Parasite Eve II - Retroview

Review Breakdown
Battle System	2
Interaction	2
Originality	2
Story	2
Music & Sound	2
Visuals	4
Challenge	Medium
Completion Time	6-10 Hours
Overall
Yep.

   In 1998, Squaresoft released the short, cinematic RPG Parasite Eve, based on a Japanese novel by Hideaki Sena. The year 2000, being an extremely productive year for everyone’s favorite shapely corporation, saw the release of many games, including its sequel, Parasite Eve II, which features innumerable changes over the original. Unfortunately, none of these changes makes the game any more enjoyable than the original.

   A bulk of these changes, first, can be found in the battle system. Gone is the Active Time element borrowed from the Final Fantasy games, replaced with completely real-time combat. Aya has a variety of weapons to choose from, most requiring their own unique bullets. Battles begin when she encounters monsters in a certain room, and she must then target a monster to shoot, accomplished by pressing Square, and then fire, done with the R1 button. When her current round expires, pressing R1 again reloads her weapon (unless she’s out of bullets, which will happen frequently throughout the game); Aya also has a short-ranged club, which comes in handy when enemies are impervious to bullets. Furthermore, Aya no longer has access to her main inventory of items during battles, and must instead equip items to her armor. This can be especially troublesome when she runs out of healing items or doesn’t have another weapon equipped to her belt (namely when she’s out of bullets and you want her to use her club or another weapon with different bullets), although in regular battles, she can escape by entering another room (which comes at the cost of a small amount of Bonus Points and MP). Aya once again has magic, accessed by pressing Triangle, opening up her ring of spells, which are recovered and built up to level three with experience acquired after battle (gained alongside recovered MP and Bonus Points, which I’ll get to later). Unfortunately, enemies can cancel out Aya’s magic casting (and reloading, as well) by attacking her, forcing her to do it again (though thankfully, no MP is wasted). What truly severed combat for me, though, was the horrible system of 3-D movement, found in such games as Onimusha and Silent Hill. It wouldn’t have been too bad, though, if Aya weren’t slow as a snail when moving backwards.

   Interaction isn’t any better, either. As I said, Parasite Eve II adopts an annoying system of 3-D movement, where she moves forward by pressing up and backwards (very slowly), by pressing down, turning when left or right are pressed. It would’ve been nice if the game let you choose between 3-D and 2-D movement like in the Silent Hills, but unfortunately, you can’t, and navigation is tedious as a result, especially in battle. As for the menus, they weren’t too bad, and this time around, Aya has a map to show where she is in an area. Unfortunately, the main item inventory is capped at twenty items (with no room for expansion this time around), although there are storage containers where Aya can dispose of her excess items; sadly, they aren’t magically linked like the containers in the Resident Evils. As for those Bonus Points I mentioned, the game has a few shops where you can purchase weapons, ammunition, armor, and other goodies, and there are a few occasional ammunition boxes lying about containing unlimited bullets of certain types for Aya’s firearm necessities.

   As far as creativity goes, Parasite Eve II tries too hard to be like survival horror games in the ranks of the Resident Evils, and fails in that respect. The heroine is the same as in the first Parasite Eve, at that. Still, the experience system of recovering magic and building up spell levels was mildly original (though I’m certain such a feature has been in past RPGs).

   As for the story, Parasite Eve II takes place three years after its predecessor, with heroine Aya Brea now living in Los Angeles and working for a group called MIST, specially dedicated towards investigating the very mitochondrion creatures that terrorized New York during Christmastime back in 1997. Evidently, a few of these creatures followed Ms. Brea on her trip to L.A., since now they make a return, especially in a small town in nearby rural Nevada. Once again, Aya must stop these creatures and save mankind from extinction, solving the mystery of an armored man named No. 9 along the way. In my opinion, the game’s writer (or writers) could’ve done much better than this. In another example, the instruction book mentions Aya sealing away her Parasite Powers, and how she must unseal them again. While the game does have a few interesting moments (many are predictable as the tides), the story is mostly flash with little substance.

Kind of makes you want a Coke...almost.

   Like its predecessor, Parasite Eve II doesn’t offer much in the music department, with only a few tunes, none of which are at all memorable. There’s also some voice acting, though only about thirty seconds’ worth, also unmemorable (with the exception of No. 9’s humorous swearing). The sound effects, though, were excellent as they were in the original game, from the pitter-patter of Aya’s footsteps to her firearm barrages.

   Only visually is Parasite Eve II any good, excellent, in fact. In fact, the game could very easily pass for an early Playstation 2 title. As with its predecessor, quite a few FMVs are included, along with realistic environments. The sprites are decent, too, being tall, detailed, and proportionate, although they, along with the monsters, contain some degree of pixilation and shakiness.

   Finally, the game is of moderate difficulty (though it took me about ten tries to defeat No. 9 in the Akropolis Tower), and is short like its predecessor, taking from six to ten hours to complete.

   In conclusion, the second, and evidently the last, Parasite Eve, is disappointing, hardly Squaresoft’s answer to the Resident Evils. It contains many flaws, especially the horrid movement system, making it too difficult to enjoy. Survival horror games, in my opinion, should be left to the likes of Capcom and Konami; in the meantime, Square-Enix, methinks, should just steer clear of that territory.