In 1996, Resident Evil dominated the horror landscape on the PS1. Two years later, other game developers took a chance to try and create their own horror game during the release of Resident Evil 2. One game grabbed the attention of RPG fans as developer Squaresoft (now Square Enix) released Parasite Eve. It was considered an RE clone because of the concept of having horror and mutated creatures. Instead, Parasite Eve was a sequel to a novel under the same name. The Squaresoft community praised the game for its sci-fi horror and free-range combat gameplay.
It Started On Christmas Eve
Our story begins during the holiday season in Manhattan, New York. We play NYPD officer Aya Brea dressed for a date to the Carnegie Hall Theater to watch Evita. During the climax, actress Melissa Pearce combusts into flames, transforming into a monstrous woman. Many operagoers and the actors’ bodies were set ablaze and Aya sprang into action with a handgun in her hand. The woman calls herself Eve, fighting the officer from the theater stage to the understage.
Eve wonders why Aya isn’t affected by her powers. She realized Aya had evolved mitochondria that grant her resistance. The monstrous woman escapes the theater leaving the officer confused about what she said. When police reinforcements arrived, Aya reported only a few people survived the massacre.
Parasite Eve Combat
Parasite Eve is the first game that Square Enix had to change the Final Fantasy turn-based combat for. Aya does not get party members, fighting mutated creatures all by herself. She can equip handguns, shotguns, grenade launchers, and machine guns. They do require ammo to use them and have various ranges. When Aya has no ammo, she can swing her baton to smack. The gameplay feels great for a one-person party but it can feel frustrating when enemies can learn how to stagger you during ammo reload.
Your parasite energy (PE), active time points (ATP), and health points (HP) are in the upper left corner. Inspired by Chrono Trigger, ATP is needed to execute a command. Aya can freely move around the battle area to doge enemy attacks while waiting for recharge. PE will grant Aya her parasite techniques to give herself stat buffs and heal herself. Using high-energy techniques requires timing. While they provide massive damage, they can leave Aya dizzy and vulnerable to enemy attacks.
Weapon & Armor Upgrade
What makes Parasite Eve a pioneer for future Square Enix Games is its Equipment Upgrade system. Aya can upgrade weapons and armor in the armory of the NYPD 17th Precinct with a permit card or use tool kits she finds around New York. You will learn you can’t discard guns and vests as they may hold certain properties that can be used to upgrade another. Thankfully, Aya can use the armory to store her gear.
Special properties include status ailment bullets (Sleep, Cold, Burn, Paralyze), firing range and speed, ammo magazine loadout, status protection, and auto-item heal. It requires patience and planning as you go through your two-disc journey. Test the item’s special properties in battles to see which suits you best.
Square Enix Adapting Prequel Novel
Parasite Eve The Novel by Hideaki Sena is what inspired the game to come to life. Much of its plot is revealed throughout the game by two scientists Aya meets. There’s Dr. Hans Klamp of the American Museum of Natural History. He studies evolution to understand how humans and other species evolved since the dawn of Earth. Then there’s visiting scientist Kunihiko Maeda. He wanted to visit the museum’s evolution exhibit only to get caught in the middle of Eve’s massacre spree.
Maeda joins the investigation alongside Aya and her boss, Daniel. Maeda informs the two officers about the scientist who discovered their mutation properties. In Sena’s novel, Japanese scientist Dr. Nagashima became obsessed with human resurrection after the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash. He discovers a debilitating patient’s kidney mitochondria cells have unique regenerative properties he can observe under a microscope. This same discovery would be misused for pharmaceutical drugs for Melissa Pearce.
Melissa Pearce’s Condition
At the beginning of the game, Aya will encounter Melissa’s dressing room and read her diary entry about her illness. 20 years ago, Melissa suffered from kidney failure and needed a donor’s kidney to survive. This kidney would soon be revealed to be from Aya’s twin sister, Maya. Her mitochondria cells became the discovery of Nagashima’s research. Maya’s mitochondria would lay dormant in Melissa until 1997.
Her kidney was affecting Melissa’s theater performance but she didn’t want to give up her lead role of Eva. She was soon contacted by Hans Klamp offering her immunosuppressants to nurture her back to health. In reality, Klamp gave Melissa an acceleration drug to increase the chance of Eve awakening to destroy all of mankind.
Aya & Maya’s Relation
Similar to Nagashima’s wife and daughter, Aya, Maya, and their mother, Mariko were involved in a car crash. On the same day of Melissa’s surgery, Maya unfortunately was on the verge of death with her kidney up for donation. Nagashima’s intern was in charge of the operation. Aya, Maeda, and Daniels soon learned that it was Klamp. In his museum office, Klamp continued to study mitochondria and admire their existence. For the past 20 years, he kept track of Melissa Pearce to examine Maya’s mitochondria behavior he called Eve.
To Birth A New Evil
Parasite Eve’s dialogue is one of the main reasons why it received an ESRB rating for mature audiences. When you progress further into the game, Maeda and Klamp discuss reproduction that relates to Eve giving birth to the Ultimate Being. Klamp specially designed a sperm without any male DNA. This left only the nucleus which advances her pregnancy to a week.
Eve’s goal with the Ultimate Being is to destroy all humans for mitochondria to take over their flesh and form a new species. One without human emotion to cause imperfection. In the end, Aya destroys both Eve and the Ultimate being thanks to Maeda’s mitochondria bullets.
Parasite Eve: Flawed But Invigorating
Square Enix did a fantastic job of adapting Sena’s novel into an RPG horror. Most of the mutated enemy designs are disturbing and gross in the best way. The story uses its source material to tell a tale of science gone wrong as Aya facing the truth of Eve is endearing each time the player faces her in battle. There is one crucial element that weighs this game down, though.
The final boss fight against the Ultimate Being drags on. You fight the Ultimate Being from an infant to a giant human in the first four phases. Its final phase involves Aya running from the Ultimate Being as it tries to absorb her to become a part of it. This section is based on trial and error without a save point, forcing the player to redo the entire fight. Once you manage to find the path, the boat will explode, killing the Ultimate Being.
Parasite Eve: Still Playable?
For veterans and newcomers to Parasite Eve, the only ports known are on the PS3 Store, PSP, and PlayStation Vita. While the PSP and Vita stores are no longer available, the PS3 store is still open for PS3 port-exclusive preservation. Up to this day, Square Enix and Sony have no plans to bring another port to PS4 or PS5. You can play it on your PS1 Classic if you have a flash drive containing Auto Bleem or use Playstation emulators to experience Square Enix’s horror.
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