Parasite Eve: The Third Birthday New Trailer Impressions

TOKYO--One of the surprising unveilings at Square Enix's DK Sigma3713 party was that The Third Birthday will be making its way to the PSP. This third installment in the Parasite Eve series was originally announced as a mobile phone game last summer, but the developers apparently decided that Sony's handheld would be a good platform as well.

Square Enix showed off a short trailer of The Third Birthday, and although there wasn't any new footage or in-game screens, the narration gave us some hints as to what to expect. The trailer started off with a grainy montage using flashback scenes from the past two Parasite Eve games. The Manhattan incident of 1997 from the original Parasite Eve was shown, followed by the scene in Parasite Eve II where a lady turns into a neo-mitochondrial creature (NMC). The narration explained that NMC sightings had dissipated since Aya's adventures in Parasite Eve II in 2000, and everything was back to normal. That is until 2009, when an outbreak of new creatures called the "twisted" appeared. In 2010, a system called the "Overdive" gets created as a solution to beat these new creatures, but Aya is the only person who can use it.

Following the montage of flashbacks, the trailer switches to the chapel scene that was shown last year at Tokyo Game Show 2007. Aya is in a wedding dress and is walking up to the altar. A man suddenly appears from the chapel's front door and starts shooting with a machine gun. Aya turns back and takes out a handgun to return fire, and her wedding ring flies off in the process. We see it falling on the ground, with blood spilling onto it a moment later. During the whole scene, we hear a somewhat cryptic narration that doesn't match up with what's happening. "This is my gift for her third birthday as she wakes up from her lost past. She may be a gift from heaven, who can save mankind that's trapped in the twist of time."

The trailer ended there, and the words "PSP version coming" appeared on the screen.