Parasite Eve

"The Cinematic RPG...Unfortunately, it's more cinema than RPG"

Although they are obviously one of the most influential RPG developers working in the console industry, and played a large part in making RPGs financially successful in the US, Square has turned a number of its former fans into harsh critics. They accuse Square of emphasizing style over substance. Now, there's no denying that Square has been guilty of this in the past. Games like Final Fantasy X, Legend of Mana, and Seiken Densetsu 3 looked like a million, but offered either overly linear quests, or just did not have enough gameplay variety to last an entire RPG experience. Although I often find these complaints valid, I can usually look past them, and still enjoy the game.

One game that has me completely on the fence, however, is Parasite Eve. This was a much hyped ''survival horror RPG'' that Square released in late 1998. Opinions on the game seemed to vary from ''best RPG ever'' (this usually shouted by fanboys who would probably like having the Ebola virus if it had the Square label on it) to ''you watch the game more than you play it''. My opinion lies somewhere in-between. There's no denying that there's a lot of good ideas in Parasite Eve, but a disappointing storyline, idiotic characters, and an overly linear quest prevent me from fully embracing it. Inspired by a novel by Hideaki Sena, Parasite Eve is a disappointment, because it starts out with so much promise.

As the story begins, it is Christmas Eve in New York City. A few weeks ago, an ad for a local opera caught the eye of a rookie police officer named Aya Brea. She's never really had an interest in opera, but for some reason, this ad catches her attention. Sure enough, on the night before Christmas, she finds herself sitting in the audience of the big opera. The show begins, and as the lead actress begins her solo number, something horrifying happens - One by one, the members of the audience begin to combust into flames, and soon, the entire theater is blazing as the actress continues to sing her song. Strangely, though, Aya is not affected like almost everyone else. Pushing her wimpy date for the evening aside, Aya pulls out her gun, and runs up to the stage to confront the actress.

When she finally faces the actress, Melissa Pearce, the situation turns even weirder. Melissa claims that she is Eve, and babbles on about her power to control mitochondria, which is how she caused everyone in the audience and stage to burst into flame. She then cryptically claims that Aya shares a similar power, and that it will begin to blossom soon. After a brief battle with the mysterious ''Eve'', the actress escapes, leading Aya on a chase to find out the truth. During the course of the next six days, Aya will be forced to confront her forgotten past, and must try to prevent Eve from claiming many more innocent lives.

What begins as an intriguing scientific horror mystery quickly degenerates into what is literally a wild goose chase across New York City. During the six days the game takes place over, Aya will pursue Eve through many famous areas of New York City including Central Park, SoHo, and Chinatown. This is all well and good, but the game seems to be more interested in sending you chasing after Eve and throwing complicated scientific medical babble in the game's dialogue, then in actually keeping you enthralled in the story. This is the game's first big mistake, but certainly not its last.

The story continues to lose credibility when you begin to realize that your character, Aya Brea, is probably the dumbest cop to ever walk the face of the planet. Case in point: At one point in Central Park, Aya comes across Eve in a horse-drawn carriage. Eve invites Aya to climb inside the carriage, and go for a ride with her. Now, Eve is a sadistic monster who just torched a building, and killed a large group of people in Central Park. So, what does Aya do? SHE PUTS AWAY HER GUN, AND CLIMBS INTO THE CARRIAGE WITH HER!!! Example of stupidity #2: At one point, Aya corners a villain, her gun drawn. The guy continues to approach her, ranting and raving like a psychotic lunatic. So, what does Aya do? SHE ONCE AGAIN PUTS AWAY HER GUN, AND TURNS HER BACK TO HIM!!! Okay, now if this girl doesn't want to make you pull her right out of the game and slap some sense into her, you're either the most forgiving person alive, or you're a criminal yourself who wishes that all cops could be like her.

Storyline problems aside, the game starts to look a little brighter when it comes to the gameplay department. The game can best be described as Final Fantasy meets Resident Evil. As Aya, you explore pre-rendered static backgrounds, searching for helpful items and clues to help you solve the mystery. Aya can move in eight directions, but is also unfortunately the slowest walker in the world. I hope you have an analog controller when you play this, because if you don't, you'll be restricted to Aya's walking speed (unless you hold down the O button to run), and let me tell you, she's in no hurry to get to where you want her to go. Fortunately, the controls are responsive, and if you use the analog control stick, she runs automatically, so there should be no problems there.

As Aya explores the areas, she'll be drawn into random battles with mutant monsters that have been spawned from Eve's evil powers. In battle, the game switches to a semi-overhead view, and the fighting system seems to be a combination of action RPGs and traditional menu-driven RPG styles. You have full control over Aya during the battles, which allow you to run about the field, dodging the enemies and their attacks. You must wait until a meter at the top of the screen fills up for you to make your move. Once it is filled, you can either attack an enemy with your currently selected gun or standard issue police club, use a health-restoring item, or cast one of Aya's Parasite Energy skills (which act like spells). Yes, Aya does seem to hold dormant powers, just like Eve, and you can use them to your advantage. From attacking enemies, to healing damage, Aya gains these skills as she builds in Experience Levels. And as long as she has energy left over in her Parasite meter (which refills by itself over time), she can utilize these abilities.

The battle system is fun and all, but the real crown jewel of the gameplay is the gun and armor customization feature. During the course of the game, Aya can find tools. Bring these to the guy who runs the gun shop at the local Police Station, and he'll allow you to combine two guns and armor together. For example, you can combine an M-16 with a machine gun, and give yourself a super powered M-16 with the rapid-fire ability of the machine gun weapon. The possibilities are literally endless with the kinds of guns you can create for yourself, so that all but guarantees that no two people will play this game the exact same way. The game's battle system and customization aspects help lift this game up somewhat from its storyline problems.

Despite this, the main thing that drew everyone's attention back when the game came out were the graphics. Using a combination of polygonal characters and rendered backgrounds, Parasite Eve does certainly have an appealing (if not slightly dated) look. The backgrounds are fine, with some rather nice depictions of actual New York locations. (Though the SoHo and Chinatown areas don't exactly look the way I remember them when I visited those places.) Where the graphics show their age are with the character models. Not only are they blocky and made of few polygons, but they also animate very stiffly. When a character turns around, he or she will walk in place, and rotate their body around in the direction they want to face during the game's story sequences. Besides this fault, the only other major problem I can find is that some of the areas you explore are a bit too dark. I know that most of the game takes place at night, but still, it can sometimes be hard to see chests and helpful items, since they'll be hidden in dark corners.

The real highlight in the graphics department are the game's CGI cutscenes that appear during major plot points. They may not pack the wallop that they did back in 98, but they still are impressive. The character models are lifelike with very fluid animation, and New York City is recreated very accurately during these scenes.

In the area of sound, composer Yoko Shimomura (best known for the soundtracks to Legend of Mana and Kingdom Hearts) delivers a strong, if somewhat simplistic score. The music has a heavily synthesized feel to it, which matches the gritty modern day feel of the game. The music does fit the accompanying scenes, but at the same time, it can also be repetitive. Some of the tracks seem to only be about 15 or 30 seconds long before they begin to loop. Sound effects are good too, with strong realistic-sounding shots ringing from Aya's gun, and equally realistic footstep sounds depending on what you're currently walking on. This helps add to the overall atmosphere of the game. An overall well done, but not entirely remarkable, job.

Despite the strong presentation aspects and good gameplay ideas, a few more kinks were thrown into the mix to prevent this game from reaching greatness. For one, when you get into fights, the field usually seems to be too small. You're restricted to one screen only, and it makes it hard to dodge a lot of the faster moving enemies, since you seem to be blocked by an invisible border. A more open-ended battlefield would have made the battles even more fun.

But, perhaps the biggest knock against this game is the fact that you just don't have much control over the game. Not only is the quest terribly linear, leading you from one place to another, the game also seems to emphasize storyline over gameplay. You spend a lot more time than you'd probably like scrolling through text during story sequences. Some of these sequences can go on for well over 10 minutes, and sometimes there's 2 or 3 of them in a row. This wouldn't be so bad if the story was good or interesting, but like I said earlier, it quickly turns into a game of cat and mouse, with long lectures on scientific medical theories about mitochondria thrown in between. There's just not enough meat to the story to warrant the game emphasizing it over the much better gameplay.

In the end, I have total mixed feelings about Parasite Eve. I guess I enjoyed the game more when I was playing it more than I was when I was being told the storyline. That's a cardinal sin when it comes to RPGs - the storyline needs to suck you in, and the gameplay needs to complement it. I'm certainly not sorry I played the game, although it was over a bit too soon for my liking. (An experienced gamer should see the ending in 10 hours or less.) If you can find it for rental, or at a cheap price, you could do worse than to have this parasite infect your Playstation. Just don't expect much in the end.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/25/02, Updated 06/09/03