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Post by derboo on Oct 28, 2012 3:09:05 GMT -5
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Post by Ike on Oct 28, 2012 4:24:39 GMT -5
The second game felt like RE2, Again to me. I couldn't even make it halfway through the game before getting bored. I've always had a soft spot for the first game, though, if only because of the horrific cutscenes and the general weirdness of it. The story is dumb as all get out but I had the good fortune to play it as a 12 year old and be able to look past it.
It was kind of cool to have a sci-fi (I guess) game that had a core theme of biological sex without involving aliens in some way. 3rd Birthday took that concept, misread "sex" as "sexuality" and then we got probably the single most retarded game plot ever.
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Post by megatronbison on Oct 28, 2012 8:19:38 GMT -5
You know, I never bothered playing through PE3 Ike - just why was it so bad? Does it play horribly or is the plot just total nonsense?
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Post by DPB on Oct 28, 2012 9:49:36 GMT -5
I never got very far in this before I gave up, the movement speed is like running through treacle, she takes too many steps to travel a short distance.
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Post by Gilder on Oct 28, 2012 10:03:11 GMT -5
I have not read yet, but I am pretty am excited that Pat R. wrote another article. It has been far too long sir.
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Post by nickz on Oct 28, 2012 11:11:56 GMT -5
The first Parasite Eve is awesome. I'm very glad it's getting coverage here. The second one was okay, but I liked the first one a lot better. I wish more RPGs followed the model of "less filler, focussed gameplay/story".
I haven't played Third Birthday, and I only found out it was part of the series recently. I was a little disappointed when I found out that it was a third person shooter.
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Post by Ike on Oct 28, 2012 11:16:01 GMT -5
You know, I never bothered playing through PE3 Ike - just why was it so bad? Does it play horribly or is the plot just total nonsense? The game plays pretty well, in my opinion, for a PSP TPS. That's probably too many qualifiers to honestly call it 'good' but there you go. For what it's worth I did enjoy playing the game. It's fastpaced action with a pretty good soundtrack even if it is mostly just remixes of PE1 songs. It looks like a late-gen PS2 game as well, so bonus points there. The problem is where the gameplay and plot intersect. Your main gimmick is the ability to body-hop into different soldiers and use them as HP fodder. The game is very very unclear on whether when you 'possess' a soldier, you're just in his mind, or whether that soldier physically becomes Aya for a few minutes. It would make sense either way, because the characters seem to respond to the people she dives into as if they're still themselves, but the game shows her physically appearing to be Aya, to the point that her clothing will tear off sexily whenever you take damage. This and the extremely overdone shower scene (that I discovered by accident, and later found out there's a reward for watching the scene some obscene number of times, like 100 or something) make the game into Most Ridiculously Pandering Bullshit of 2011. Plus, they turned Maeda from a nerdy, shy Japanese scientist into the greasiest creep alive. Maybe he was written kind of pervy in the original Japanese PS1 game and this is just a proper continuation of his character, but holy shit this game makes no bones about what it thinks of its target audience. As for the actual plot, even with stupid anime-infested FF7-level dreck, I can at least understand the plot to some degree, but this is probably the first game I've played where the plot is just out-and-out total and utter nonsense. Here's the Wikipedia synopsis. Christmas Eve, year 2012. In a snowy Manhattan, a swarm of hideous organic structures suddenly burst from under the ground, killing several people and destroying many more structures in the process. They are dubbed the "Babels". These plant-like roots bring with them coiled life-forms, called the "Twisted", that actively attack and seemingly consume humans. Within a year of the attack, an investigatory team known as the CTI (Counter Twisted Investigation) is formed. One of the members of CTI is Aya Brea, who was found lying blood-soaked in a wedding dress outside St. Thomson's Cathedral in 2010 just before the Babels and Twisted began appearing. Dr. Hyde Bohr, Chief of CTI, found Aya stripped of her memories from the years before. After taking Aya in, the CTI discovered that she was capable of transferring her soul from body to body, an ability dubbed "Overdive". Bohr and the others planned to use this unique ability to travel back through time and prevent the disaster. They developed a machine called "Overdive System", which makes use of Aya's ability and can send her in the past to take control of someone else's psyche and therefore their actions. The machine was completed in 2013 and utilized 2 years after the Twisted first appeared.
As she completes her first mission, Aya realizes that she can indeed change the past to affect the future. She wakes up to find that certain key events pre-dive did not occur while new events developed post-dive. For example, Gabrielle, who died in a training incident, was alive due to her efforts in one of the missions. However, this resulted in the death of Thelonius Cray, which sparks off another mission to save him in the past. As she embarks on each mission, she is met by mysterious, more powerful Twisted. Firstly, these twisted mutated from humans, notably humans she had known, like Kyle Madigan. Secondly, these Twisted retained the human intelligence found lacking in the other, less dangerous and more commonly encountered Twisted. As she defeats each of these special Twisted, she regains bits and pieces of her memory, most prominently that she had a sister called Eve Brea, and that she was engaged to Kyle Madigan. After an incident that saw the CTI HQ and the Overdive device destroyed by Kyle Madigan, Aya reunites with Kunihiko Maeda, who supports her while she continues to battle, this time in the present, to resolve the entire mystery behind the appearance of the Babel, Twisted and the human-mutated Twisted, dubbed by Maeda as "The High Ones". Events eventually lead Aya to discover Bohr as the main villain, a High One himself. Bohr had masterminded the death of other High Ones in order to form the Grand Babel, which, through Maeda's investigation, functions like a giant Overdive system. Bohr had wanted to dive back in the past to Time Zero, where all events had happened.
Aya battles Bohr repeatedly and is pulled along by him into the time stream back to Time Zero, which takes her back to her own wedding to Kyle Madigan in 2010. Bohr, who explained that all High-Ones had the ability to dive, had dived into his own body. He further explained that when Aya had been on the verge of death after an attack by a SWAT team that had stormed the church, Eve Brea had tried to "reach" Aya. This resulted in the birth of the "Overdive" ability. The current Aya is actually Eve in Aya's body. Eve, on the other hand, had accidentally shattered Aya's soul when she dived into Aya's body, resulting in the shards being scattered across time and space and giving birth to the Twisted. The High Ones, on the other hand, were formed from the de-souled body of Eve, thus transferring her memories and the Overdive ability to them.
After Eve returns to her own body by Bohr's command, Bohr begs Eve to assimilate him into herself to bear the birth of an even more evolved species. Upon Eve's refusal, Bohr tries to force the process, only to be shot repeatedly by Aya, who has somehow returned to her body. Yet the Twisted crisis cannot be averted until the sources are removed. After Aya's expression of her regret at not being able to exchange her vows with the now dead Kyle, she instructs Eve to shoot her in the chest. Eve, in a fit of emotion, does so after switching bodies with Aya. In doing so, both Twisted and the High Ones are not born and Eve also ceases to exist, resulting in the formation of a new timeline.
The ending shows Eve, in Aya's body, agreeing to marry Kyle. But to her surprise, Kyle addresses her not as Aya, but as Eve, and wants her to lead her own life and that he and Aya will always watch over her. Eve is left speechless but eventually smiles as Kyle wishes her "Happy Birthday" before leaving to search for "eternity", meaning that he is going to search for Aya.
In the post-credits ending (which can be obtained by beating the game twice), Eve, in Aya's body, is seen walking the streets of New York during Christmas Eve. She stops for a while and catches a falling snowflake. At the same time, a woman wearing a brown trench coat and the same hairstyle as Aya's, passes by her and wishes her a happy birthday before disappearing into thin air, while Eve looks for her. Whether or not the woman is Aya is unknown. The game is dirt-ass cheap now since the PSP is on the way out, so if you liked the first game enough, you could probably make it through 3rd Bday for curiosity's sake. It's worth at least 5-10 dollars, I think. |
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Post by Scylla on Oct 28, 2012 13:01:46 GMT -5
I take it the author doesn't like the sequel? :P Parasite Eve fans are goofy. It's hard to find a fan of the first game who likes the sequel, and it's hard to find a fan of PE2 who likes the original. Makes sense of course, but it's still funny.
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Post by Garamoth on Oct 28, 2012 13:15:07 GMT -5
Ahhh, Pat's articles are always great stuff. This one is no exception.
Your remark that the absence of spoken dialogue gives the game a certain vibe is very interesting. I do remember the "clack-clack of shoes during dialogue-heavy scenes". No gasping, moaning, shrill voices or overblown delivery in Parasite Eve. I'm currently playing Shiren the Wanderer and it's the first game I've played in ages without voiced dialogue. The peace and quiet is surprisingly pleasant, especially since nowadays a dozen people do the voices in every damn game.
Are you really going to cover the other two games though? They're both crap, although not for the same reason (but maybe that makes them good topics, I guess).
P.S.: I really thought there would be some kind of "Square is the methocondria" metaphor in there. Y'know, they used to do some really good work, but now it's the Blob out of control and stuff.
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Post by aganar on Oct 28, 2012 13:42:41 GMT -5
I find that sentence particularly interesting, given that Final Fantasy IV and Super Mario RPG are probably the most linear battle systems of Square's games, given that every character is completely bound to the skillset that has been assigned to them and is unable to change anything about themselves other than their equipment. Parasite Eve is quite customizable, by comparison.
I do like that PE1 is being given special spotlight though; it was a flawed game (why does she run so slowly?), but it had a great deal of depth to its combat system, and the optional dungeon actually gave you some room to make use of it. By contrast, PE2 was a much more "polished" experience, but so streamlined that it lost the depth that made PE distinct from RE2.
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Post by Nyarly on Oct 28, 2012 17:05:32 GMT -5
I can't say that I dig Pat R.'s pseudo-wittiness and I nearly didn't even read the article because he is the author. But thankfully, it wasn't as bad as the Final Fantasy article and actually quite interesting.
I only played The 3rd Birthday and thought it was a decent little action game. If it was made by people who never made one before (which may even be the case, I don't know). I liked the body-snatching mechanic, though, and wished that something like that would be used for a genuinely good game. I can't say how anything about the plot, because I didn't play much and didn't care about the story (I can't even remember what it's supposed to be about).
While, apparently, a completely different (and better) game, I can't say that the first game seems all that interesting to me, though. May be the FF7 comparison.
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cc
New Member
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Post by cc on Oct 28, 2012 17:06:52 GMT -5
Another one here chiming in to say it's good to see another article by Pat.
Parasite Eve was one of the few PS1 Square games that I missed out on, but I've been going on a classic gaming buying spree over the last year and considering my love for Vagrant Story and survival horror it sounds like a perfect match for me.
I am curious though, I've heard in a few different places around the Internet that Square U.S.A had some kind of developmental role in the game, but the article mainly makes it sound like that was mainly just CG scene direction. It would interesting to know if that was it or if they were also involved in other aspects of the game like programming and such.
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Post by Ike on Oct 28, 2012 18:36:33 GMT -5
Square was outsourcing their CG cutscenes to an American company at the time. That's why the cutscenes in FF7 are so strange and inconsistent, with some of them using the blocky Popeye models and others using the full body models, the blocky ones were developed earlier by the Japanese team.
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Post by Pitchfork on Oct 31, 2012 1:25:27 GMT -5
I take it the author doesn't like the sequel? :P Parasite Eve fans are goofy. It's hard to find a fan of the first game who likes the sequel, and it's hard to find a fan of PE2 who likes the original. Makes sense of course, but it's still funny. Actually, I've never played the second or third ones. But I do routinely check to see whether a game's original creator(s) are involved in the sequels. Are you really going to cover the other two games though? They're both crap, although not for the same reason (but maybe that makes them good topics, I guess). I wasn't planning on it. About a month ago I glanced at Kurt & co.'s shortlist for Halloween/horror-themed games, noticed Parasite Eve, and decided why the hell not? Lately I'm trying not to play games I don't or won't enjoy, and I get the feeling PE2 and 3 aren't up my alley. I find that sentence particularly interesting, given that Final Fantasy IV and Super Mario RPG are probably the most linear battle systems of Square's games, given that every character is completely bound to the skillset that has been assigned to them and is unable to change anything about themselves other than their equipment. Parasite Eve is quite customizable, by comparison. Hrm. Good point. I wasn't trying to imply a correlation, but.... •"brining" [Bringing] a killer soundtrack that's •"mitochonrdial" [Mitochondrial] consciousness •Environmental messages. In "Parsite" [Parasite] DAGH. How embarrassing. |
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Post by Pitchfork on Nov 2, 2012 16:46:28 GMT -5
Whoops. I messed up. Comment from the HG101 blog:
A quick Google search reveals he's right. Damn. I guess somebody with the power to scrub it should see that it gets scrubbed (or add an asterisk and a "the author is full of shit and needs a fact checker" note).
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