Mitochodria Takeover

User Rating: 9 | Parasite Eve PS
I have to personally say this game is one of the best games Squaresoft has ever come accross. They also need to create more games like this one. An organism which is dubbed Mitochondria has been living within humans ever sense the birth of Eve. Since all humans are descended from Eve it is only a matter of time before this living organism breaks free. You play the role of a rookie cop named Aya who is attending an opera on Christmas Eve 1997. The singer in the opera named Melissa makes eye contact with Aya and all of a sudden people in the crowd begin to spontaneously combust. Following this, Melissa mutates and declears that Eve has been awakened and takes off. From there on out Aya tries to figure out what happened at the opera house and why her and Melissa are some how connected.

A thrilling story which brings the human imagination into a battle against not only a race against time and mutations, but a battle against yourself. Seeing as though the Mitochondria is in every human being on the face of the Earth, players can put themselves in that position, and feel as though they are battling against themselves before there Mitochondria takes complete control over everything logic in their bodies. It also can make you think this could happen in reality b/c of the Mitochondria is part of your body.

The best part of Parasite Eve is without a doubt the innovative battle scenes. The Parasite Eve battle engine contains an excellent mix of action and strategy that has yet to be seen in any console game before. Just like Final Fantasy VII, Parasite Eve makes use of an action bar. You can't attack, heal, or use an item until the bar is fully charged. You can however during this time dodge enemy attacks waiting for it to fill. You also have a PE bar which will fill slowly throughout the course of the battle. The PE bar allows Aya to perform special tasks such as healing herself or increasing her attack power. Overall, the battle system is extremely innovative and makes the game fun to play through. I don't think i've played an RPG in awhile in which I've actually looked forward to gaining experience and doing battle.

True to its claims, Parasite Eve often looks sleek, inspired, and beautiful - like a good film. The scenery throughout the game is composed of still 3D-rendered images of mostly authentic New York locales, and the quality and detail of these various settings is astounding. Whether you're searching through Central Park in the middle of the night or rummaging through the slums early in the morning, Parasite Eve looks consistently real. The background art looks so good that you will often find yourself admiring your surroundings instead of forging onward in your quest. The various polygonal characters aren't quite as sharp as the backdrops, but their motions and actions during plot sequences are expressive and believable. As Aya, you will have to shoot your way past scores of monsters, all of which are your typical mutated urban animal variety and thence not particularly imposing. Though some of the boss monsters are both creepy and fearsome, like a particularly large and ill-tempered three-headed hound, for the most part your opposition will fail to impress.

Even a discriminating connoisseur of CG cinematics would be awestruck at several animated cutscenes over the course of Parasite Eve. While the cinematic sequences are never particularly long, they are frequent and almost always amazing - all the more so toward the end of the game. Among other things, you'll witness breathtaking panoramic shots of New York City, grisly deaths or even grislier metamorphoses, and even some good old-fashioned military intervention. Though there's hardly enough CG here to make up a feature-length film, there's plenty of the stuff to keep you going all the way through. It's integrated seamlessly into the game and makes key plot sequences much more dramatic and the entire game more memorable overall. The music also adds a dramatic effect that makes it seem even more real. They need to add this music to more of their sequels to this game.

If Squaresoft works hard enough I honestly believe more sequels to this like the Nintendo's Zelda could be created but these would without a question blow Zelda out of the water. I truly think a movie should be created about this game. Including part 2,3,4 whatever how many, following up on the "Ultimate Being". Also the music needs to be added to the movies.