Original Publication Date: 1/04/2024

Parasite Eve

I feel if any genre had the greatest amount of experimentation during the PS1 era, I’d say RPGs would rank pretty highly on that list. Games like Final Fantasy VII that changed the game for everyone, unique takes like Suikoden, or avant-garde classics such as Vagrant Story. But of all the ones I played that just struck me with how… simply different it was without a doubt Parasite Eve. A modern-day, modern-styled RPG, Parasite Eve doesn’t excel at everything it does, but the leaps it made in visuals, it’s experimental nature as a ‘movie as a game’ and it’s totally unique gameplay style, I think this game is greater then the sum of its part, and one of the defining pillars of the unique nature of RPGS on the PS1.

I’m a huge film guy, so instantly, Parasite Eve instantly struck a chord with me. Far and away the most distinctive element of Parasite Eve is its general aesthetics and overall look and vibe, which has frequently been compared to that of film. Parasite Eve feels to me as the very first ‘Movie-RPG’, a sci-fi, criminal thriller that feels far more cinematic-minded than anything else Square was throwing around at the time. Taking place in the last week of 1997, Aya Brea, a rookie cop, finds herself the sole survivor of an opera massacre, where an entire building of people seemingly self-immolated on the spot. Chasing the only other person not to erupt in flame, Aya becomes embroiled with ‘Eve’, a human whose entire body has been taken over by the mitochondria of her cells, and granting her the ability to control other individuals mitochondria, mutating them into horrific monstrosities Aya will inevitably clash with.

Let me be clear; Parasite Eve is weird. Really, really weird. This is a game that rejects the normal convection of RPGs, having more in common with survival horror at times. Despite its heavily scientific, horror-laced story, the banter between the major trio of Aya, and her two allies Daniels and Maeda, frequently, fantastically devolves into an almost manzai-style comedy, with all three of these very different individuals bouncing off each other wonderfully well. I can attest, every time Daniels appears on screen, something entertaining is going to happen. And despite the fact that Eve herself is a creature that could perfectly exist in the more traditional RPG worlds Square was putting out at the time, she, along with most bosses, are kind of the outlier. The vast majority of ‘random encounter’ enemies aren’t truly sci-fi or fantastical in nature; they’re just normal animals, utterly twisted and forcefully evolved into genuine monstrosities. Seriously, the stuff that happened to Sheeva the dog (oh yeah, warning for dog death stuff) put my teeth on edge every time I saw it - really good, yet ghastly stuff. Well, there’s also walking dinosaurs… in a way that somehow makes sense. Trust me, they actually justify Aya fighting a living dinosaur with a gun. As a side note, a lot of the wording and pace of the dialogue felt really off at times, not to the point where I couldn’t follow what was going on, but kind of felt… unclear at times, I suppose? It’s not surprising, considering the amount of scientific jargon on display here, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Parasite Eve was another victim endemic to PS1 Square games - weird, unfaithful translations that, whilst good in their own right, fail to capture the subtleties of the original dialogue. Again, not anything awful, just something to be aware of.

Now, what *most* people think of when Parasite Eve comes up is in fact it’s inventive and overall unique (at least for the time) battle system. Whilst it utilizes an Active Time Battle system endemic to Square’s titles back then - most notably in the SNES era Final Fantasy titles - Parasite Eve doesn’t root you in place as you wait for your turn, just ready to be slapped in the face by whatever monstrosities Aya stumbles upon. Whilst you can only attack, use items, or utilize Aya’s Parasite abilities, once your ATB bar has filled up, you can constantly be moving, giving you the ability to dodge and weave between foes and their attacks alike, maneuvering yourself into the optimal position for when you actually fire your weapon. This is important, as when attacking with your gun (but not when consuming an item or using a Parasite ability), Aya is rooted in place, so you’d want to try and move yourself in a position that’ll hopefully keep you out of damage during that firing session. It’s a fantastic base for a battle system, and whilst there aren’t too many moving parts at the end of the day, it’s got a sense of fluidity and constantly keeps your attention on the game, a far cry from more traditional RPGs that, as much as I love them, can make my focus wander from time to time.

The battle system, whilst unique and utterly different from anything else at the time, is fun to engage with, if you go the extra mile, grinding for the best weapons or tackling the game’s greatest post-game challenge, it does eventually grow more than a little bit stale. Whilst the pace and active-nature of the battles never fall away, remaining engaging as always, there’s only so much variety in Aya’s movesets. Fire gun. Use Parasite abilities to heal or attack. That’s… pretty much it, honestly, and whilst it’s not too bad if you’re just playing the main game, across nine or so hours, that staleness isn’t going to creep up on you quite as much, but anything more and the cracks begin to show, at least for me, anyway.

Beyond the battle system, Parasite Eve does still lean into its RPG roots. After each battle, Aya will gain EXP, which upon leveling will raise her stats, unlock new Parasite Abilities (basically spells, with PP standing in for mana), but more interestingly, provide you with Bonus Points. Bonus Points are the most fluid part of Parasite Eve’s RPG elements. BP is earned only when leveling up, or completing a chapter, but the amount of BP you gain is based on the kind of enemy you’ve killed, so farming certain creatures is the way to optimize your BP. Basically, you can use BP in four ways; you can apply them directly to Aya, speeding up the rate her ATB bar charges, or increasing the size of her inventory. These two are more relevant in the early game, boosting these up so as to not make your experience miserable. Later, your BP is better spent on your chosen pieces of equipment, increasing the attack rating of your guns, or the defense rating of your armour. Building up an endgame-worthy piece of equipment is it’s own can of worms, but it’s a basic enough system to understand, and if you ever struggling in any particular field, you can throw some points into your gear to give you a greater edge, and by the endgame, I expect you’ll be dumping a LOT of BP into your defense to even stand a chance of taking down the post game bosses.

With the game’s unique nature as a contemporary RPG, but also still following some of the tenets endemic to Square games, Parasite Eve features its own brand of ‘traditional’ dungeon-like locales.. Of course, instead of navigating caves and literal dungeons, these sections of the game take place in hospital buildings, outdoor parks, and towering skyscrapers, with the odd sewer to keep up an RPGs ‘grunge’ factor. Sure, there’s been plenty of games to do it since then, titles like The World Ends With You, but Parasite Eve feels so grounded despite some of the genuinely mad things going on, that just exploring these everyday locales is just so quaint and curious.

It’s only once you finish up Parasite Eve, and leap into its equivalent of NG+, titled EX Mode, that the game loses most of its luster, especially in its progression. Y’see, I kind of hate the way you improve weapons. Rather than having weapons that are objectively better then everything else, the way to build a gun to handle the game’s toughest challenges are a bit more complicated. In addition to using BP to directly upgrade your weapons, using Tools, you can carry over the stats provided by BP from one piece of equipment to another, letting you jump from weapon to weapon without losing any development you’ve invested. Additionally, you can use Tools to move perks from weapons, but you’ll have to use a Super Tool to get both. It’s… not ideal, at least for me.

I just hate having to keep track of all the guns I’m picking up, making sure I move this perk from here to there. To make matters more annoying, arguably the best weapons from the game are obtained by delivering 300 pieces of Junk - a drop from certain enemies - to Wayne in the police station. Whilst there are certain enemies that drop this essentially 100% of the time, the way this game handles spawning can make farming these out nothing short of ghastly. Even utilizing some tricks, it took me *hours* to wrap up my farming for these weapons. Insanity. But what’s the goal in building up these godly weapons? The major drawing point of EX Mode is the Chrysler Building, a 77-floor, randomly generated dungeon, filled to the brim with the best gear, but also strongest monsters along with a secret ending. Sounds good, right? Well, not so much.

Firstly, randomly generated floors suck, turning the entire post-game into the same handful of screens again and again, wandering its identical hallways until you find the stairs. Secondly, continuing on the difficulty curve set by the end of the main game, the boss fights only get stronger, and unless you’ve thrown a *lot* of BP stats into your weapon and armor, you are going to struggle, hard. I’m not going to lie… I used save states to push through the last two bosses, because I just didn’t have it in me to climb back ten floors of the Chrysler Building, grind, then climb it all over again. Mechanics get more frustrating, damage values go through the roof, and it all culminates in a secret ending (following a pretty decent final secret boss, I won’t lie) that does… nothing to really make it all worth it. The Chrysler Building is cool enough if you just want to spend more time with Parasite Eve’s unique combat, but the sheer mundanity of the endgame, plus with just how unintuitive reaching the higher tiers of power is, only give it a shot if you’re really, really invested in seeing that ‘true’ ending, and are willing to farm out the stats and whatnot to give yourself a fighting chance.

Whilst the version of Parasite Eve I played did have a bit of a resolution boost due to *ahem* reasons, no matter how you play it, this is one of the most aesthetically pleasing, visually awe-inspiring games on the PS1. With its horrific settings, and reliance on fixed camera angles, it almost feels like the sibling of a classic Resident Evil title. Whilst the vibes are king, with the lonely locales and horrific haunts that make up the dungeons of this feeling amazing to just exist in, enough praise can’t be heaped on the genuinely fantastic character and enemy models. Sure, we’re still in the era where actually *emoting* is something beyond them, but the models are clear enough that almost, just almost, you can almost believe they are. Quickly going back to the fixed camera angles, they’re an element that I think is sorely lacking from more directed, focussed titles like this; there was a moment in the hospital segment of the game, where I stepped down a hallway which ends in a window, providing me with a stunning look of the New York cityscape. There’s no items, nothing plot relevant here - nothing but a gorgeous view. It’s weird, but this moment stuck out to me as something unique - something pointless, yet beautiful. I love stuff like that in games, and Parasite Eve has a *ton* of little moments like these.

The big issue with the game’s pre-rendered, fixed camera angle style is that it can occasionally be very difficult - and very frustrating - to find interactable objects, or items, and there were two or three moments in these sections where I was just wandering, trying to work out what the hell I was missing. Additionally, the fixed angles made it really difficult for me to create a natural mental map of the locations, especially in the cases of Central Park, or the frustratingly designed post-game zone, The Chrysler Building. It’s not the end of the world, as the zones aren’t too large as to get indefinitely lost in - sans the Chrysler Building, and the grid-based layout of the Chinatown which can lead you into literally walking in circles if you don’t grasp its general nature. The dungeons aesthetics and vibes are enough to pull me through, and on future playthroughs, are simple enough that navigating them can be a snap, with only the first playthrough posing difficulties.

And, of course, I’d be remiss to not mention Yoko Shimomura’s godly soundtrack - fitting, as she is genuinely one of the goddesses of JRPG titles, nay, video games in general. Quirky, eerie, some incredible orchestral themes, Parasite Eve seems to know exactly what’s needed where and when, and does some incredible heavy lifting in regards to giving the game its film-like quality. Hats off, Shimomura; any time Eve’s theme kicked in, my heart raced. Fantastic stuff. It’s just a shame the game was before the advent of frequent voice acting, since a lot of the key, killer moments in the game are stonewalled, ever so slightly, by its lack of voice acting, especially in regards to the game’s iconic orchestral opening sequence.

Parasite Eve is a standard bearer in the more experimental, transient period in Square’s history; the time when one could argue was the peak of the company, before their stagnation after the merger. Not everything about Parasite Eve is perfect, especially for those seeking to stick their noses in every corner of its world, but for the more average player, it’s a delight. With its eerie, starkly film-like quality, unique and engaging combat and one of the best RPG scores on the console, Parasite Eve deserves a play, just for how unlike it is from anything else being made at the time. The PlayStation was one of the most innovative consoles of all time, and I think there’s few games that drive that point home more than Parasite Eve.