User:SPARTAN 119/SPARTAN 119 Reviews: Parasite Eve II

=SPARTAN 119 Reviews: Parasite Eve II: The Greatest Foe Lies Within the Analog Stick=

Prequel: Once Upon A Time, Squaresoft Created Something That Was Not Final Fantasy
Yes, You read that right, in 1997, shortly after their success with Final Fantasy VII, a game which I have a love-hate-mock relationship with (I'm usually in the mock stage), Squaresoft created an Survival-Horror/RPG called Parasite Eve for the Sony Playstation. The storyline in was loosely based around a Japanese horror film, which is loosely based on a scientific theory. Yes, you read right again, it was based off the endosymbiosis hypothesis, which suggests that at some point in the distant past, a prokaryotic cell devoured an aerobic bacterium, which somehow survived inside the larger cell. These aerobic bacteria eventually became mitochondria. A similar thing happened to give plant cells chloroplasts. This is supported by the fact the mitochondria and chloroplasts have their own DNA. But enough Biology 101. In Parasite Eve (the game), the mitochondria take over the cells of other organisms, making them mutate into horrific beasts bent on killing anything that is not one of them. Anyway, these mutated creatures are controlled by a mitochondrially-hijacked woman known only as Eve, Eve being the formerly dead wife of mad scientist that he tried to revive using these mutated mitochondria (again, impossible in real life, but a good story). The game takes place in New York City instead of Japan, and Eve is, or was an actress named Melissa Pierce. Either of the "Eves", Eve can cause spontaneous human combustion by causing a massive electrical discharge from her victim's mitochondria, or, when she gets bored of that, she can melt her victims into an amorphous blob of cells, which she can take control of an use it a sort of giant monster (Did you expect anything different from the Japanese?). The main character is a half-Japanese-half American NYPD police officer named Aya Brea. Now, in spite of being half-Japanese, she looks like your typical blonde woman. Anyway, Aya is watching a performance of an opera starring Melissa "Eve" Pierce at Carnegie Hall, when the audience start bursting into flames, everyone except Aya, her date (for some reason), and a Melissa. Anyway, Aya confronts Melissa, who, after failing to burn her alive, starts shooting these weird laser things at her. From then on, the player takes control of Aya as she blasts her way through hordes of mutated creatures such as sharp-toothed mutated rats the size of dogs, Cerberus-like creatures that were once police dogs, the aforementioned amorphous mass of cells/Godzilla wannabe, Eve herself, and the (supposedly) "Ultimate Being" in such diverse locations as the Carnegie Hall, The Chrysler Building, The American Museum of Natural History and a U.S. Navy Ticonderoga-class Cruiser, while discovering a mysterious connection between herself and Eve (including healing powers and . It was a very fun game, and the graphics were good for it's time, in spite of the biological oddities and plot holes, for instance, Why can a NYPD officer with no pilot training operate a Black Hawk Helicopter? And even if Eve can burn pilots alive before they can drop their bombs, provided they are flying at low altitude, couldn't the military just send in unmanned Tomahawk Cruise Missiles, rather than gambling on the success of a civilian police officer? Also, if the city was evacuated, they could just have the Air Force carpet bomb the place from 50000 feet, demonstrated in the game to be beyond the range of Eve's spontaneous combustion, or just nuke the place and Eve along with it, but now I'm nit-picking again, on to the main attraction:

Parasite Eve II storyline
Three years after the first Parasite Eve, in 2000, Squaresoft released a sequel, Parasite Eve II, taking place in the same year. Aya is now a member of the FBI's anti-"neo mitochondian creature" task force (why is the FBI, and not the military handling this?). Anyway, Aya is living in Los Angeles and is dispatched to the Akropolis Tower (is that place real?), where people are devolving into crosses between apes and zombies. Anyway, Aya shows up in time to see a helicopter crash as the pilot devolves and enters the tower to see a bunch of dead SWAT guys (how do officers armed with MP5 Submachine guns get killed by a bunch of unarmed, lumbering ape-zombies?) Anyway, this is where you gain control of Aya. Basically the level involves shooting ape-zombies and finding nearly impossible to find keys to fit into impossible to find keyholes to open doors and restore power to advance the game, and finding a an armed bomb in the tower. Anyway, at the end of the level, you fight this mysterious stranger that looks like an armored ape-zombie with wielding a machete and tear gas grenades near the helipad. This guy is apparently smarter than the other "neo-mitochondrian creatures", as it can talk and plant a bomb in the tower. Anyway, after shooting it some, it will retreat and Aya will escape the scene in a helicopter just before the building explodes. (to be continued)