About Parasite Eve
History
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Parasite Eve is an action/RPG by Squaresoft, released for the Playstation in September 1998. The game is a sequel to the novel Parasite Eve, written by Hideaki Sena. With the popularity of the CGI sequences in Final Fantasy VII, Squaresoft aimed at making a game that flowed more like a Hollywood movie. Hence, why they put "The Cinematic RPG" on the back of the case.
Battle System
Just like any traditional Squaresoft RPG, you gain levels and learn new abilities. You pick up or buy new weapons and armor. The tricky part is that if you wish to have the most powerful weapons/armor, you need to pick up "Tool" items to transfer the strength of previous weapons/armor to new weapons/armor.
Enemies appear when you enter a "hot spot". You're bound within a perimeter of unseen barriers until the battle is over, either by defeating all enemies or using the Escape command. In battle, you have an "Active Time Bar" (ATB) that sets the time for every turn to take action. Just like in any regular RPG, upon each turn, you can choose to attack, use PE (Parasite Energy), use items, or escape. If you choose to attack, a dome symbolizing the range of the weapon appears. If the enemy is outside of the range, the shot is likely to fail. If you choose to escape, the experience will be lost. Parasite Energy is slowly recharged over time.
Tips & Strategy
• In most cases if you do not use your PE during battle, you can rely on PE Healing to restore any lost HP, dissolving the need to use any healing items.
• Enemies don't persistently attack you. You can sacrifice some HP to just stand directly next to the enemy and blast away.
• Using Playstation emulation? If you enable high-res 3D rendering (if you haven't already), doing so will make hidden chests much easier to find.
My Opinion
Parasite Eve is an excellent game. I'm not a huge fan of incredibly gory games; Parasite Eve is on the borderline of gory, but surely it's tasteful gore. I find the whole mitochondria-based story extremely interesting and original. The battle system is very entertaining. I would say, though, that the game gets a tad repetitive around the middle. Both times when I played the game, I got tired of playing it at “Day 5” in Chinatown. But soon the game called me back. I would recommend Parasite Eve to any RPG fan.
