Parasite Eve

God it was good to get back to Parasite Eve, which still stands as pretty much my favorite Square-JRPG.  It’d been quite a while since I last booted the game up and successfully completing it, so the overall impact from this go through was almost like a second first time and my was it absolutely glorious.  Square, and honestly several RPG centric developers, would do themselves well to learn from Parasite Eve.

For starters one of its greatest achievements is its relatively short length, at least by RPG standards, which was ironically enough, considered a detriment at the time.  Funny, in a time when reviewers criticize 15 hour titles for being too long, it’s strange to go back 10-15 years and see a title docked points for only being around fifteen hours.  Really gives you an insight to the modern day mindset.  Anyway, I know RPGs, especially those developed by Square, are supposed to be clocking it at well over 20+ hours, so one would think being only 10-15 hours would be a detriment in Parasite Eve’s case.  In fact, it is not.

The focus on the narrative and the action gives the title a sense of immediacy that is rather lacking in the standard sprawling RPG.  You won’t find the plot coming to a dead halt so Aya can search around the forest for some superfluous item that doesn’t really serve the narrative in any way.  There are no fetch quests, no moments of filler wherein the game pads its runtime with nonsensical and pointless quests.  From the get-go the game doesn’t let off the breaks, at least not entirely.  You see, unlike the average RPG, Parasite Eve is an exercise in appropriate narrative pacing.  The game slows down when necessary and raises the stakes when necessary, it never lulls and it never ups the ante when not necessary.  It’s methodically paced, with a huge focus on the immediacy of its narrative and while shorter than some may like, it never overstays its welcome.  It may end with you wanting more, but that’s usually a sign of a good piece of entertainment.

Narratively, the game is fantastic.  For starters, it introduces just the right amount of hard science in order to lend its preposterous narrative some credence.  The characters are all fantastic and well developed, with Aya being a standout female lead.  Sadly though, her character would go from being an independent and strong, if not hesitant, character, to being a demure, sexually objectified and vulnerable female character, who spends more time gasping in shock than she does actually talking.  Basically, she becomes what every modern Square character is, another overly attractive whiner who constantly looks on the verge of tears.  Aya isn't the only one who is done a disservice, a prominent and important character, Maeda, goes from being a shy Japanese scientist to a whole on rapey pervert.  On top of that, by Third Birthday Aya looks stunningly similar to Lightning, which I guess is no surprise as both The Third Birthday and Final Fantasy XIII are directed by Motomu Toriyama, who himself seems to have a penchant for focusing on sexuality and character design, than he does actual character.

Ranting against the later installments of the franchise aside, Parasite Eve still stands as one of Square’s best, if not the best, titles.  From the pacing, to the characters, to the awe inspiring cinematics and moments to the score, Parasite Eve just hits all the right marks when it comes to a “cinematic” experience.  For all the pomposity and spectacle of modern titles and their pretentions towards being filmic, PE really pulls this off in ways that no other medium could.

Where Call of Duty and other linear, cinematically focused titles, pull control from you at every turn, so they can show off all the spectacle, PE does this organically.  Yes, there are showy cutscenes and moments, but they’re few and far between, some of the biggest moments are still under player control.  The most standout sequence being the final boss.  In a modern game, we’d probably be presented with a string of quicktime events or a super mega cutscene where the characters do all the hard work.  PE says “fuck that” to that idea and puts you right in the center of the fight.  More than anything though, what really sends the “cinematic” tone into overdrive is the score, especially during the aforementioned boss character.  It starts as a slow ominous chant and continually builds in intensity as the fight progresses, eventually slowing back down to the chant.

It’s moments like these that you just can’t have in any other medium, in a film it’d probably be a cool sequence, but it wouldn’t have the same overall impact.  There’s just something special about moments like these that happen organically through gameplay, allowing the player to experience the moment firsthand, rather than just sitting passively and watching or waiting for the appropriate buttons to flash onscreen.  In today's age, much of the final boss would be relegated to a cutscene and some quick time events. 

Parasite Eve sadly is a relic of a bygone era of gaming, a time when developers were limited in their methods and technology.  It was a time when the quirks of the medium were more persistent, when a game didn’t just use flashy images and scripted events to tell its tale.  Like the pre-CG era in film, this era in gaming was a time when developers actually tried and used every tool available in the toolbox, rather than just using spectacle and Hollywood voice talent to keep audiences coming back.  It was less about imitating film and more about making an actual goddamned video game.

There’s no voice acting in Parasite Eve, like older Final Fantasy titles, the player is tasked with reading the dialogue themselves, making the overall experience a strange amalgamation of the graphic novel and film.  Again, it’s these things that made the medium so unique and special and it’s reasons like this that keep me saying gaming as a medium and art form, is actually closer in spirit to literature and the graphic novel than it is to film.  Sadly though, while the narrative is good, there are some missteps in the writing thanks to poor-ish localization and Square's tendency to overdo it with the melodrama and heroics.  Thankfully the melodrama and silly cheesy-grade heroics are few and far between, but the localization does hurt the overall experience to some degree. 

As for the gameplay, PE is ultimately more RPG than it is JRPG.  Instead of empty auto-stat boosts like you get in the average JRPG, Parasite Eve gives the player bonus points and tools to upgrade their equipment and armor as they see fit.  Every weapon can be deeply customized and the overall system, while a tad bit broken and exploitable, has enough depth and brevity to keep you hanging around the menu screens for hours, mixing and matching different stats and buffs with each weapon type and adding on different modifications to each weapon.  Each weapon has a base stat that can be modified with bonus points and tools, allowing you to practically be capable of turning your starting pistol into an absolute beast if you’re really inclined to do so.  The system rewards experimentation and like any good RPG, having a higher base damage, isn’t always a selling point.  A weak weapon, with status effects, can instantly put your high powered weapons to shame when used correctly.

Of course, what RPG is complete without some spellcasting?  In Parasite Eve mana is replaced with Parasite Energy, which is where pretty much all of your character’s buff and debuffs reside.  From basic healing, to an energy barrier, to confuse, haste and revive, and of course, to full powered attacks (Liberate is still the coolest fucking power ever) your Parasite Energy’s got it all.

Time between combat is spent exploring each of the dungeons, solving simple puzzles and finding useful items.  Combat itself, is a mix up between real time combat and turn based strategy.  Everything, sans regular movement, is based around the ATB, or Active Time Bar.  Every time you use your ATB you must wait for it to recharge, as you do so you are free to position yourself wherever you feel on the battlefield and dodge any incoming enemy attacks.  While simple in premise and easy to pick up, there’s quite a deal of strategy and depth to be found to the system, especially since every weapon has a limited bubble of range, meaning that in order to land successful hits, the enemy must be within your combat range.  Allowing the player freedom of movement allows them to position themselves and strategize offensive/defensive attacks and maneuvers accordingly.  It’s a hell of a lot of fun and given the horror themed narrative and style, it’s a nice mashup between traditional turn based RPG and survival horror combat.

Wow, this is getting longer than anticipated.  Basically, Parasite Eve kicks all sorts of ass and it’s really a shame that the franchise never really took off.  More so, it’s a greater shame that the successive entries completely abandoned everything that made the original great, especially the central character Aya, who stands up there as one of my all*time favorite protagonists in gaming.  If you haven’t gone to the glorious, weird body horror and strangely sexual world of Parasite Eve, I suggest you give it a look.  It comes from a time when gaming was still about the damn game and not the cinematics alone and a time when Square actually took major risks with their IPs and moved the fuck forward.  It’s a deep, wholly engrossing and gratifying experience that’s really unlike anything else.