While painfully short, its interesting story and battle mechanics make it worth your time
GRAPHICS:
Considering the time it was released, the game looks very good, with nicelly rendered backgrounds and character models. 5/5
SOUND:
The music in the game is pretty good, but the tracks are very short, so they loop a lot. Sound effects are good too, but in a game as text heavy as this one, the lack of voice acting is glaring. 3.5/5
GAMEPLAY:
The game is... well, it is really hard to classify this game. It IS an RPG, with influences of survivor horror, but i can't decided if it is turn based or action. It is like a mix of both (more onto that latter). You play as Aya Brea, a cop in New York, trying to kill a creature known as Eve. The story is fantastic, being very sci fi like, but developing very well and really interesting. The game's main theme is the mythocondria, the part of the cell that supply us with energy. Most of the stuff in this game actually makes sense, and your biology classes knowledge will be put in use. The game runs on 6 days, and will take you less than 10 hours to beat. O. M. G. For a survivor horror game, this is fine, but, while the story comes full circle, it still is too short for an RPG. As i said before, the game is very unique, as in the battle system is unlike anything you have ever seen. You move Aya in the enviroments as suddenly enemies pops out, so you have to battle them. This would make it a turn based RPG, but on the battles, you move the character freely, press X to attack with your gun or triangle to use a special move. This makes it more of an action RPG. This mechanic is very interesting, though very flawed. For once, Aya moves incredibly slooooooww, so avoiding enemies attacks is a chore. This is specially true in boss fights, and they will frustrate you. The main difficulty in this game comes from avoiding enemies attacks. Also, you have a metter that charges so that you can attack, and it fills in a good time, but your parasite energy, your special powers, charge very slowly too, so if you have to heal, you will have to run for a long time, and it only charges in battle, not outside. Though this method of battle makes the game hard, it is very unique and interesting to play. 3.5/5
OVERALL:
Parasite Eve offers some interesting ideas and a good story to back it up, but the length and difficulty may take you away from it. If you can find it cheap, definitely go for it.
The good:
-Interesting, unique battles
-Great graphics and music
-Fantastic story
The bad:
-Short
-Like, really short
-Can get unforgivingly hard at times
Personal faults:
My copy of the game erased my memory of it in the end of the 5 day, so i couldn't finish it, and i don't have the patience to play it all the way back now.