Parasite Eve

I know I may have compiled an odd list for horror games this month, but rest assured, that if you haven't heard of Parasite Eve that these games are there for a reason. They are the source of my fearful days playing survival horror games and each one of those games I found it hard to sleep because naturally I was very young at the time. Parasite Eve is not a perfect game, in fact it has a lot of flaws that I will talk about but I will explain as well why I still look back to how original it was at the time (Although not timeless) and why I treasure it so much.

Developed by Squaresoft, it was extremely rare for your friendly JRPG developers to actually put the effort in making a survival horror experience, one that I would remember every christmas since that is where it is when you play it. In the shoes of Aya Brea, an NYPD rookie, we explore her story in what I remember simply as a poetic and petrifying experience. Despite it being linear and had little room for replayability and/or flexibility it still provided a memorable experience for me. It certainly wasn't the best game out of Squaresoft but it was engaging nonetheless. I haven't read the Parasite Eve novel, but I heard this game is a sequel to the novel, which actually makes me want to read it now that I just remembered it.

A pretty haunting moment, if I would say so. We're off to a bad first date with Aya.

Presentation is what Parasite Eve did best. Every moment gripped me and kept me on the edge of my seat (Aside from a few boring dialogue scenes) It was also what I would easily describe as stylistic. At the time, cutscenes were precious for gamers and this game was full of them. Character designs and pre rendered background scenery were beautiful at the time. Going back to the story that spans 6 days in the game's storyline, Aya Brea, on a date with someone enters Carnegie Hall for an opera show. As the show starts, everyone around the rookie spontaneously combust except an actress in the show and Aya. Aya confronts the actress where she declares herself as Eve and goes on about a rant involving the mitochondria reacting to her, which in my opinion is a stretch. The plot itself gets ridiculous to the point where you're wondering why you care but at the same time it makes sense in its own logic.

It's games like these at the time that I enjoyed the most simply because there were limitations in terms of what resources the developer had so they were left with being creative in different varieties and aspects of a game. Parasite Eve utilized RPG elements for a survival horror game. You get to explore hallways hugging walls in Resident Evil Tank control style and finding the next key to the locked door at the end of the hallway, only to be encountered by a rat that gets infected by a virus and transforms into a gigantic version of itself.

As linear as it was, Parasite Eve's exploration was a lot of fun

Looking back, it is quite laughable that this is the cutscene that left me petrified for a week. It was a legit rat transformation

I was pretty overwhelmed at the time in the aesthetics of Parasite Eve, but I was even more surprised at its gameplay because it was actually original and creative at the time. When you encounter an enemy, the player is put in the same hallway he was in and gets to have an Active Time guage that fills up just like your friendly ATB gauge from any Final Fantasy if you played those. When the gauge fills up, Aya can perform an action. That action could be casting magic (Parasite Energy), using an item, performing a melee attack or using a gun. Different guns yield different attacking patterns and range. I was actually very glad with how the battle system was designed mostly because at the time those who were familiar with Squaresoft's RPGs such as Final Fantasy or even Vagrant story, which used a very similar approach in terms of combat felt right at home and were able to get right into it. So you have your HP and Mana bar and you have a range of attack in a spherical shape around your player which determines how far you can attack. It seemed so simplistic but it was implemented very well. Sadly, the way I saw it was it was offered very little room in terms of variation and builds since it was just like any survival horror, you will find that rat in the same hallway, meaning most if not all battles are scripted. Only a few levels offered random battles and those offered little to no EXP, meaning you'd be stuck in a similar level most players by the end of the game. Looking at it in terms of technicality and dissecting the ins and outs of how it worked certainly takes the fun out of it. But having mindless fun with it won't hurt one bit and that is exactly what I did with Parasite Eve.

It's not like that just because the battles were scripted meant this game is easy. No, I recall Parasite Eve having one of the most toughest bosses in any Survival Horror game if not all bosses, Especially the final boss. One wrong move and you could die but I got used to their fighting patterns and eventually was able get past them. One could argue that the bosses were tough simply because the previous fights were scripted, so there was little room for grinding EXP but that's not to say the strategies to beating them was easy even with grinding. What I was frustrated at the most was the slow movement of Aya in both battle and exploration. Not only is she controlled using tank controls, but she is extremely slow when it comes to exploration. Regardless, that only pushed me to find better positioning in battle simply because I found it difficult to avoid enemies.

Not only was I glad with the Combat of Parasite Eve, but I was also glad with its customization. Each gun had its own stats as well as them affecting Aya's own stats. Every time you level up you can choose to increase which stat or you can auto level her stats up. It offered some room for variation in terms of what the player wants to focus on. Whether you wanted to focus on PEnergy to cast magic earlier and more frequently in terms of healing yourself or attacking or you can focus on both offense and defense so you could customize your guns. Guns themselves had their own customization screen where you can increase the capacity of your pistol or its offensive power as well as transferring the points from one gun to another at the sacrifice of losing your old gun. It was risky and fun at the same time to practice with different builds whether you would enjoy a pistol that has burst fires with a lot of ammo or a grenade launcher that shoots once and has more firepower. You can also place buffs in your guns such as gaining an extra turn after using this gun once or getting stronger when your HP is below 50% Also, every time Aya levels up, you are given extra points in the Active time and Item capacity, which allows her to carry more items and act faster in battle. There was definitely a lot of room for variety, but in the main storyline, there was limited EXP to offer that. Only when you are able to beat the game do you have the chance to enter an optional "dungeon" that offers a lot of monsters for more EXP and though that dungeon does offer a secret ending, only the dedicated will actually go that far to check it out.

Parasite Eve's "World Map"

Parasite Eve offered a haunting soundtrack that included the debut from Yoko Shimomura where she offered music derived from both opera and electronica tracks. It was strange initially but really sets the mood for the atmosphere. It was the sort of twisted poetic relationship you'd expect from Aya's persistence in confronting Eve as well as the upbeat tracks during boss battles that I really liked. If the game isn't timeless in terms of design, the soundtrack is easily timeless for me and the opening, Primal Eyes is what every fan loved to hear continuously. The soundtrack was famous enough to sport a remixed album.

Pre rendered backgrounds reminded me of playing Final Fantasy VII

I don't want to spoil too much because it is a high quality experience that I easily recommend, but Parasite Eve affected enough fans to start group and forum discussions as well as hardcore fans that sent letters to the developers 10 years after release to make a 3rd sequel after it spawned a mediocre sequel that offered less of an atmosphere than the first one and had more action. I'm mentioning this only because I will talk in the future about Parasite Eve 2 but I was disappointed so much by the 3rd game that I just want to express my disinterest in providing one. It's one of the few games that should have just remained as one since different experimentation with the game design offered a less involving game so there was just no need for that. Parasite Eve offered little replayability in its main storyline but after beating it, you can check the optional dungeon (Chrysler building) for more fun. You can find Parasite Eve available on Playstation Network.