As we get closer to the launch of the Playstation 5 I keep thinking more about where it all started with the original Playstation. With this new series I'll be replaying and reevaluating some of my favourite PSone games (and a few I never got round to trying the first time around.)
The Video
Parasite Eve
- Published by SquareSoft (now Square Enix)
- Initially released for the PSone on the 29th March 1998
- It is a direct sequel to the novel "Parasite Eve" by Hideaki Sena originally published in 1995
- The novel was also adapted into a Movie in 1997.
- There were two sequels to the game, Parasite Eve 2 also on the PSone and The 3rd Birthday released on the PSP (Playstation Portable)
- The game was never released in the UK, though the sequels were. Making this the first time I actually got to play the original.
The game is split into six days. Here is Day One edited down to approx 25mins, to get an idea of the story, visuals and battle system
The Film
The Game
When trying to describe something a little different we tend to link it to something we know, in which case Parasite Eve is a cross between the PSone era of Resident Evil and Final Fantasy with a side helping of John Carpenter's The Thing.
The word you will see most often throughout this game, it's prequels and sequels is Mitochondria. Everything in the story centres around these organisms. So what are they?
The Mitochondrion is a semi autonomous double-membrane-bound organelle found in most eukaryotic organisms... Mitochondria generate most of the cell's supply of Adenosine Triphosphate used as a source of chemical energy. A Mitochondrion is thus termed the powerhouse of the cell. - Wikipedia.org
There, I'm glad that's cleared that up.
The story goes along with the idea of this Mitochondria evolving, gaining it's own identity and using it's power within cells to control, manipulate and mutate. It's interesting, completely bonkers and a great set up for a video game.
The fight system reminds me a little of Vagrant story (also by Squaresoft as they were known back in the PSone days) It's turn based but you can move around the screen while you wait your next move.
There is a huge array of guns to get hold of, each with their own power & range attributes. You can mod them with extra abilities like more shots per turn, or even doubling up turns so you can for example heal and shoot at an enemy at the same time.
Once you gain an item called a TOOL you can take attributes from one weapon (sacrificing the weapon in the process) and apply them to another.
As you level up your character you also start to learn PE powers you can use in battle, though you have to be wary, the more you use the slower the PE bar is to fill back up. There is everything you'd expect like barrier, haste, detox and heal etc, with a few more interesting ones thrown at you towards the end.
There is a lot of scope for experimentation and customisation in the game making it a lot of fun as you progress and steadily become more powerful.
Replay
Once you've completed the game you can go through the whole thing again with all your powered up weapons from the first run and heaps of bonus points, the beasties are also harder to kill. On top of that you get a bonus dungeon you can access at any time with over 70 floors. It's a bit of a ball ache, but you get the best weapons within it's walls and it's the only way to access the secret boss and witness the true "Good Ending". So there is reason to go back. The first play through took me about 10 hours which isn't bad for a game of this type.
Delving deeper
As mentioned above there is more to see then this one game:
The Novel written by Hideaki Sena
The story is much slower paced then the game and very science term heavy. This dude likes to put in the tiniest of details. If you want to pick up a physical copy it is going for ridiculous amounts, a quick glance on Amazon Marketplace sees some copies going for over £200! However, it's only about £6 on Kindle and well worth the price.
If reading the heavy prequel seems like too much work, there's always the movie that came out in 1997. It's pretty hard to get hold of on DVD now, but fear not as the whole movie is on Youtube. It's not bad at all, with a dream like feel and atmospheric soundtrack, interesting effects and great camera work throughout. The first half is slow and quite suspenseful, but it gets suitably wacky in the second half.
Final Thoughts - I've enjoyed jumping deep down the rabbit hole that is Parasite Eve. The game was fun enough that I played through again in EX mode and attempted the extra 77 floor dungeon. And the story was curious enough for me to delve into the movie and novel after, to gain a better idea of the backstory only briefly mentioned in the games run. I am left in the end with the feeling that if any game deserves a full modern remake like FFVII, it's Parasite Eve. I can't recommend the game enough.
Until next time, be seeing you x
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