You control Aya Brea, NYPD officer, whose past crosses that of the opera singer Melissa, aka Eve. Eve's mitochondria have rebelled, giving her superior power over humans. She is capable of influencing their cells into revolt, causing spontaneous human combustion (well, not really spontaneous, i guess), melting out into a pile of goo, and radical mutations. Aya is immune to her influence, and she soon learns that she has the same powers. Very well explained, beautiful cinematics, and pretty hard. Beating the game yields the key to the Chrysler Building, 70 floors of very tough monsters...
Based on the novel of the same name.
I can't say much for the cutscenes, I don't think. They have to speak for themselves. The gooey monster thing breaking out of the sewer and stomping across town was very cool when I watched it for the first three or four times, and after that, it was still cool in my book.
But what gets me about this game, what really gets me, is the free-roaming combat system. Quest 64 was the first game I played that fought like this game, and Vagrant Story has the same system also. The system works like this: You get to run around in a designated area, trying to dodge attacks, and then you have a designated radius of attack for what weapon you happen to be weilding, or what special ability you're using. This is a design that I could learn to live with, as the turn based system of the Final Fantasy series, while very playable, doesn't account for much of the fun in the game.
The game was set in modern day New York City and presented a pretty cool weapon customization system. It also featured an extra play mode once you beat it, which made the game more difficult (except for the fact you kept your best weapon and armor from the previous game) and opened up a new level, the Chrysler Building, which allowed you to get an alternate ending.
It's based on a novel, as is a Japanese movie of the same title. If you're lucky you can find it on DVD at your local Suncoast or Babbages. But beware, it's subtitled.
Main Characters:
Minor Characters:
Parasite Energies (Magic):
The game also got a sequel, called Parasite Eve 2, naturally. However, this game was designed by a different team in Squaresoft, and as such is quite a bit different from the original. The only character from the original you even see is Aya herself. It seems the new team wanted to try and make it as much like the Resident Evil games as possible. It is a Survival Horror game instead of a Cinematic RPG.
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