Parasite Eve

"The rpg parasite"

It all started when a simple girl by the name of Aya Brea going to an opera when one of the actors went nuts. It’s kind of like that movie Carrie. For those of you whom have seen it, she sets everything on fire *sinister stuff*. Of course don’t forget that Aya happens to work for the N.Y.P.D. so she is on the case immediately. Also mentioning the fact that the actress set her date on fire, I’m sure she is not to happy. While seeing this actress you find out her name is Melissa, but she likes to go by the name of “Eve”. After finding this out is say you grab your gun and let the escapade begin.

Graphics 7
The graphics aren’t the best in detail but there alright. Monsters have a choppy look to them, like sometimes you can see right through them at a certain view. The videos however are really good. I like the characters faces, Aya almost has a mako look to her eyes, like Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. For those of you who don’t know the color it is a really bright green, an attractive color. I can’t really tell how close the graphics are to the guns in this game. But from what I seen they didn’t do a terrible job at the detail. The environments are probably the better of the graphics. With the 3-d feature they had the buildings really detailed. For the majority the graphics could have been better but I guess we have to stick with what we got.

Sound 6
The soundtrack doesn’t really appeal much to me. It has to be one of the Squares failures. They seemed to use a lot of alike noises from the Final Fantasy series. For those of you who have played Final Fantasy VIII, you will notice when you use your magic to heal it sounds like when you use a potion in the game. Music seems too quiet in the game to have an effect on you. A lot of the time your reading and it has the music quieter when you are reading, kind of weird. Even for as short a game this is, they leaned towards using the same music in certain scenes, but thankfully they change it in the various places you go to.

Game play 9
The most significant aspect of this Square game is being able to customize your weapons. They really have a lot of supplies to help you make your gun the best you can make it. While on the topic of guns I won’t fail to mention that they give you a large diversity of pistols, and assault riffles, all the way to grenade launchers. Having these will definitely help you take out the enemies that you face. Each enemy has a frailty to a certain weapon, so make sure you figure that out. Make sure to explore and search deeply within each part of town you go to, because you never know where they have a hidden gun or bulletproof vest that could really help you out against a forthcoming boss. Providentially you can use magic in this game to heal you or give you haste to have an advantage over your foe. Square also added the leveling up system, while leveling up you are capable of carrying more weapons and getting stronger magic.

Story 8
Aya Brea being the main character in this game runs into a girl named Melissa or as she likes to call her self “Eve”. There are a lot of flash backs in this game showing Aya as a girl and she tries to find out why she is the only human whom can stand up against Eve’s freakish powers. Her powers lie quiescent, until the confrontation at the opera house when she ran into Eve. They let you know about her powers but until later is when you find out why she is capable of doing such. Square had more of a twist to this games story line, they wanted to keep you on the edge to find out what was going to happen next. The story wouldn’t happen to be their best work but it is something to keep you busy while you are upgrading your weapons to kill some more foes.

Replay Value 8
The replay value on this game is a lot higher than most RPG’s like this. Already having beating the game you have the New Game + feature. Where you can have all your weapons and go through your escapade again in a number of different difficulties to try out your abilities. There is also a mode called boss mode where you can fight the bosses in a little mini game and see what you can get done. Show them who is boss.

Graphics 7
Sound 6
Game play 9
Story 8
Replay Value 8

Overall Ranking 8
This game is one of Squares entertaining RPG’s other than the Final Fantasy series. It’s like they took resident evils eeriness and added the RPG factors in it. I would say that this game is buying worthy, but I wouldn’t say that it is must to have. I enjoyed the game just fine, and I hope you too.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/15/04