Parasite Eve (video game)



"One of them is a police officer. The other is an ancient evil threatening all life on Earth. The horrifying bond between them will continue until something dies."

In 1998, Squaresoft released a video game called Parasite Eve, a sequel to the 1995 novel of the same name. It was unique among RPGs available at the time because of its blend of RPG, Action Adventure and the then still new genre Survival Horror.

The story revolves around Aya Brea, a New York City police officer whose mother and sister were killed in a car accident when she was a child. While Aya was attending an opera performed at Carnegie Hall on Christmas Eve in 1997, all hell breaks loose when both the actors and the audience burst into flames. The only survivors are Aya, her date (who runs away never to be seen again after the fire), and the lead actress, Melissa, who just so happens to be harboring a primordial horror inside her body known as Mitochondria Eve. Aya discovers that contact with Melissa/Eve has granted her strange powers, called "Parasite Energy", and so she teams up with Daniel Dollis (her partner) and Kunihiko Maeda (a Japanese scientist and Mr. Exposition for the novel's events) to figure out Eve's motives and stop the strange mutations sweeping across Manhattan.

The game has two sequels, Parasite Eve 2 and The 3rd Birthday. The series is also available on the Playstation Network. There is also a Drinking Game available for this game.

This game provides examples of:
"Aya: I saw a movie once about a man from medieval times who was still young in the present day... I don't want that... I just want one, normal life..."
 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Not just that but it's only ever a few inches deep. Even more grating since the games take place in New York City.
 * An Asskicking Christmas: This is a great example of getting to watch the good people of Manhattan celebrate Xmas 1996 through spontaneous combustion and mass melting.
 * At the Opera Tonight: The audience shall burst into flames! And later, it'll melt and merge into a giant blob.
 * Awesome but Impractical: Guns with high rate of fire effect. While you can attack enemies multiple times in a single turn, the damage output is less compared to a gun that only fires one shot at a time. On top of this, guns with high rate of fire roots Aya to the ground until she finishes attacking, which can leave her open to enemy attacks.
 * Badass Abnormal: Aya and Eve.
 * Badass Army: The Navy.
 * Badass Normal: Daniel.
 * Barbie Doll Anatomy: Eve's last couple of forms sport a distinct lack of auxiliary sexual characteristics. Whether to chalk it up to maintaining a rating below Adults Only or to the PS1's limited rendering capability is a toss-up.
 * Oh god...no....Take a closer look at the backside of the 3rd form of the final boss...it has a giant ballsack hanging off the base of it's tail...wait it's tail- NO. AUGH!
 * In all fairness, it's suggestive, not explicit. These are beings of morphic flesh and mere carriers for their mitochondrial masters. For that matter, the ribbing/tail exttending down from around Final Melissa's legs are actually the skeleton from her now-jettisoned ovipositor, as it and was thus no longer needed.
 * Big Applesauce: For a JRPG, this is a rather interesting setting.
 * Bizarre Human Biology: The protagonist Aya possesses a more benign/passive form of the "evolved" strain of mitochondria serving as the franchise's Big Bad, which are not only a self-aware Hive Mind that can hijack their "hosts" and act like The Virus, they possess actual superpowers, which include spontaneous combustion and Body Horror transformations!
 * Body Horror: You are fighting sentient Mitochondria for gods sake.
 * Bonus Dungeon: Climb the Chrysler Building. The enemies certainly wouldn't be out of place among the Legions of Hell, but the Chrysler building itself isn't very hellish. The Chrysler building is more creepy than anything else, especially with its level design and the fact that no Eldritch Abominations are in plain view, like every other area in the game. A few bloodstains here and there, but after the Body Horror that Aya encounters everywhere else in the game, it's fairly tame. Just dissonant.
 * Book Ends: The game begins and ends with the heroine going to the opera.
 * The Cavalry: The US military eventually intervenes.
 * Chekhov's Gun: Maeda's handgun. It makes an appearance as a strong late-game weapon in the sequel as the "Mongoose".
 * Chest Monster: Appears only in the Chrysler Building.
 * Collision Damage: Simply brushing against enemies inflicts Scratch Damage on Aya.
 * Continuity Nod: Aya's mother's name is Mariko, the same as the girl who received Kiyomi's kidney in the novel.
 * Cursed With Awesome: Aya's mitochrondrial powers seem to be lacking the villainous insanity and Body Horror that other people in this series go through--she received the "special" mitochondria when she was still a child, and unlike Melissa, Aya's mitochondria evolved to the point where they are symbiotic with her body and work with her instead of taking outright control. However, they also keep her body younger than she really is, since a youthful host is advantageous.


 * Death By Racism: Maeda's introduction sees him accosted by a racist-sounding cop for his difficulty with English. Said cop gets his cells lit on fire five seconds after telling him to "go back to [his] own country."
 * Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: See Eleventh Hour Superpower.
 * Eleventh Hour Superpower: The final boss fight
 * Elite Tweak: Tools and Super Tools offer all sorts of weapon and armor customization possibilities...if you're willing to put up with their rarity and the regular Tools' destruction of donor equipment.
 * : . This game is so awesome.
 * Fight Woosh: A quick inversion of colors, accompanied by a heartbeat sound effect.
 * Gainax Ending: The developers stated that "best" ending, and not this one, is the ending followed by the sequel.
 * The Ghost: Lorraine, Daniel's ex-wife, who he keeps going on and on about, but whom we never see once.
 * Grey Goo: It's the "pink" variety- the kind made from people. It's also everywhere!
 * Homage: A possible one-- the dog transformation sequence holds some similarities to the infamous "kennel scene" in John Carpenter's The Thing.
 * I Just Want to Be Normal: Aya's stock flavor of angst, coupled with I Am a Monster when Aya freaks out about becoming Eve in the first game and saying how her powers can scare people in the second game.
 * Infinity Plus One Sword: The Super Tool Kit can be used to construct one.
 * Interface Screw: Result of the Confusion status ailment, which makes Aya move in random directions.
 * Subverted if you know how, in that it gets you ass backwards; you move the opposite direction from where you point the controller. This is still a vast improvement over the spinning uselessness experienced by the enemies Aya Confuses..
 * Inventory Management Puzzle: Limit 50 items on Aya's person at any given time, from the gun and armor she's currently wearing to individual trading cards to bits of junk found on the ground to Maeda's damnable trinkets. Wayne only has external storage space for 128 items apiece (equipment and non-equipment), which gets somewhat frustrating when half the weapons and armors are one-time pickups from the Chrysler Building.
 * Its Up to You: Justified. As Aya is the only person unaffected by Eve's aura (which causes everybody else to burst into flame), the military gives her the task of This doesn't stop them from sending a squadron of helicopter gunships to Take The Bullet from the random combustions that await as Aya closes the gap toward her destination, though.
 * Its All Upstairs From Here: The Chrysler Building.
 * Jerkass: Dr. Hans Klamp is a total snob to Aya and Daniel in the beginning of the game and dodges their questions while acting all high and mighty. Even when Daniel later on finds his ex-wife and son's name on Klamp's computer and threatens to kick his ass, Klamp coldly tells him and Aya to leave. He has his reasons;
 * Little Black Dress
 * Living Bodysuit: Mellisa Pierce.
 * Load Bearing Boss: So you've  But wait!.
 * Metal Slime: The Chrysler Building's squirrels. Cute? Maybe, by NMC standards. Valuable? Definitely, dropping a Medicine 4 or Revive most every time. Annoying? Hell yes, as you have to kill them before they either escape or hit you with a nigh-unavoidable machine spray laser that causes Confusion, then escape.
 * More Dakka: Machine Guns in the original game usually had attachments that let this be effective on all your firearm types.
 * New Game Plus: Finish the game and you can unlock the "New Game Ex".
 * Nuke Em: The government resorts to this.
 * One Woman Wail: Eve's theme.
 * Psychic Powers: Sort of. The "awakened" mitochondria in Aya's body allow her access to Parasite Energy, and when invoked she can heal herself, create a protective barrier, and cure status ailments. Her more potent abilities are a concentrated energy ray and a berserker rage that allows her to attack all enemies onscreen multiple times. In the sequel, she loses most of her original powers, and they're replaced by different ones.
 * Pixel Hunt: Annoying in the first game where most good weapons and items are not in a box and have to be found by mashing X at random pieces of scenery, particularly in Soho. Made more aggravating by the fact that on a real PSX, the low resolution of TVs makes this worse. PS1 emulators can heighten the contrast and increase the resolution to the point of making this much less severe.
 * Rare Guns: Though never referred to with a manufacturer's name, all the basic model numbers are accurate to real-life firearms (the textures considerably less so, at least until PE2), and a keen eye turned to PE1's roster can spot everything from the trusty Colt M1911A1 to the (normally disposable) AT4 rocket launcher to the Desert Eagle.
 * Rodents of Unusual Size: If you could stomach calling one of the more common enemies a rodent anymore.
 * Save Point: Aya uses telephones to contact NYPD/MIST headquarters to save her progress.
 * Scratch Damage: Getting your armor's defenses high enough will result in this, but making your armor even stronger beyond that will make you immune to damage.
 * Shout Out: There is a Chocobo banner hanging in front of the Museum of Natural History (and a stuffed Chocobo just before the Back To Back Bosses).
 * Sprite Polygon Mix: Of the "Polygons on Bitmap Background" sort.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: The True Final Boss fight with atop the Chrysler Building in the New Game Plus.
 * Tears of Blood: The Statue of Liberty looks like it's crying blood, just before.
 * Tech Demo Game: Parasite Eve was, by and large, a tech demo for the graphics engine that would later fuel Final Fantasy VIII. Luckily, it still managed to be a decent game in its own right.
 * The Battle Didn't Count: Several times. The last fight with Eve is the only one where you actually defeat her. In all the others she simply decides the battle is over.
 * Too Dumb to Live: The woman who plays host to Eve. Prior to her performance, she was taking her medications in extremely high amounts in fear that she might get ill and be unable to play her part in the opera. The problem with that? Her meds were IMMUNOSUPPRESSANTS, meaning that they make her immune system weaker, so she was increasing the likelihood of becoming ill, not reducing it. From the description given in her journal, she was taking enough that a minor infection would have been fatal to her, let alone something like Eve.
 * True Final Boss:.
 * Ultimate Lifeform:.
 * Underground Monkey: The majority of the Chrysler Building monsters.
 * Universal Ammunition: The only weapon that doesn't share ammo is the rocket launcher. So, is your 7.62x51mm battle rifle running low on ammo? Just borrow a few rounds from your 9mm service automatic and your 40mm grenade launcher. Especially since what normally are considered ammo properties are attached to the guns..and transferable..
 * Useless Item: Lampshaded by Maeda's 'charms', which he hands over to Aya throughout the game. They each fill an item slot but serve no purpose. In the finale, Maeda tries to deliver the Eleventh Hour Superpower to Aya, but Daniel drags him away, assuming it's just more mojo crap.
 * Victoria's Secret Compartment: Where Aya keeps her badge while dressed for a night on the town. Where she keeps her gun in that outfit remains a mystery. Don't even ask about her billy club and body armor.
 * We Can Rule Together: Eve's stock offer to Aya throughout the first game...until she discovered Aya was the ultimate subversion of herself, where that pretty much ceased.