Parasite eve is it GOOD?

Pandaprewmaster325

Final Fantasy zealot
Level 5
Joined
Feb 3, 2025
Messages
1,481
Reaction score
2,147
Points
3,477
Location
Jordan
It's 1998 and resident evil 2 just dropped everyone in the survival horror genre is going crazy just in time for square to publish their own survival horror game.... Welcome everyone to PARASITE EVE a survival horror with an RPG flavor in this mini review i will discuss various aspects of the game from gameplay to story to graphics.

Intro: yes i dedicate an entire section to the intro why? Cuz the intro serves as a way to introduce you to the game and be your first ever look into the game world , how does parasite eve intro fare? Well we are first greeted by a fimilair logo of course the "squaresoft" logo a one that signals you are in for a good experience , the intro opens up with a shot of the statue of liberty the music is quite calm but soon the guitar picks up and you are shown various shots of the events of the game jets flying , strange mutated dogs and massive slime then the music calms down with a more of a piano playing a bit of foreshadowing to the sinister nature of "eve" we are shown the details of the human cell and such then for the guitar to pick up again with more action oriented scenes add on it the many words that are connected to the game story and themes like "evolution" "conception" "fusion" and liberation

The beginning: we start with a Cutscene that shows NYC during the Christmas eve clearly everyone is having fun right? Riiiight so we begin the game at the theater just exiting the car we meet our protagonist who we will be playing as for the rest of the game "aya brea" a cop and aged 25 to be exact we are attending an opera play well when do the horror starts? Just wait bro anyway we walk down the hall and the show begins well everything looks normal so far i mean it's an opera play come on what can go wrong? Oh foolish me if only i knew what would happen after that now FOCUS here because it's when the actress gets to sing she has quite a voice yeah? She sings and just there we get a closer look onto her face as she stares at us directly suddenly the lead actor gets ignited and the whole cast starts burning just for the audience to get caught in fire too save for us "wtf? What's going on?" was my reaction we quickly confront the actress and a fight erupts well here goes our first fight and i dont know how to do anything quite a genuis move on my part to skip the tutorial so i press X and ha? Well time freezed! alright so few shots fired from my pistol and the insane actress retreats talking about mitochondria? "what??" I'm confused....

We chase her well we should expect i wasn't playing the game correctly you see i decided to choose the "wide screen" option for my video display and this created a weird in fact very weird collision issue where everything is messed up in terms of collision i thought it was square fault so back to chasing the weird being i get to a hole in the ground and first hesitate to jump but decide to do so few moments later here we get to see the first ever mutation of a creature effected by the actress powers in a high quality horrifyingly gross cutscene where we see a rat turn a monster alright now what do i do? I decide to check the rooms one by one since the hole lead us to the backstage and the many rooms found there most are locked but one is open we enter just to find burned bodies they look freaky i find a key moments later and open another room we get to call the police department the phones are our save points i find the actress room that has her diary reading the diary it becomes evident this woman was taking lots of medication wanting to be lead singer but she seems to be in poor health condition I have enough questions by now i head to the only remaining door that was locked we meet the actress she turns into a monster with hands so long they look uncanny as hell seeing this i go "OH FU-" then i get slapped to death that was my first death i go back and face her again this time i manage to beat her yet she seems unfazed we continue the chase down to the sewers where she turns herself into some sort of slimey matter and escapes us I'm left with a lizard looking creature kill this thing and with that our introductory section is over starting the 6 days that the game events take place in.

Gameplay: the game has quite a take on the survival horror genre while having resource management and quite the limited healing you have your own magic called parasite eve hmmm coincidence? The magic plays a large role in your ability to sustain wounds and control enemy movement and can LIBERATE basically it's your ultimate dealing high damage in exchange for all your PE energy how you gain PE? through battle PE regenerates slowly and when the battle is over the amount of PE left is what you have until the next random encounter this means you will need to use PE carefully , you can equip weapons whether it's pistols , machine guns or grenade launchers and even an RPG! but you can edit these weapons to your liking through bonus points you gain them when you level up you can invest them into weapon stats or increase your item capacity or have higher active time to make a move sooner.

Screenshot_20250419_022911_com.epsxe.ePSXe.jpg
an example of the stat screen.

you can merge weapons togther increasing their stats and effects like an armor vest being immune to poison i did merge 2 guns creating this power house

Screenshot_20250419_022928_com.epsxe.ePSXe.jpg

since the game features the protagonist with a pistol i figured going full on pistol build is more lore accurate ::smug

Story: I'm not gonna say much here the game is based off a novel which someone at square must have read and went "damn this is dope let's make it into a game" I'm looking at you mr sakaguchi , quite a compelling story and a likeable cast whether it's the good hearted and badass aya with constant flashbacks to her dead sister memories the sinister and creepy eve who is the antagonist , your police partner daniel who is trying to raise his kid after divorce he is also quite the menace at times , or the nerdy maeda who keeps handing you luck charms Idk what those do but i kept them with me , some side characters have a little story tidbits like torres being quite a professional gun expert yet his statements oppose using guns you find out later why and it makes it understandable why.... I will not dive much into the story.

Soundtrack/sound design: the game has quite the soundtrack backing it up the music along with lifeless places you visit combined with the presence of burning bodies creates a strong and tense atmosphere , not to mention the other tracks like the battle/boss themes and the overworld theme which sounds badass overall a decent job when it comes to music oh and i can't forget the troubling opera singing that signals the presence of eve hearing that can almost instantly make you go hyper focus mode the sounds do the job pretty well in capturing the atmosphere.

The "horror" : alright here is where things get a bit shaky so the game advertises itself as a survival horror but isn't so "horror" resident evil/silent hill offer better scares now that's not to say the game completely sucks when it comes horror the main horror comes from the CGI cutscenes like the rat transformation or the dog sheeva scene where her head freaking splits into 2 yeah what a freaky sight , other scenes worth mentioning are when the camera focused on Melissa (the actres) during the performance and the scene where eve stares directly into the camera and tells to "hush" other than that monster design is mostly "ok" the only creepy or uncanny monsters are the polar bears the twitching jaws of rats and that very weird entity encountered in the hospital Idk what it is but it's easily the creepiest of the monsters oh and those blue dinosaurs with how their eyes look , now don't get me wrong if you find yourself facing a dinosaur that went extinct or a frog whom tongue can cause you injuries yeah i get it would be scary but that's probably not gonna happen , one another thing worth mentioning is the battle transation which features some sort of heart beat along with the environment going full gray and aya freezing i suppose this means aya freezing in shock sensing the presence of a creature nearby or outright spotting it this is further reinforced by when you escape battle and the animation that plays after well i didn't know you can escape battle until i was in beneath China town in sewers.


Graphics: pre render environments look good and hold up pretty well can't say the same for the rest

Conclusion: overall this game provides a fun hybrid of survival horror and RPG with a very entertaining gameplay and a good story further helped by the impressive sound design all help to create a fun experience along with the biology themes , however a stronger emphasis should have been put on creature design and the horror could be improved by a vast margin , the idea of the mitochondria becoming sentient and it killing Melissa and taking over her body is some good paranoia soup along with the many creepy CGI scenes but the game itself doesn't offer any scary monsters to fight you can say the game is scarier when you aren't fighting and is even more tense when you are during a battle transation in a new place , lacking any variety of death animations also hurts the fear and horror vibe , and no voice acting hurts the game even further combined with my BIGGEST complaint WHY DOES AYA WALK SO SLOW? Arent we supposed to be a fit policeman why the hell do i have to walk so slowly.... I heard a remaster went down anyone played it? Is it any good? Now PE would greatly benefit from a remake that pumps up the horror aspects

Overall 7/10 game

Screenshot_20250420_003638_com.epsxe.ePSXe.jpg
ending gear
 
Last edited:
I think remake isn't necessary as the game has its own weird and psychedelic charm that if it ever gets changed, the game won't feel the same ever, and I'm not talking about how they will even change its unique combat to fit to "modern standards".
Otherwise yeah, great game, and despite it being more tied to old RE control scheme, it still manages to come up with its own unique take on combat
 
I think remake isn't necessary as the game has its own weird and psychedelic charm that if it ever gets changed, the game won't feel the same ever, and I'm not talking about how they will even change its unique combat to fit to "modern standards".
Otherwise yeah, great game, and despite it being more tied to old RE control scheme, it still manages to come up with its own unique take on combat
I think it would greatly benefit from modern technology especially making it more scary.
 
the first and only for me, didn't like how the sequels went into ResEvil direction, abandoning the rpg core;
8 out of 10 for me, if not 9
love it
 
I think remake isn't necessary as the game has its own weird and psychedelic charm that if it ever gets changed, the game won't feel the same ever, and I'm not talking about how they will even change its unique combat to fit to "modern standards".
Otherwise yeah, great game, and despite it being more tied to old RE control scheme, it still manages to come up with its own unique take on combat
I think a re-release would be good, but knowing square that will never happen and if it does happen it would be a mediocre port
 
the first and only for me, didn't like how the sequels went into ResEvil direction, abandoning the rpg core;
8 out of 10 for me, if not 9
love it
Well i haven't tried the 2nd game yet but we will see..... It's not a bad game at all but quite short going up to 10-11 hours of playtime
 
Well i haven't tried the 2nd game yet but we will see..... It's not a bad game at all but quite short going up to 10-11 hours of playtime
Well at least no one mentions The 3rd Birthday it seems. But to be serious, I've yet to play that one and see how good/bad it is
 
Would they, though? That's always the gamble. It has its charm as it is now, a spiritual successor might be a better path.
Not like it's charm would go away if it gets a remake , they can improve upon some aspects that i mentioned that's why.
 
It's really just an average RPG with decent plot and setting taken from OG novel really, basically if you can stomach the horrid gunplay and the abominable backtracking + high mob encounter you will enjoy the game.
It was never a horror game really compared to Biohazard/RE series, not even the second game is one despite having the surprise transformation jumpscare scene.
 
It's really just an average RPG with decent plot and setting taken from OG novel really, basically if you can stomach the horrid gunplay and the abominable backtracking + high mob encounter you will enjoy the game.
It was never a horror game really compared to Biohazard/RE series, not even the second game is one despite having the surprise transformation jumpscare scene.
I don't think you can expect square to program a full action combat since all they used to do was make turn based RPGs , gunplay isn't bad at all well what makes you think that? The limited range right? And the inability to move when shooting yeah? I get its annoying but serves as a way to think about whether you want to attack or not take the risk or not.... Backtracking? Hmmm resident evil does that and silent hill not exactly a problem , what high rate mob encounter? There is WAY less encounters than any FF game each room just has 1 encounter and you can escape reliably.

Well thats my problem i want it to focus more on horror cuz it would along with the gameplay create an even better game.
 
It's really just an average RPG with decent plot and setting taken from OG novel really, basically if you can stomach the horrid gunplay and the abominable backtracking + high mob encounter you will enjoy the game.
The novel has a completely different setting and plot, lol. The only thing it takes from it is the idea of the mitochondria evolving/taking control. That's it.

I like Parasite Eve more than the reviewer here, it's not really about scares but more so a mysterious/dark sci-fi action-adventure vibe in late '90s New York. Parasite Eve 2 is basically straight-up survival horror like Resident Evil, but with some X-Files thrown in. Square literally hired the writer of Resident Evil 1 to write the scenario. Very underrated game. The 3rd Birthday is a great sci-fi 3rd-person shooter with A+ gameplay and a confusing story, definitely play it for the action and not the plot. There's this meme that it's bad but it's bullshit. Just go in any PSP thread on this forum and it constantly comes up on "best PSP games" lists.
 
It's really just an average RPG with decent plot and setting taken from OG novel really, basically if you can stomach the horrid gunplay and the abominable backtracking + high mob encounter you will enjoy the game.
I don't think the gunplay is nearly as bad as some of the old RE games to be fair, since it forces you to be more tactical around the enemies, knowing their pattern/behaviour and using positioning in the form of green circle area. Though I believe the system did become better in Vagrant Story
 
No, the gunplay is bad because the customization is absolute ass. Literally the only thing mattered is pistol and the rest are pretty much unusable against bosses.
Also backtrack is annoying because the mobs you defeat quickly respawned everytine you change screens and the worst is that fleeing basically does absolutely nothing if you wanna advance forward.

I really want to love this game, but the gameplay is really some of the worst in PSX despite its innovative ness.
 
No, the gunplay is bad because the customization is absolute ass. Literally the only thing mattered is pistol and the rest are pretty much unusable against bosses.
If you mean the upgrade path of weapons, then yes, it's probably the weakest gameplay mechanic as it just boils down to finding more and more upgrades with almost no freedom of choice because all of them are generic +1 damage or +5 ammo or whatever they might be
 
No, the gunplay is bad because the customization is absolute ass. Literally the only thing mattered is pistol and the rest are pretty much unusable against bosses.
Also backtrack is annoying because the mobs you defeat quickly respawned everytine you change screens and the worst is that fleeing basically does absolutely nothing if you wanna advance forward.

I really want to love this game, but the gameplay is really some of the worst in PSX despite its innovative ness.
How is it absloute ass? You can change number of bullets damage and range it has way better gunplay than RE1-3 , i played with assault rifle for a good while did we even play the same game man? It's only when you get torres gun and the other gun does the pistol gets good.
 
...who cares if you have no customization option? It's like the least important thing. Just shoot the monsters. This isn't primarily a shooter anyway, it's an action-adventure game (hence the exploration and backtracking, which is how games in this genre are built) with a semi-shooter, semi-RPG battle system.
I'll say there were a few areas where I got tired of monsters appearing in certain places, and got annoyed a couple times. I also thought the story got a bit cheesy at the end (ie the final confrontation with Eve, etc.). Other than, very atmospheric, great setting, etc.

The Parasite Eve novel is set mostly in a lab in Japan btw, there is no Aya or New York or anything like that. The novel's translated now and there's a movie version if anyone is curious.
 
I think remake isn't necessary as the game has its own weird and psychedelic charm that if it ever gets changed, the game won't feel the same ever, and I'm not talking about how they will even change its unique combat to fit to "modern standards".
Otherwise yeah, great game, and despite it being more tied to old RE control scheme, it still manages to come up with its own unique take on combat
Porting it to PC and releasing on GOG would be cool!
 
...who cares if you have no customization option? It's like the least important thing. Just shoot the monsters. This isn't primarily a shooter anyway, it's an action-adventure game (hence the exploration and backtracking, which is how games in this genre are built) with a semi-shooter, semi-RPG battle system.
Nah just invest everything into active time like i did 10/10 strategy you can escape battles quickly or finish them much faster
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Connect with us

Featured Video

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince (VITA)

Latest Threads

broken PSP d-pad

so, i got a psp off ebay. 50 dollars with a charging cable and 64 GB sd card + adapter... yeah...
Read more

New PlayStation 6 News

Is Sony sacrificing power for portability in the PS6? Everything we’ve heard.

Here you can read...
Read more

How do you guys feel about Random Encounter in old jrpgs.

All in the title, how do you feel about those random encouters ?

I personnaly don't like them...
Read more

Hell hard games thread

There are a lot of games made to be hard and unfair.
Jump King,getting it over it,unfair...
Read more

Real Time With Pause vs. Turn Based

I do not like RTWP (if you don't know, think of games like Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 or nearly every...
Read more

Online statistics

Members online
246
Guests online
422
Total visitors
668

Forum statistics

Threads
6,869
Messages
172,124
Members
483,489
Latest member
rvaaa

Support us

Back
Top