Parasite Eve (1998)

Beat 2 playthroughs, including the Chrysler building and optional super boss. I first heard about this game back in the early 2000s when I used to listen to video game radio online, and heard some great music from this game. I would have loved this game back in the day. I dived in blind and immediately sensed the inspiration from Resident Evil; the fixed camera angles and creepy atmosphere. They missed the classic door opening cutscenes and distinctive sound of doors being closed behind you. And there were no tank controls, which actually messed me up a little bit. The entire theater section was very well done and set a great horror vibe. This lessened a bit once I got into battle. I liked the battle system but the music did not fit. It was too subdued and happy, and really did not make me feel like I was in a life or death struggle. The battle system reminded me of Crisis Core. It was essentially the classic Final Fantasy active time battle with menus, but you were expected to move around in between your turns. She took more damage while standing still, had to stand still to attack, and enemies would still move around and attack during her turn. So there was quite a bit of nuance to the combat with positioning and timing, and some bullet hell elements. I used the club for the entire first day to conserve ammo, but ammo was a non issue. Many enemies dropped ammo and there was a lot of ammo to loot so I never felt that survival aspect of managing limited ammo. All guns except the rocket launcher used the same ammo, which I think hurt the survival and immersion. I got stuck twice in the beginning and had to check a walkthrough; once for finding the key and again for reading the diary. I did press X on those spots scouring for loot just like in a classic Resident Evil, but it just did not register. I had the same problem in the zoo with the key there. Apparently your position and facing needed to be just right and you could not also be pressing the run button. This was a huge flaw that should have been fixed in QA testing. Some of the later plot items had sparkles to show where to search and that should have been added to the rest of the game. Now that I knew how finicky the searching was, I did not have this problem again. I also missed several items in the gun store and pharmacy for this reason, though before the end I used a walkthrough to get everything I missed.

Speaking of the run button, the god awful movement speed was the worst aspect of the game. The basic walk was so slow that it should never have been programmed in. The Resident Evil characters moved faster than that while critically wounded! I have never liked the concept of having to press a second button to move at an acceptable speed, or in this case a slightly less unacceptable speed than the snail walk. You should move at maximum speed at all times. The game had location triggers for random battles so the slow movement speed served only to waste the player's time. It was not until day 5 that learned how to use tuning. Up until then I had been storing all excess gear and putting my bonus points into inventory, because why would I want to power up a gun that I will eventually replace? So the game was quite difficult and I barely scraped by the bosses. I looked up the purpose of junk, so I found out about the 300 junk ultimate weapons. I resolved to farm 1 but not use it until new game +. However, the crows were doing insane damage to me when I tried to use my steal club, and I actually died once. I put that on hold until later. At the hospital I switched out the M16 for the tranquilizer grenade launcher (must be tear gas?), and I really had to step up reloading after each battle, just like classic Resident Evil. I got game over on the roof after beating the boss when I had a stupid time limit to get to the corner window washing platform, which was not visible unless you went all the way over to it. I tried to go down the hole made by the boss and go back in the door. How the hell was I supposed to know what to do there? If there had been a checkpoint right after the boss then this would have been a barely passable dick move.

Then I went to the warehouse and the enemies jumped significantly in difficulty. So I decided to read up on tuning and start powering my gear up. I put first strike from the PPK on my tear gas launcher and was using the armor with auto potion. I only had so many tools so I only salvaged gear that had a good number of bonus points. I researched online to find out the best weapon and found conflicting opinions. The options were smg, pistol or rifle. Smg had the fastest firing rate but fewest mod slots, poor range and bad starting mods. Pistol had the most mod slots and 2nd fastest firing rate, but again poor range. Rifle had the best base stats but shot significantly slower. I decided on the smg camp and began dumping bonus points into range on my launcher, which was also one of its weaknesses (the others being slow shooting, slow reloading, and small clip). I beat the crab boss but ran out of healing items during the fight. Had to do some scumming to get out of that warehouse alive. Then I did the sewers. The samey tunnels there were a little annoying, but the enemies were much weaker than the warehouse. Damn I should have came here first. I knew the museum was the final dungeon and had a point of no return. I was also low on healing items, so I decided to kill 2 with 1 by farming the zoo for junk and healing. Used the steal club and now was taking 0 damage from the crows. I saved before turning in to try out the smg and rifle. It was tough to judge them without modding out the smg's 10 shot hit all and they performed about equally well. I stuck with the smg and put it in storage. I wanted to beat the game without an ultimate weapon.

I completed the museum and used all my rockets on the T Rex. I felt the auto potion on my armor was the crutch carrying me through boss fights; action economy. I used magic for haste, and sometimes barrier. I felt barrier was more economical than healing. I got both of the double command pistols and went past the point of no return, foolishly not keeping a backup save. This was just like Final Fantasy Tactics all over again. I was not prepared for Eve, though I could have toughed it out if I had a chance to fill up my inventory with healing from the stash. I tried several times but it was not happening; the launcher was too slow and caused me to get hit too often. I ended up using a tool to move the launcher's stats to the double command pistol, thereby losing first strike and tranquilizer. I first thought to move double command onto the launcher but no free slots. That pistol was enough to win. I used all my mana on liberate because that did a ton of easy damage, and I could time it to avoid an attack. Then came the final boss and I made sure to fill my inventory with the best healing items. The fight was not difficult at all, with liberal use of liberate. However the chase sequence afterwards was a different story. I tried to save at the phone but the creature caught up and game over. Watch the cutscenes and fight the final boss again. Then the camera angle change messed me up and I accidentally went the wrong way. Game over, watch the cutscenes and fight the final boss again. Then I got to the boiler room and it said to escape via the ladder. So I went the way I came in. No, can't go that way. Wtf? What other ladder is there? Oh there it is, ship explodes game over watch the cutscenes and fight the final boss again. For fuck sakes.

On to new game +, I rushed through everything and tricked out my sweet P90 with 2X shot, double command, 1st strike, burst and acid. I went to the point of no return then started the Chrysler building. It was a tedious process but not challenging at all until floor 50+. I was still using that early armor with auto potion, so my defensive stats were low. I started pumping bonus points onto the armor to mitigate, though I did die to a mimic and twice to the crab boss. Revives prevented any progress loss. Floors 61+ were challenging because the mimics and wolf men were hitting me for 200 to 300. I could kill mimics in 2 turns and I started using barrier to avoid damage. I also put counterattack on my gun, which helped occasionally. I did not have trouble navigating the floors by holding a map in my head. From 61 to 67 I drew maps because I back tracked out after getting the ultimate armor. From then on I put all my points into attack. Then I decided to grind xp and junk on floor 61, and was dismayed to find the floor layouts changed with each visit so my maps were now useless. Random layouts per game would make sense. Randomly changing layouts between visits did not make sense at all. I spent a few hours grinding to level 38 and another 300 junk to get the ak47 (lucky first try too). By now I had infinite super tools and had my weapon and armor as good as they could be. I switched acid for cyanide, which helped the grinding significantly because the enemies were very susceptible to instant death. Also got crit up and triple command. The ak could take both acid and cyanide but was significantly less effective due to the much slower shooting. Confirmed, smg was the best weapon type. I went to floor 70 and beat that boss without trouble. I did have to heal a few times. Then I beat the optional super boss. It was not difficult. I had to heal a couple times and burned her down in only a couple minutes. I read the strategy afterwards, particularly the part about not attacking to avoid revenge healing. But I did not even notice that during the fight. I was hitting for over 400 damage per shot, with 6 shots going out in 1 or 2 seconds, and my ATB bar filling back up another 2 or 3 seconds later for another attack. I shredded her. My final stats were:

Level 53

P90: 535 attack, 163 range, 286 clip. Armor: 291 defense, 277 energy defense, 145 crit defense. All mods.

I really enjoyed this game and could definitely sense the FF7 influence; Barrett and gender bent Cloud as detective partners going up against Hojo and Jenova. The core concept of a lifeform hidden inside us that suddenly vied for control was extremely interesting, though the actual science in game was off the wall. Maybe I could believe the spontaneous combustion and healing/haste magic, but not the Resident Evil level of instantaneous creation of biomass from nothing. I could see animals mutating into the monsters over months of feeding and growing, but not violating the laws of physics. It would have made more sense for this to have been a zombie apocalypse situation, with the mitochondria directly taking over the bodies. The game had great characters, setting, atmosphere, story and gameplay, minus the problems with movement speed, insta fail, and lack of direction. I would have liked to see more realism and survival mechanics, like limited supplies, and black magic in the way of direct elemental attacks or making grenades/launchers a special attack. Would love to see more of this style of game, not necessarily the same franchise. I was getting some Shin Megami Tensei vibes too. A game in that setting with this gameplay would be awesome.

8.3/10

I’ve been choosing some gems to play lately and I’m going to fully embracing my luck with these picks while it lasts.

I’ve been meaning to dip more into retro games I was too young to either play or appreciate back when they were originally released. I was always intrigued about the Parasite Eve series, seeing it often cited on “greatest horror games of all time” lists, along with reading at some length about its cult following. Anyway, this game is exactly what the doctor ordered.

The graphics and general esthetic fill me with a warm and fuzzy nostalgia for a time I wasn’t even fully sentient during. Also, just from the couple of hours I’ve sunk in so far, the writing’s great, articulating just enough character and plot solely through text dialogue, the limited tech being in no way a hinderance. And the cut scenes still 100% hold up as the freaky gore-fests they were intended to be.

My only real issue is my mounting anxiety playing an older game where one false move means repeating whole chunks of game from the last place I saved, or making a dire mistake with inventory management. What if I waste or dispose of the wrong items, or miss the rooms with pivotal loot?! I truly am spoiled by modern gaming. I’m persevering however, and this very anxiety is only adding a refreshing edge of fun that I’m not accustom to.