Retro Review: Parasite Eve II

<p>The first <em>Parasite Eve<&sol;em> game blew me away&comma; I remember looking all over the shelves for other games like <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em>&period; They were kind of hard to come by back then from what I remember&semi; I had all the <em>Resident Evil&&num;8217&semi;<&sol;em>s&comma; <em>Dino Crisis&&num;8217&semi;<&sol;em> and <em>Silent Hill<&sol;em> and I needed another survival horror type game to scratch my itch&period; <em>Parasite Eve<&sol;em> was that game&comma; I loved everything about this title and it is one of the few games I replay from time to time&period; Unfortunately&comma; college got in my way when the sequel was released&comma; I had neither the money nor the time to get the second entry in the series&period; I was lucky enough to find a sealed copy on eBay for pretty cheap a few years ago&comma; but I couldn&&num;8217&semi;t bring myself to open the pristine beauty&period; Thankfully Sony felt my woes and put <em>Parasite Eve II<&sol;em> on a Flash Sale and I purchased the game for my Vita for a mere sum&period; So there is your first caveat&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m reviewing this game on my Vita&comma; but I&&num;8217&semi;ve changed none of the settings or controls&comma; so think of it as me playing on a tiny PlayStation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Once again you take control of the series protagonist Aya Brea and she finds herself in a spot of bother once again&period; Brea went ahead and got herself a nice promotion&comma; she now works for the FBI at the Mitochondrial Investigation and Suppression Team also known as MIST&period; MIST looks into and suppresses Neo-Mitochondrial Creature outbreaks&comma; for this review I will be calling them NMC&&num;8217&semi;s because that was difficult to type&period; She gets dispatched to a gore fest in Los Angeles and finds that an entire SWAT Team has been killed at Akropolis tower&period; Her and her partner fight for their lives in this tower and discover a frightening secret&comma; a new Mitochondrial creature exists&semi; the Artificial Neo-Mitochondrial Creature &lpar;ANMC&rpar;&period; This ANMC aptly named Golem No&period; 9 haunts Brea throughout the game&comma; but I&&num;8217&semi;ll leave that for you to enjoy&period; Once Brea safely leaves the Akropolis tower she finds herself down the rabbit hole again with some old Mitochondrial buddies&period; It is up to you and Brea to discover what is going on and to ultimately destroy it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129904" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129904" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-129904" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;09&sol;24160108&sol;Gun&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"480" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129904" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Parasite Eve II<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Squaresoft&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I was disappointed that Squaresoft decided to change the battle controls in the sequel&comma; one of my favorite parts of the original was the quasi-turn-based battle mechanic&period; They ditched that whole system for a new battle system that mirrored most of the survival horror titles out at the time&period; When you are wandering around Square is draw your weapon in case you get ambushed&comma; Circle is run in case you get ambushed&period; X is examine&comma; this is useful for finding ammo&comma; health&comma; and key items&comma; press this on anything you see&comma; bodies&comma; cabinets and even trees&period; The battle system is more of a run and gun now you fire your weapon with R1 and switch targets by pressing Square&period; That is what took the longest for me to get used to&comma; I would just shoot randomly and waste my ammo until I remembered to hit Square&period; To use your Parasite Eve powers you need to push Triangle and select what you want to use and who you want to use it on&period; I stuck with this as my control setting it is Type A in the menu&comma; there are a few others that you can try to see if they fit your liking but this one seemed to work the best for me&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Unfortunately&comma; this game did not age too well graphically&comma; most of the original PlayStation&&num;8217&semi;s library didn&&num;8217&semi;t&period; The in-game graphics are not the best&comma; luckily you can still figure out what is going on&comma; but man I wish these two titles would have been saved for the PlayStation 2&comma; just look how gorgeous <em>The 3rd Birthday<&sol;em> was&period; What made these games stand out the most was the story&comma; the gameplay and the cut scenes which are also a tad rough&period; Aya&&num;8217&semi;s model was nice for the time&comma; but man the poor girl has aged horribly&comma; she and Solid Snake just aren&&num;8217&semi;t the lookers they once were&period; This does not take away from any enjoyment that I had with the game&comma; however&period; I still loved my time controlling Aya and ridding the world of NMC&&num;8217&semi;s&period; Just don&&num;8217&semi;t expect the beauty of other Square games in this title until you are at the cutscenes&comma; then you will be amazed&period; I still am amazed at Square&&num;8217&semi;s cut scenes from this era&period; They really put the PlayStation hardware to work and it paid off ten-fold&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130023" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130023" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130023" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;09&sol;29015437&sol;parasite-eve-2-2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"480" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130023" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Parasite Eve II<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Squaresoft&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Parasite Eve II<&sol;em> and the series are truly amazing&comma; it makes me sad that Square has forgotten about the franchise&period; I would pay lots of money for a ground-up remake or an actual third game in the series&period; The story is top notch&comma; the controls are top notch and the cut scenes are nothing to shake a stick at&period; Personally&comma; I prefer the first game in the series due to its far superior combat system&comma; but I have no problem playing the sequel when I have a survival horror itch to scratch&period; Anyone who is a fan of the old school <em>Resident Evil<&sol;em>&&num;8216&semi;s or <em>Silent Hill<&sol;em>&&num;8216&semi;s then this is a title you shouldn&&num;8217&semi;t miss&period; It isn&&num;8217&semi;t too difficult to purchase now&comma; you can download it onto your Vita&comma; PSP or PlayStation 3&comma; so there should be no reason why <em>Parasite Eve II<&sol;em> isn&&num;8217&semi;t in your grubby little hands&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;