After completing PE1 the natural order of things is to play the next PE2 impressed by the mixing of RPG elements with survival and a tiny bit of horror that was PE1 well now it's time to mini review PE2 how good is it? Does it improve upon the original parasite eve? Let's find out....
Intro: the intro is first thing you see when you boot up the game and is your first look into the game so how does the intro hold up? The intro of course uses a theme similar to the one in the original game intro let's refer to this intro theme as "PE theme" expect it's not as good or well made as the OG the intro mixes both FMV and gameplay footages which doesn't make a good intro, 1intro made it look like a thriller movie by presenting to you shots of all FMVs present in the game , there is no foreshadowing of words like 1 intro using words like "liberation" "conception" "evolution" instead what you get is counting the characters One thing that 1 does was presenting with a final sentence about the enemy being from within overall the first game intro touches on all game themes and aspects pretty well while the second game intro is a mesh mash of gameplay footage and FMVs making for a clashing of artstyle and overall not presenting things as well as 1 intro.
let's do a quick breakdown of the game playing we start with some dialouge about PE1 events aya left the NYPD and became FBI things with mutated mitochondria became a thing we get called to help we go to a building and the creatures are attacking the building we go there to investigate find a dead swat team the scene is over the top gorey and doesn't feel like a square thing at all they don't usually feature this much gore in their games so where did they draw this from? We find our first monster and i don't figure how to shoot until i die once Alright i figure how to shoot kill the creatures and move on we get our first mutation pretty quick just like the first game rat scene expect this one is bad
(the scene)
killing it we move on go around killing Japanese version of Patrick from SpongeBob some worms and bats Then we fight our first boss then we go to a place called Mojave desert and investigate what went there and we meet these goofy looking monsters
(i didnt take a picture in-game instead so here is their appearance in a cutscene still as goofy as ever)
We go around the deserted town killing things meet a local and meet a government agent atop a water tower after killing those things in the picture above we then face the guy who was laughing like a maniac again and we get knocked out unconscious you see game cover? the cover of the game is this SCENE ABSURDLY FUNNY how the do you feature the protagonist taking a nap IN THE GAME COVER? What are you advertising here? Nap simulator? We meet the agent again after this try to go a shelter that is suspected to be related to this but our car is destroyed after more monster killing we use the local dude truck not before fighting obese flamethrower end of disc 1 the 2nd disc opens up with a hold out segment explore the mine an entrance to the shelter and fight the leader of horse creatures
Battle transation
we get into the shelter scour the shelter to find a clue on who is actually our enemy solve puzzles jump into garbage disposal sector escape the garbage disposal sector meet up with the agent solve laptop puzzle couldn't solve and had to Google it solved even more puzzles shot 2 defenseless bosses meet mini aya (called EVE) hug eve escape with eve she gets kidnapped you go after her ,we fight cyborgs meet the army go after the antagonist he gets killed we get shot and the agent loses his leg and dies we fight the final boss who is underwhelming that's it.
Gameplay: now going from one installment to the next has you playing with the same gameplay as the previous game albeit its updated in PE2 case pick up everything you learned from the first game and throw it away no resemblance of the gameplay from 1 AT ALL there is no more turn based combat no decision making of whether you should shoot now or run or cast a spell nope just run a bit aim kill and that's it and cast a spell or 2 on occasion what made the first game stand out that is being a hybrid of RPG elements with survival horror GONE you don't gain PE energy from being in battle you gain it after a fight and spells? There is 8 2 for each element fully upgrade an element you unlock a third spell spells are one of few things good about the game there is no levels there is no "bonus points" that you could invest to modify weapons they could have built and expanded the bonus points system 1 had limited choice of stats that can be modified for each weapon they could have done way more in this regard instead of replacing an already good reward system if i have to describe gameplay in 1 word it's "DRRR" what's DRRR you ask? It's the sound of guns shooting "are we speaking kindergarten language now" yes the gameplay is a worse version of RE gameplay and a gameplay that looks like shit compared to the 1 gameplay instead of fixing the issues of the already existing gameplay like expanding the battle arena adding more spells way more customization options instead you get this disappointment of a gunplay
Story: bad just bad full of RE tropes a shady research facility the discount version of the S.T.A.R.S you get a bunch of uninteresting characters that you get little to no time to spend with to start liking them NOPE my heart nearly dropped when Daniel threw himself from the chopper nothing like this in 2 i didn't feel anything about the agent or anyone else getting hurt like there is no attachment no characters worth mentioning , the only person that is memroable is you literally you the player character aya no one else is better ending if you save Pierce but i was like "aya lives = good" the antagonist is somewhere? didn't realize N9 is the antagonist underwhelming story
sound design: 1 had an excellent library of soundtrack 2 has none of this the monsters have the most funny and goofy of sounds like the dudes you fight in the tower sound like those demons from diablo 2 they sound hella funny and don't pose a threat at ALL music isn't memorable
Graphics: one of the few aspects that are better than 1 are the graphics it's notable that aya gained some weight since PE1 no longer is she one skinni girl all characters are quite more detailed look way better than 1 and in regards to FMVs they are more smooth than 1 FMVs but hold less weight and have no substance whatsoever when compared to 1 scenes
Horror: just LMAO this game tries hard to be a horror game and it fails every time they try to spook you with constant jumpscares with off shoot lickers guess what? This shitty version of the licker can go invisible and still manages to not be scary i criticized monster design of 1 and square instead of making monsters look scary made them look and sound goofy they just needed to pump the horror up a bit but nope this is what you get horses with human faces I'm gonna be generous and say some monsters look uncanny there is no tension in the air the battle transition of the first game was essential to the experience it was an intense moment of waiting to see what new enemy we will face only time the game startled me is getting ambushed by this guy
wasn't expecting it
other time was a monster jumping me in the jungle and that's it one problem i had with 1 is abundance of ammo this game has lots of ammo given to me made easy to access by money that you get from killing monsters
Conclusion:huge letdown and a bad attempt from square to try and replicate the success of resident evil people didn't lie when they said this game leaned too much into the RE style but square didn't replicate anything they didn't design a good RPG nor a good survival horror only things i liked is aya walk speed being finally fast enough meaning i don't have to run everywhere and the quick spell menu by pressing a button you bring up spells instead of how 1 did it the little chat when saving the game was pretty nice addition and some puzzles were fun other than that it's bad you can't go anywhere you like there I no HQ Iike 1 a safe place of sorts where you chat with some team members like 1 , and EVE that you present to me in the final hour of the game and expect me to care about her like who in his right mind decided to shove the Claire story from RE2 in the final minute when making the game??? A shitty antagonist a weak cast of characters an overly simplified gameplay and horses with human heads
getting my ass kicked by goofy horse boss
getting thrown around
Goofy boss phase 2
Getting rammed by horse boss the yellow visual effect caused by physical attacks which are reduced by the spell "antibody" which increases defense
Block puzzle that i solved and still don't know how i did it i just arranged the red blocks like the red line seem to have made things work
Me looking at Kyle and wondering how this brain dead sack of meat is a government agent who can't go up the stairs
Shooting at enemies notice the pink aura surrounding me it's a spell that increases damage
Purging cyborgs
Our antagonist his face is meme worthy
Engaging water monster called "fatties"
4/10
Intro: the intro is first thing you see when you boot up the game and is your first look into the game so how does the intro hold up? The intro of course uses a theme similar to the one in the original game intro let's refer to this intro theme as "PE theme" expect it's not as good or well made as the OG the intro mixes both FMV and gameplay footages which doesn't make a good intro, 1intro made it look like a thriller movie by presenting to you shots of all FMVs present in the game , there is no foreshadowing of words like 1 intro using words like "liberation" "conception" "evolution" instead what you get is counting the characters One thing that 1 does was presenting with a final sentence about the enemy being from within overall the first game intro touches on all game themes and aspects pretty well while the second game intro is a mesh mash of gameplay footage and FMVs making for a clashing of artstyle and overall not presenting things as well as 1 intro.
let's do a quick breakdown of the game playing we start with some dialouge about PE1 events aya left the NYPD and became FBI things with mutated mitochondria became a thing we get called to help we go to a building and the creatures are attacking the building we go there to investigate find a dead swat team the scene is over the top gorey and doesn't feel like a square thing at all they don't usually feature this much gore in their games so where did they draw this from? We find our first monster and i don't figure how to shoot until i die once Alright i figure how to shoot kill the creatures and move on we get our first mutation pretty quick just like the first game rat scene expect this one is bad
(the scene)
killing it we move on go around killing Japanese version of Patrick from SpongeBob some worms and bats Then we fight our first boss then we go to a place called Mojave desert and investigate what went there and we meet these goofy looking monsters
(i didnt take a picture in-game instead so here is their appearance in a cutscene still as goofy as ever)
We go around the deserted town killing things meet a local and meet a government agent atop a water tower after killing those things in the picture above we then face the guy who was laughing like a maniac again and we get knocked out unconscious you see game cover? the cover of the game is this SCENE ABSURDLY FUNNY how the do you feature the protagonist taking a nap IN THE GAME COVER? What are you advertising here? Nap simulator? We meet the agent again after this try to go a shelter that is suspected to be related to this but our car is destroyed after more monster killing we use the local dude truck not before fighting obese flamethrower end of disc 1 the 2nd disc opens up with a hold out segment explore the mine an entrance to the shelter and fight the leader of horse creatures
Battle transation
we get into the shelter scour the shelter to find a clue on who is actually our enemy solve puzzles jump into garbage disposal sector escape the garbage disposal sector meet up with the agent solve laptop puzzle couldn't solve and had to Google it solved even more puzzles shot 2 defenseless bosses meet mini aya (called EVE) hug eve escape with eve she gets kidnapped you go after her ,we fight cyborgs meet the army go after the antagonist he gets killed we get shot and the agent loses his leg and dies we fight the final boss who is underwhelming that's it.
Gameplay: now going from one installment to the next has you playing with the same gameplay as the previous game albeit its updated in PE2 case pick up everything you learned from the first game and throw it away no resemblance of the gameplay from 1 AT ALL there is no more turn based combat no decision making of whether you should shoot now or run or cast a spell nope just run a bit aim kill and that's it and cast a spell or 2 on occasion what made the first game stand out that is being a hybrid of RPG elements with survival horror GONE you don't gain PE energy from being in battle you gain it after a fight and spells? There is 8 2 for each element fully upgrade an element you unlock a third spell spells are one of few things good about the game there is no levels there is no "bonus points" that you could invest to modify weapons they could have built and expanded the bonus points system 1 had limited choice of stats that can be modified for each weapon they could have done way more in this regard instead of replacing an already good reward system if i have to describe gameplay in 1 word it's "DRRR" what's DRRR you ask? It's the sound of guns shooting "are we speaking kindergarten language now" yes the gameplay is a worse version of RE gameplay and a gameplay that looks like shit compared to the 1 gameplay instead of fixing the issues of the already existing gameplay like expanding the battle arena adding more spells way more customization options instead you get this disappointment of a gunplay
Story: bad just bad full of RE tropes a shady research facility the discount version of the S.T.A.R.S you get a bunch of uninteresting characters that you get little to no time to spend with to start liking them NOPE my heart nearly dropped when Daniel threw himself from the chopper nothing like this in 2 i didn't feel anything about the agent or anyone else getting hurt like there is no attachment no characters worth mentioning , the only person that is memroable is you literally you the player character aya no one else is better ending if you save Pierce but i was like "aya lives = good" the antagonist is somewhere? didn't realize N9 is the antagonist underwhelming story
sound design: 1 had an excellent library of soundtrack 2 has none of this the monsters have the most funny and goofy of sounds like the dudes you fight in the tower sound like those demons from diablo 2 they sound hella funny and don't pose a threat at ALL music isn't memorable
Graphics: one of the few aspects that are better than 1 are the graphics it's notable that aya gained some weight since PE1 no longer is she one skinni girl all characters are quite more detailed look way better than 1 and in regards to FMVs they are more smooth than 1 FMVs but hold less weight and have no substance whatsoever when compared to 1 scenes
Horror: just LMAO this game tries hard to be a horror game and it fails every time they try to spook you with constant jumpscares with off shoot lickers guess what? This shitty version of the licker can go invisible and still manages to not be scary i criticized monster design of 1 and square instead of making monsters look scary made them look and sound goofy they just needed to pump the horror up a bit but nope this is what you get horses with human faces I'm gonna be generous and say some monsters look uncanny there is no tension in the air the battle transition of the first game was essential to the experience it was an intense moment of waiting to see what new enemy we will face only time the game startled me is getting ambushed by this guy
wasn't expecting it
other time was a monster jumping me in the jungle and that's it one problem i had with 1 is abundance of ammo this game has lots of ammo given to me made easy to access by money that you get from killing monsters
Conclusion:huge letdown and a bad attempt from square to try and replicate the success of resident evil people didn't lie when they said this game leaned too much into the RE style but square didn't replicate anything they didn't design a good RPG nor a good survival horror only things i liked is aya walk speed being finally fast enough meaning i don't have to run everywhere and the quick spell menu by pressing a button you bring up spells instead of how 1 did it the little chat when saving the game was pretty nice addition and some puzzles were fun other than that it's bad you can't go anywhere you like there I no HQ Iike 1 a safe place of sorts where you chat with some team members like 1 , and EVE that you present to me in the final hour of the game and expect me to care about her like who in his right mind decided to shove the Claire story from RE2 in the final minute when making the game??? A shitty antagonist a weak cast of characters an overly simplified gameplay and horses with human heads
Goofy boss phase 2
Getting rammed by horse boss the yellow visual effect caused by physical attacks which are reduced by the spell "antibody" which increases defense
Block puzzle that i solved and still don't know how i did it i just arranged the red blocks like the red line seem to have made things work
Me looking at Kyle and wondering how this brain dead sack of meat is a government agent who can't go up the stairs
Shooting at enemies notice the pink aura surrounding me it's a spell that increases damage
Purging cyborgs
Our antagonist his face is meme worthy
Engaging water monster called "fatties"
4/10