Parasite Eve (PSX)

Square's slightly Resident Evil inspired horror rpg, a sequel to the 1996 novel of the same name.

The game starts with a scene setting cgi video showing that we're in New York and it's Christmas. It looks great for the time, which is good because they've made it unskippable.

The cutscene ends with rookie police officer Aya Brea pulling up to Carnegie Hall with her date to enjoy a night at the opera.

After telling me she's called Aya Brea, the game asks if I'd like to name her. Uh, not if she's already got a name! I don't want to rename the poor woman while she's on a date, it'd just get confusing for everyone.

I thought this was clever. The camera pans up to follow Aya as she walks towards the door, but the background is one pre-rendered picture.

To be honest I'm not really enthralled by this opera. The prince wants to marry Eva, but his father won't allow it. He's a bit concerned by the way everyone around her keeps dying, and intends to have her killed.

Eva apparently just wants to sing. She walks to the center of the stage and starts her performance, leaving the other actors to just stand around in the background waiting for the talking to start again.

Despite being released two years after Resident Evil, the game has no voices. But it does have singing.

Oh damn, it seems the King was right. One by one the entire cast standing by Eva bursts into flame, while the actress playing her continues to sing.

The front rows are on their feet and headed for the exit almost immediately while the rest of the audience sits in shock. Random people exploding into flames around them soon gets them moving though.

Aya however stays in her seat, calmly observing the chaos unfolding around her.

Damn, Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark had a more successful opening than this. Everyone's running around and screaming and bursting into flames. Personally I didn't think her singing was THAT bad.

Eventually Aya decides she's had enough. Those opera tickets weren't cheap and she nearly got her dress singed while diving out of the way of flaming audience members.

She shoves her date to safety and goes to confront the actress.

Having realised that she can't set Aya on fire, the actress goes to plan b: energy beams.

I've finally reached gameplay! My character controls like a Final Fantasy character rather than a Resident Evil one, going in the direction I pull on the analogue stick. But it seems that I'm stuck on this screen for this fight.

When my AT meter has finished charging up I get to use a move. In this case I'll go with firing two bullets at the actress shooting lasers at me.

It seems that I don't have to aim at the enemy, just get into range then select them as my target. It really does feel like a hybrid of Resident Evil's real time combat and Final Fantasy's active time battle system.

I survived the fight, but the actress escaped down a hole. It seems that Aya developed some powers herself mid-fight and got a green PE bar underneath the blue one, but I don't know what that's about yet.

Instead of charging in after her I decide to head back outside and chat with the cops, who turn out to be really helpful and give me a ton of ammo.


SOON.

Another locked door. Is every door in this place locked? I guess I'll find out because I've got to try them all.

Oh look, a cute little rat. Hey little guy how are you doing... oh shit, what the fuck is going on?

Damn, it went down in the first turn. I've gotta say, I was expecting more of a fight out of the evil mutated rat.

Wait, I'm fighting rats in a basement? This really is an rpg!

Hope those guys don't mind me looking through all their stuff. Not that there's anything even in here, except a bottle of medicine. It'd be nice if just one of these actors owned an assault rifle.

Weirdly the locker doors are still closed in the reflection... creepy.

Oh of course, the clown survives. Bloody clowns.

I let the guy live, hoping that he gets eaten by a mutant rat on his way out, then raid his lockers too.

Wow, it's a good job I searched this charred corpse for absolutely no reason, or else I'd have never found the key.

It doesn't help that it's hard to find the right place to stand to interact with stuff. I have to keep shuffling around and searching everywhere twice in case I missed something.

I use the phone to check in with hq (save the game) and then continue to hunt for the escaping actress.

This is definitely an rpg. I just got a level up for killing an evil parrot.

Crap. The actress (who I now know is called Melissa) has gone full Final Fantasy on me and has changed into a weird floating creature with double energy beams. And I totally fail to dodge them every time.

But that's okay, because I've figured out what power I got from fighting her the first time. I've got healing magic! It takes a massive chunk of my PE bar, but it recharges so that's okay too.

A few bullets later and she runs off again, yelling something about how mitochondria will soon be free.

Oh fantastic, I'm in a sewer. It's amazing to me just how many games have sewer levels. I suppose it's the closest thing to a dungeon in a modern city, but it's just not a pleasant place to be. Especially when there's fire breathing rats around.

These apparently random encounters take place on a separate battle screen, and play out a lot like every other fight so far. I dodge the enemies until the blue bar fills up, make a move, then dodge enemies again. 

Crap, I've filled up my inventory already? But I want to carry everything! Okay, this revive sounds useful, I'll take this and drop my old cop issue semi-automatic.

Oh, I found a new pistol in the sewers by the way. Doesn't make any sense, but hey I'm willing to go with it.

Sure is a good thing I went around the pointless walkway up those stairs and got a top down view of the area, or else I'd have never known this box was here.

It makes even less sense for there to be an offense +1 lying around in a chest in the sewers, because I don't have a clue what that even is. But I'll stick it on my gun away.

Wow, Melissa got away again. This time she didn't even bother to fight me, just sent this thing my way instead. I have no idea what this is mutated from (an alligator?), but I'm pretty sure it doesn't like me.

The game was nice enough to tell me that this guy has two targets to shoot at, the head and the tail, so I'm going for his tail. But first I need to get in range to shoot it...

Crap, he didn't appreciate me shooting holes in his tail, and now he's chasing me down and breathing fire! The strategy here seems simple enough; don't get hit by the fire breath.

I crawl victorious out of the sewers, only to find a new enemy waiting outside. The press.

Fortunately my partner has had enough of his inconsiderate interrogations, and lays the reporter out with a surprise right hook.

Hey, how did that guy survive anyway? Did Aya's power protect him too?

That's a pretty cool looking pan across Manhattan island. It even has reflections and a little helicopter flying past with a search light. Obviously it doesn't look that great today, but I still like it.

Anyway, that's the end of chapter 1, so I'll stop here.


My ridiculous rules prevent me from awarding it a 'gold star', because I just don't want to play it any further and I don't know why. It looks great for an original PlayStation game, it plays pretty well, the characters seem likeable, and it doesn't even have any terrible voice acting.

Awkward item hunting aside it seems like a fairy decent rpg, it just didn't capture my interest at all. I was ready to quit after ten minutes of it. So I'm moving on to the next game.