Parasite Eve reviewed

 

I remember as a youth thumbing through whatever gaming magazine I had at the time and saw something about Parasite Eve on the cover.  Of course, me being a 12 year old boy I immediately focused on the heroine, Aya Brea, and she became my first video game crush.  Sure, Lara Croft existed but I was never that into Tomb Raider and Lara Croft was one of those unattainable chicks that's never fun to crush on.  Aya, on the other hand, with her denim jacket, her white t-shirt and those steely greenish eyes is slightly more attainable and a lot more fun to crush on.  The point is, I knew I would be playing this game sometime soon...granted by soon I meant 13 years but hey, I played it.

The year is 1997 and the city is New York City.  Aya Brea is NYPD on the way to a fancy opera with some date.  The opera starts off fine and the diva, Melissa, starts her big solo.  It's so amazing that her co-stars burst into flames, then a couple members of the audience burst into flames....THEN EVERYONE WHO ISN'T AYA BURSTS INTO FLAMES!  Wait, that may be a bad thing especially that Melissa is now Eve, which is bad.  But fear not since Aya is on the case!  The case is a horrible conspiracy that takes her and the rest of the NYPD to the limit over six days as they go deeper and deeper into the world of mitochondria, slime, Japan, evil doctors and the mystery of Aya's long dead twin sister, Maya.

Parasite Eve was touted as being one of the first cinematic RPG's and it really delivers on the cinematic front.  There's load of cutscenes and FMV's in this game.  However, I do think it was a bit ahead of its time.  As it is, there was no voice-acting on most of the Playstation's library and Parasite Eve was no exception.  So we get to read reams of text while blocky people make awkward poses and movements.  It's not that it's bad or anything, especially for the era, but imagine how much better it would be with more cinematic graphics and voice-acting.  As for the FMV's, they are pretty good.  It's dynamic, it's entertaining and it's usually where you see the visual wonders like the amazing prologue.

The gameplay itself is pretty good when you're actually fighting and playing.  It's a combination of survival horror and a RPG.  The RPG elements are really well-done with the sense of tangible accomplishment when you gain a level...and it's lot a more tangible than a proper RPG.  Also, you get special powers due to Aya's own mitochondria which are standard order RPG powers like heals and buffs and debuffs.  The survival horror aspects...they're not as prominent.  The battle system is all based on random encounters that decrease when as you level up, so you're not in a position to actually be ambushed or have something jump out of walls and windows...even though that did happen once.  The only real connection to Parasite Eve and survival horror is the godforsaken Item Management Puzzle.  Granted, you gain more item slots with levels but those fill up quite fast with useless junk, weapons and armor that are near- useless without tools to combine them and the fact that every encounter gives you reams of items. 

Parasite Eve isn't a bad game or anything.  It just makes a lot of mistakes that prevent it from being a good game.  And yet, it is a product of that era.  I really can't hold up it to the standards of today since voice-acting, while existing, wasn't that practical yet.  The graphics are nice for the era, but they're still all blocky and weird.  The gameplay is nice, albeit a bit maddening.  It's just not that special.

6/10