Years ago, I played Parasite Eve for Playstation 1. Not for the goddamn Final Fantasy VII demo disc, but because it was an AMAZING game! Many that have played it will be are in full agreement with on this. What if I were to tell you that, it’s sequel; which was considered it’s red-headed step child was BETTER than the original.

Oh yeah! It’s my opinion, but I don’t give a shit. It is and always will be, to me, BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL.

As a brief summary without spoiling anything about both games. You play as a NYPD lady-cop named Aya, who is a member of the audience at Carnegie Hall for a performance of Hamlet. Needless to say, she ends up witnessing a huge massacre that occurs during the performance. Being an officer of the law, she springs into pursuit of the suspect whom has genetic superpowers.

(Best of all, the way they explain later, actually makes it feel like it could REALLY happen; if we evolved in some way. All I can say is… BIOLOGY)

Oddly enough, Aya ends up realizing she has these powers as well and that they can help her in fighting the monsters that manifest from the person she is chasing. In the end, you catch the bad guy.

Considering that I’m going to be focusing on the sequel to this game, it’s kind of obvious that the main character is Aya.

Spoiler!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!……………………………………………she survives.

This time, she’s a hotshot FBI agent, due to her special powers and from her experiences with the incidents that happened in New York years before. Obviously, shit goes down and she’s sent in. Things get hairy and from what happens in the events in the beginning, ultimately leads her to the Mojave Desert. From there, the story unfold slowly from a boring search of a dilapidated hotel to a huge-ass can of worms, which I prefer not to spoil!

Gameplay-wise both Parasite Eve and PE2 have COMPLETELY different gameplay styles. Which was one of the MAJOR reasons it got hated on. The first plays like a turn-based RPG, where you perform attacks the wait until the time meter refills, then you can attack. It featured a wide arsenal of weapons and magic abilities, but limited itself to very simple aesthetics.

Parasite Eve’s gameplay

Parasite Eve 2 takes a different twist on the same gameplay, by completely removing turned-based actions with real-time combat. (Which feels pretty similar to Resident Evil 1 and 2)

Here is the a quick demo of the PE2’s combat.

All attacks are based on supplies, your gear, how you react, move and use area of effect abilities. Firearms take a primary focus this time around and tend to be meat of your offense. (Magic being the potatoes!) Guns look and fire like they should and enemies react differently depending on where/when you hit them! Being a bit of “gun nut”, I’ll explain. Aya’s starting weapon is a Beretta M-93R, which uses a burst fire and double action toggle. Which in Layman terms means it’ll shoot three bullets really fast with the squeeze of the trigger or just one if selected. Which is an accurate depiction of the real world gun. For a PLAYSTATION ONE game, this is a great for gun lovers.

Just to name a few: Sig Sauer P-226, Spas-12, USAS-12, M249-SAW, M4A1 (With a shit-ton of attachment options available), Colt Anaconda, Luger P-08 and whole lot more. To add on to that, many of the gun classes take various ammunition, which have elemental and piercing abilities. Also note, this was the first game that really featured a few of these guns!! (Way before CoD, Battlefield and every damn military game out there did it!)

I digress, just remember you get arsenal, because you NEED an arsenal for this!

Fans of the previous game will know that you magic-like powers to use to also dispatch of those baddies. Sadly, a lot of fans were turned off by the fact that the abilities seemed thinned-out. They were, but I gotta say there aren’t any real “filler spells” unlike, almost every other RPG. I mean, how many spells do you need to cure a status ailment, heal a person or buff a character, NOT MANY; yet fans know there are WAYYYYY to many. Parasite Eve 2 simplifies that and still lets you upgrade the spells you get; which you can visibly see them change with each level.

Story-wise it takes a little bit to pick-up. But when it does, it’ll explain just about everything. All I can say is, enjoy the combat, search your rooms, as if you were a real FBI agent and you’ll enjoy this game!!!

The combat always stayed fresh and fun throughout the course of the game. Sometimes you have the space to move, other times you’ve got nowhere to go and it put in some “kill or be killed” situations. Which makes this more of a survival horror blend, than a true RPG.

Enemies are also some of the most diverse and disturbing you’ll see…period. Monster are some different that you’ll be thinking.

Some are like………….

Others are like…

Then there are ones that are…

My recommendation, if you haven’t played Parasite Eve (the original) START THERE. That way you get a full grasp of the story AND experience one badass game. Then come back to THIS, just remember the combat is the difference between NIGHT and DAY!! Hope you ENJOY IT!!

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