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I just recently played the Parasite Eve game.  BAck when it originally released, I made it all the way to the end but couldn't be the last boss for the life of me.  Well I just bought the game on PSN, and I figured I'd rid past demons and beat this game once and for all.  Well I beat it, (first try might I add) and decided to write a blog for the came.  I tried really hard to go back in time, and ignore all of the technical glories of current gen, and make it strictly a PS1 review.

 

I've never been one for the opera, but I remember back in '98 it never could have looked sweeter. The opening scene sets the mood right from the start: There will be singing, spontaneous combustion, and action. A Final Fantasy/Resident Evil hybrid, Square's attempt at horror was a mighty fine attempt.

 

The story revolves around Aya Brea, a rookie cop from a New York Police Department that just happened to be at said opera when beautiful singer Melissa turns femme fatale and burns every audience member to a crisp, besides Ms. Brea. Throughout the game, Aya is the only person impervious to the ever growing power of Eve (formerly Melissa, the host for parasite Mitochondria Eve). Occasionally the game will cut to a flashback of a sick Aya, and a past she can't quite remember. Are these forgotten memories the reason she is unaffected? What happened when she was a child? How is she connected to Melissa and Eve? The mystery slowly unfolds, and you begin to understand the bond between Aya and Eve.

 

If attempting to mix games like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil, your villain best pack some Sephiroth/Wesker evilness. Eve is no slouch when it comes to schemes and fiends! By affecting the mitochondria, Eve has the power to manipulate humans and animals alike. Cute little rat transforms into a snarling beast, a beast so rabid that it makes that giant gopher sized rat from The Princess Bride look like a cuddly pet. When she's not burning an audience to a crisp, she's then turning groups of people into giant blobs. She even gets some old dinosaurs to be reanimated! With these devious spins on animals that Eve creates, the foes you face are varied and fun. However, enemy encounters mean nothing in a game like this if the battles aren't a joy, and luckily they are.

 

Like Final Fantasy games, the action is somewhat turn based. Wait for Aya's attack gauge to build up, and unleash your fury. Like Resident Evil, the weapons at your disposal are an array of guns. Hand guns, assault rifles, shot guns, etc... But also like Final Fantasy games, you do get some magic type spells called Parasite Energy. After your conquests, your character will slowly level up and gain familiar Final Fantasy powers like Heal (regenerates Hit Points), Detox (cures poison), and Barrier (increases defense), and there are offensive spells like Energy Shot where Aya channels her Parasite Energy into a single bullet for a devastating attack. Each enemy you encounter has a different set of attacks, and being able to freely run around is something that you'll have to get acquainted with. Dodging enemy attacks will become very important until you level up so that you can ensure survival, but the benefit of dodging doesn't end there. Upon leveling up, how successful you are at dodging will improve the amount of Bonus Points you'll get. Bonus points can be used to improve the strength, range, or bullet capacity for guns, strengthen your armor against physical or magic attacks, improve the speed of your Active Time Bar, or allow your character to carry more items in your inventory. They are points that you'll have to carefully use, because once they're spent they're spent.

 

The guns and armor you come across can be improved by other methods besides Bonus Points. With tools that you find throughout the game, you can take elements of some guns and transfer them to new ones. Perks such as bullets shot per attack, attack strength, auto medicine, and a myriad of others allow you to tailor your style and character however you choose. Customize careful though, because once you transfer aspects of one weapon to another, the one weapon will become lost for good.

 

There is some strategy to the battles that you face and the weapons you choose. Some weapons will be high in strength, but low in range. So being careful and avoiding an enemy from afar might seem great, but if the weapon you have equipped has no range, your attacks are literally useless as they will land no damage. Other guns will have one shot per turn, while others can have five. I found it most useful to have a weapon with good strength, range, and 2-3 shots per turn. An aspect of weapon customization that made little sense to me was transferring bullet shots from one gun to another. The more shots the gun took, the weaker the gun became. I couldn't much wrap that concept around my head, since being able to shoot more should have made your gun more powerful, not weaker.

 

Like with all Square games of the Playstation era, the music is great. It does a great job of creating a moody and spooky atmosphere, and the leitmotif of Eve becomes as recognizable as Sephiroth's tune, or as eerie as Nemesis' track.

 

In the game you'll find some pre-rendered backgrounds of various locales of New York city. You'll find yourself in sewers, museums, hospitals, Chinatown, and warehouses, and each location has it's own distinguishable look. Like games before it, Square delivers some beautiful FMV cut scenes. From mutating animals to sweeping shots of New York, these visual treats showcase some of the best FMV's of the time. At times nothing but mere eye candy, other times they do a great job at progressing the story through a visual standpoint. The character sprites are all varied, and each have a lot of different types of animations, all though some actions they do can be a bit jerky or over animated. It's a shortcoming that's easy to overlook since it isn't a game breaker. Another draw back to the graphics is how dark the game can be sometimes. Rooms you enter are so dark, it is often hard to see the very dark chests that contain important items and bullets, and some doors are hard to tell that they're actual doors, which can be a problem since you need to enter it to advance the story. I know the game is purposely dark to accommodate the story being told, but it can make for a frustrating experience at times.

 

Even with some of these minor problems, if you're a fan of the J-RPG I do not see how this game will disappoint you from beginning to end. Classic elements of the genre are present such as turn based combat, character customization, dungeon-like exploring, a fun likeable protagonist with a mysterious past, and a rich story with an evil “destroy the world/humans” antagonist. It mixes two of the biggest game franchises for the Playstation in Final Fantasy and Resident Evil and does a great job that elements from both games are present. So if character growth/customization and survival aspects are your cup of tea, Squares homage to the role playing and horror genre is adventure that any adventurer shouldn't miss.

 

Pros

• -Great battle system with lots of character customization

• -Nice developed story with mystery, horror, and a little science/science fiction thrown in

• -A great hero and villain and a nice supporting cast

• -An End Game +, where your character stats are carried over for another playthrough

• -Diverse soundtrack that compliments the story

 

Cons

• -Dark colors make it hard to navigate at times

• -Some laughable character dialogue

• -Some RPG enthusiast might be bothered by the 15-20 hour length

• -Occasional difficulty spikes. Once you make it to the last boss, there's a point of no return which actually made the game unbeatable on my first play through

• -Somewhat linear

• -Questionable weapon stat upgrades

 

1998 review – 4.5 out of 5

2013 review – 4 out of 5.