Parasite Eve Review

STORY

Like i said above, this story is a bit confusing. Not as much as say "Xenogears", but i got lost a few times here. The game takes place in New York City, modern-day New york City at that. It all goes down on Christmas eve 1997. You take the role of Aya Brea, an NYPD officer who tries to find out the mystery of a strange woman called "Eve" who has been terrorizing the city. Her body has been taken over by her Mitochondria (get used to this word, you'll be seeing it a lot), and she has the power to turn people into flames, mutate animals, and is pretty good at it too. Aya somehow is the only person immune to Eve's powers. So, Aya, her partner Daniel and a sciencetist try to figure out what's going on. Join them won't you?

Score: 6/10

SOUND/MUSIC

This game has just a magificent score, just like the Resident Evil games, the music/sounds fit the situation perfectly, and can really freak you out too. And that's really all you can ask for isn't it? The sound effects are nice, but nothing above average. Also, can we get some voice overs please??? Man, that would've been money, if they could've just added some voice acting. Not gonna hold that against the overall score though.

Score: 7.5/10

GRAPHICS

This game sported some of the best graphics on playstation at the time it was released ('97), and to this day it's among the best. I honestly can't tell a real difference between these graphics and the one's in final fantasy 8. Call me crazy, but where is it? The CG is also amazing, and i just wish there was more of it. The character designs are brilliant, same goes for the beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds. Overall it just doesn't get any better than this as far as graphics go.

Score: 10/10

GAMEPLAY

The main part of the gameplay to this game is the weapon & armor upgrade system. Doing this is very important inorder to complete this difficult game. To bad this system is a bit complex, and it takes awhile to get used to. It was hard getting used to, but when you do get a hang of it, it's well worth it. I had my final gun's prepped up nice and tight, and it makes you feel good that you did it yourself (most of us anyway). The battle system is pretty sweet too, you can move around freely (for the most part) and position yourself for a nice attack when your time gauge fills. A nice size of strategy is needed for a lot of battles with this sytem, especially the boss fights, which can be very difficult.

Score: 7.5/10

REPLAY

There actually is some replay value to this game, maybe even enough to play through the game again. If you save the game after you beat it the first time around, you can start up a new game called the "EX" mode. This mode is the same game over but more difficult (dear lord help us), also new weapons & new items. But the main part of this extra mode is a new location called the "Chrysler Building", here you need to go up 50 floors (every 10 floors a boss mind you) and after you get to the top and defeat the last boss, you'll receive the "true" ending, which from what i hear is well worth it. I personally don't think i could play through this game again.

Score: 7/10

Overall

This game brought more to the table than i had suspected at first, and even took a little while to get into. But when i did, i was enjoying myself very much. not a classic, or even a great game, but worth a rental for anybody that owns a playstation.

Favorite Character: Aya, not much to choose from here.

Least Favorite Character: Ben, what an annoying kid.

Favorite Part of the Game: Every time i saw a CG, just unbelieveable.

Time to Complete Game: An extremely short 10 hours 39 minutes and 56 seconds (i checked my memory card).

Final Score: 7/10

~Philip Burns