancelled, I think it’s safe to say that on this occasion, it was probably for the best.