Published by SquareSoft
Reviewed by Boudicca
on 9/18/00
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Discussion Forum
First
Impressions:
Parasite
Eve 2 is a sequel to Parasite Eve released a few years ago. PE was
never released in Europe, but this doesn't affect your enjoyment
of this game one bit.
You play Aya Brea, a beautiful Blonde Hunter who belongs to a secret
section of the FBI called M.I.S.T (Mitochondrion Investigation and
Suppression Team) based in Los Angeles. MIST was formed after the
events in PE. She used to be a NY Cop, but now she hunts the creatures
whose mitochondria within their cells causes them to mutate into
terrible destructive monsters. - See my take on Aya in "Digital
Women."
The action starts on 4th September 2000 (which was coincidentally
the very day I started to play the game). Aya has had orders to
go to Akropolis Tower in LA, to deal with an "incident" there.
Very favourable first impresson - but then I only tend to write
reviews about games that I found enjoyable. The Graphics are gorgeous.
The control system is easy, you don't have to use millions of buttons,
and at the start of the game you can either practice your shooting
or get straight to business.
Graphics:
This
game was made by the good people who made the Final Fantasy Series,
and although I wasn't really aware of that when I bought it, after
playing it for half an hour I realised that this was why the game
looked so good. The backgrounds are almost unbelievably well done;
small touches take your breath away, like dust rising from beneath
your boots as you walk around, or pieces of rock dropping from
a cliff - this is not cut scenes, this is gameplay.
Some graphics are almost mind-bogglingly lovely. There is a shower
curtain and a mirror in your Motel Room, and when Aya walked behind
it the first time I couldn't believe what I saw - not only was
there a realistic silhouette on the shower curtain, but the whole
thing was lovingly duplicated in the mirror. There are also beautiful
reflections in glass doors, windows and marble. I don't know how
they do it, but they do it good.
And as for the cut scenes, they are just....well, I'd better not
gush too much - but imagine the sort of quality you see in Pixar's
short films? Well take that one step better and you'll get an
idea of what I mean.
Sound/Music:
BIG
BIG disappointment here. - There is no voice acting. I know that
there was none in FF, but then that was really wordy wasn't it!
This should have followed the fashion of the Resident Evil games
and had voices. I found it difficult to really identify with the
characters without their voices. There was one word spoken "Freeze!"
in the first 5 minutes of the game, and I thought "Good! They
are going to talk now!" but they didn't! Don't ask me why they
bothered to put that one word in though!
There are noises however, a scuttling noise, or footsteps, something
to remind you that there might be something nasty lurking where
you cant see it, and there are battle noises, Aya cries out if
she's hurt, and the monsters roar - plus in true Square fashion
there is background music the whole time.
A nice touch is that sometime you come up against a chance to
select which music you would like - there's a juke box you can
use for example - limited choice, but it all goes to make the
game more involving.
Gameplay:
As
I said - the control system is very easy to use. Some games tend
to use all of the buttons, making a moment when a huge monster
has just leapt out of a cupboard very tricky to deal with as you
are then in panic mode thinking "DIE YOU MONSTER DIE!"; however,
they have kept this as simple as possible in Parasite Eve 2 -
Square to aim, R1 or R2 to fire, Triangle to cast Parasite Energy.
(sort of like the Spells in FF). There is the inevitable: kill
monsters-solve puzzle-get key item-kill BOSS gameplay involved,
but the puzzles are not too tricky - although you need to be very
vigilant.
Weapons? Loads of 'em! But don't expect to find the weapons you
picked up in Level One available to you in Level 2!
Anyone who has played the FF series will find the inventory system
very familiar; not only is it set out the same way, but its in
the same font - even the noises are similar! You gain "Bounty
Points" each time you make a kill, which can be traded for weapons,
and "Experience" can be used to upgrade your parasite energy,
plus there are the usual pick-ups along the way, which are all
to be experimented with for their effect. Don't get me wrong,
this is no-way as complicated to handle as the FF games (all that
slot business left me cold) and the learning curve is about an
hour.
One small quibble: On my second play, I was naturally faster and
more experienced, and I paid for this by having less experience
and less bounty points to barter with - so take it slow and fight
as much as you can.
Enjoyment:
Wow.
This is a ride and a half. I must admit I found it very tricky,
but then I am better at stealth games than action. I got a lot
of enjoyment out of Disc One because I had never found Survival
Horror very enjoyable, as "you are Dead" appeared on my screen
more often than not. In this game I was mentally patting myself
on the head (not an easy task) for having so many pick ups, tons
of ammo, and having beaten the HUGE boss at the end of Disc one.
So I was pleased with my progress, then came of Disc 2 and I found
the beginning part very difficult with Three Boss fights in a
row - which almost discouraged me from going on. My advice is
this: Pack everything into the truck you can, buy the biggest
weapons you have and upgrade your parasite energies as soon as
you can.
Multiplayer:
n/a
Overall
Impression:
A
quality game, easily outclassing the Resident Evil Genre - maybe
a little bit short, and definitely short on locations - but there
are only 2 discs. Highly recommended. It blends the best elements
of Survival Horror with 3rd Person Action Adventure, and RPG.
Marketing
Efforts Towards Women:
Has
there been any?
Cheats, Hints & URLs:
Walkthrough: gamefaqs.com/console/psx/file/parasite_eve_2.d.txt
Official site: www.squaresoft.com/web/games/index.html
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