Parasite Eve review
A review thingy by Sunie
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A popular drink in the Netherlands, Rivella, has a peculiar tagline that can be freely translated to “A little bit weird, but still tasty”. Having played Parasite Eve on PSX for the #videogameclub on Mastodon, I can safely say that applies to Squaresoft's 1998 title as well!
What if your mitochondria (yes yes, the powerhouse of the cell, sit down...) have a will of their own? This is what author Hideaki Sena took as a basis for the original Parasite Eve novel. Mitochondria, being multi-celled organisms, are portrayed as being fed up with serving mankind and seek to evolve beyond humanity. They possess the power to mutate their host and manipulate the mitochondria in others, causing people to (among other things) spontaneously combust. It's portrayed as similar to how parasites can manipulate a host, and having that apply to humans takes actual science to a horrific extreme. The game picks up after the events of the original novel, which is only tangentially referenced in its backstory.
When rookie cop Aya Brea takes her date to the opera, she's witness to a new breakout of the rogue Mitochondria depicted in the source material. The diva on stage, upon starting her solo, sets her co-stars and the audience on fire. Aya is entirely unharmed as her nascent cop instincts kick in, training her gun on the entity now naming itself 'Eve'. The mystery only grows further as Aya develops powers of her own as the mutated New York fauna bar her quest to take down Eve and save humanity from going the path of the Neanderthal.
The story is on a real rollercoaster ride from the word 'go' and provides a brisk but engaging narrative over six chapters spanning ten-ish hours. What stood out to me is that the game's supporting cast is surprisingly fleshed out despite the fairly spartan exposition they all get. Daniel, Aya's partner on the force, stands out in particular. Where Aya's narrative provides the mystery (where does Eve come from, why is she connected to Aya, etc.) Daniel humanizes the stakes as he tries to protect his wife and son from Eve's purge. Even the other cast members shine through strong characterizations that aren't bogged down by over-exposition or long-winded dialog and managed to all stick in my mind after the credits had rolled.
It should come as no surprise that a game about mutation and evolution tries to apply those same principles to its gameplay. Parasite Eve marries tried and true JRPG mechanics with a dash of Survival Horror. I can't say the two have mutated into a true evolution of their respective genres, but the experiment was certainly successful enough for some of its ideas to survive.
Firstly, the Survival Horror aspect, which I feel comes most in play in its presentation. Not that Squaresoft is any stranger to polygonal characters on prerendered backgrounds, but there's something about its camera angles, atmosphere and the hideously deformed monsters that's giving more Jill Valentine than Tifa Lockhart. The FMV cutscenes that grotesquely portray the flash mutation of common animals are memorable in both art and sound design, full of fleshy squelches as limbs rip and tear into distorted positions. Fans of body horror will find plenty to shudder uncomfortably at here.
The JRPG side of things flaunts its stats-driven nature. Aya improves with every level, allowing the player to sink bonus points into certain stats as well as equipment, which can be further improved by feeding bonuses and traits into your favorite piece of kit. Combat is real-time with pause, where attacks project a sphere of influence akin to what we'd later see in Vagrant Story. Everything inside the sphere takes full damage from Aya's weapons, whereas outside the damage is drastically reduced. Positioning, therefore, is of the utmost importance. The weapon mod system shines, allowing the player to mold their own ultimate equipment based on their own playstyle rather than railroading you into one specific final weapon.
The aspects where the two sides meet end up oddly mutated. The limited inventory that adds tension in a survival horror game is downplayed by the ability to increase it by putting extra points into it, as well as allowing a stack of over 1000 bullets that work across nearly all weapons. Most of Aya's stats increase rigidly, each gaining a point with every level without giving the player any say in the matter, to the point where one wonders why they bother displaying those stats at all. A lot of Parasite Eve's systems end up feeling vestigial, a relic of either genre that struggles to fit its new form.
All that said, I do genuinely feel that those criticisms only truly surface when you try to shove the game into one box or the other. As soon as you take Parasite Eve for what it is, rather than what you expect from it, the game comfortably nestles into doing its own thing. So much so that it's honestly a shame that Parasite Eve 2 leaned even more into survival horror and 3rd Birthday did...whatever 3rd Birthday ended up doing. We never did get to see Parasite Eve's Ultimate Form, which is a shame. It makes me wonder if the game's design fell victim to being a hybrid of two of the era's most popular genres, and that neither marketing, nor the games media, nor the fans truly understood what it was trying to do. Of course the game has its core audience that can appreciate it for what it is, something I can call myself a part of now.
Parasite Eve is something special, and it's definitely a fun ride. Shame we never saw it fully mature.