Here’s a little history of Parasite Eve to me: About 12 years ago, 1998, I got my PlayStation for Christmas, as well as a demo disc that contained samples of games like Metal Gear Solid, Ninja, and MediEvil. On it, there were also a few videos, one of which was Parasite Eve. I was about 9 years old at the time so the images of people bursting into flames and an unidentifiable ooze bringing things like dinosaur bones to life and transforming a simple rat into a grotesque demon from hell, really scared the crap out of me. It didn’t help that it was accompanied by the most haunting opera choir I ever heard.
It’s been 12 years, but even now, that trailer is still relatively creepy and finally, I decided to sit down and play through it. However, after acquiring a copy of Parasite Eve, I was surprised to ask around and find that no one’s actually played the game, so open up a can of 7up and let’s have a retro review of Parasite Eve, just to be informative.
Story: Set in New York City, players take control of Aya Brea, a rookie cop who starts the game on a blind date to the opera. Shortly after the main actress begins her piece, everything goes to hell, with all the other actors and the audience randomly bursting in the flames as the actress proceeds to levitate. Being unaffected by the extreme case of spontaneous combustion, Aya proceeds to confront the floating actress and thus feels a change in her body as she’s told her mitochondria are awakening.
During a brief chase through the opera house, the actress changes into a strange monster, calling herself Eve, and begins affecting various creatures, changing rats into monsters and setting every human she comes across on fire. What follows, as Aya probably best puts it, is 6 days of terror, as she, her partner Daniel, and a Japanese scientist Maeda go around finding out the goals of Eve as well as trying to stop her.
Being a very cinematic game, the game’s presentation is one of its strong points, with characters constantly moving in cutscenes and does not have them appear overly stiff. The characters are also interesting with a contrast between Aya and Eve and their relation to each other, and realistic representations of humans in such a scenario. The plot is also relatively interesting, as you find out why Aya isn’t affected by Eve’s powers of ‘setting people on fire’ and ‘turning people into goo’ and how Eve came to being as well as her ultimate plan.
However, the drawback to the game’s plot is that it’s short, at least by 90s RPG standards, it’s short. With the main plot clocking in at about 8 to 10 hours, one could play this for a week and then put it away, but the game does present a side plot that builds on the main plot, which can add on several hours on its own.
Despite the shortness, the plot for Parasite Eve is good and the characters likeable and while your mileage may vary about the senses of relief when you find certain characters are alive and shock when other characters die, one thing is certain: you get heighten levels of disturbing scenes that builds on the game’s presentation, especially with a haunting soundtrack that rivals the classic Resident Evil titles.
Gameplay: Parasite was a very unique title as it wasn’t just a RPG. It took elements of Action-Adventure and Survival Horror and combined the three into something unique. As Aya, you drive to various locations that have reports of Eve activity and go through the equivalent of ‘dungeons’, solving puzzles, fighting monsters, and progressing the plot.
The battle system is where the gameplay becomes interesting, where the player controls Aya alone, which adds to the survival horror aspect of the game, which is the sense that you’re by yourself in the middle of all this danger.
Following an active battle time system, players can move Aya around while her action bar fills up, dodging enemy attacks as well as positioning Aya so that she as a direct line of sight to her target. When her action bar is full, an attack bubble of sorts surrounds Aya, showing what enemies are in reach of her current weapon, as well as an ammo count. From here, Aya can shoot a single target multiple times or divide her shots among her targets. Add in a regenerating magic system, simply called Parasite Energy, as well as the abilities to use items and change your equipment in the middle of battle, and you add further elements to the game’s combat.
This becomes especially interesting as each gun type can work completely different to what you previously used: rifles are slow to fire, but they can deal high damage and have excellent range, while a machine gun can fire the most bullets at once and it fires the fastest of the types, but the damage for each bullet is low and in some cases you don’t have a choice of what you’re aiming at. It ends up becoming a personal preference to what the player wants and enjoys. Overall, the battle system in the game is unique and the out of combat managing becomes rather enjoyable as you work to make the best gun to your play style.
Graphics: As stated earlier, presentation is the game’s strongpoint and while it may not hold up to today’s graphics, Parasite Eve demonstrated advancement in displaying realistic models on the Playstation and it’s interesting to note that the game was actually a tech demo for the graphics system used in Final Fantasy 8.
Despite the game’s dated look, the character designs have a normal, modern, yet unique look to them. Even one of the most normal looking characters, Daniel stands out in his appearance and presentation as a veteran officer. The creativity of designer Tetsuya Nomura really comes out in his design for the many creatures you come across and fight, especially with the main villain, Eve.
Sound: With a soundtrack that constantly give a haunting atmosphere to the hell that Aya and her comrades are thrust into, composer Yoko Shimomura can really set the mood. While the feeling of loneliness and hopelessness are prominent throughout the game’s soundtrack, sending chills down your spine and consistently places you in a state of fear and tension.Themes of various characters have several unique versions, including special pieces that combine two character’s themes into something even more unique. The soundtrack is splendid. While there’s no voice acting, each gun has unique sounds that represent their real life counterparts so it’s nice to see that attention to detail in a relatively old game.
Overall: Parasite Eve is a very unique and very creepy game that can really set you in the mood to lie in bed at night and hope that if you fall asleep that you will wake up not on fire and not transformed into goo.While the game is short and its graphics compared to games nowadays leave something to be desired, Parasite Eve is a very unique game with an interesting plot and battle system and haunting music that still creeps me out to this day.
If you manage to find a copy, and why not, Amazon has at least 40 copies for under 15 dollars (a steal considering the game is out of print) and I’m also sure that the game will eventually come to the Playstation Network if you have a Playstation 3, then pick it up and check it out, I guarantee that the game will certainly have a effect on you. 8.5/10
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