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When I was in college, I had a (sort of) girlfriend who looked EXACTLY like the main character from Parasite Eve, so it was kind of weird seeing her likeness in the game.  I didn't play much of Parasite Eve when it came out, because it was a little too gross and bloody for my tastes. Yeah, I know, I'm a big baby. :)

Not so! It did get a bit graphic at times. Aya is very pretty,so you are lucky about that girlfriend.  I'm a fan of horror films so those parts drew me in.

As much as Parasite Eve has been around, I've never played the game at all. But I do remember when it first came out, I was walking past Electronics Boutique in the mall with my dad. The opening movie to PE was playing in the window. When dad saw that rat mutate into a monster, he commented on how gory games were becoming. Never forgot that moment.

The rat does tend to stick in people's minds. For me it did. About a month prior to this game I had to fight a huge rat in my friends barn. Scary big and mean as hell!

After hearing about this game for so long, I finally just recently bought it off the PSN.  I only played it for a brief time (I saved right after fighting the first rat creature) but am excited to get into it for real soon.  I'm just trying to finish up a couple of other games before I dedicate some time to it.

It's worth the effort. Each environment about the city has it's own unique challenges. And the boss battles are spectacular.

Ah, I love Parasite Eve. I definitely have great memories of playing through it on my Playstation back in the day. The end boss is so hard! I actually played through it again recently on my PSP, and I have yet to beat the final boss. It's one of those fights that feels like a combination of luck and skill.

The battle that frustrated both myself and my wife was Cerberus. That horrible 3 headed dog! What a pain in the butt he was! Finally figured out his weaknesses and offed him.

Loved the first, not so much the second, never played the "third". But I really should....

I'm currently playing 3rd birthday and am digging it. The second game was a departure for the series. They tried to infuse more action into it. It lost some of what made the first so great.

I felt they tried too much of an RE feel to PEII, but I can see the action sentiment. 

This is one of my favorite PS1 RPGs... I have vivid memories of walking through that museum over and over and over and over again back in the day.  Got it on my PSP about a year ago, and now that I understand the weapon upgrade system; man, it was a lot easier.  

The combat was superb. I enjoyed even the toughest battles very much. And the museum was one of the best parts of the game,absolutely.

I love the first Parasite Eve. I'm playing it again right now lol. This game freaked me out when I first played it. Especially the opera scenes at the begininng. I had never seen something like that in a game. I have beaten it many times, but never did go through the Chrysler building. I was planning on reviewing it someday.

I had recently visited New York when I bought the game. So I liked the setting very much. So many interesting landmarks in NYC. Any wonder why so many movies are set there? It is alive and has a heartbeat that never stops. Music in the game was awesome,too.

I always get chills when you enter the Central Park Amphitheater and Eve's just floating on stage.  The music in that game is a great mix of horror and noir/detective style tunes.

Noir is right. I really liked that element. They finally did it up right with L.A. Noire. I have watched some old black and white crime noir films. Really found them entertaining.

Glad someone else acknowledged Parasite Eve. It really is a great game! I probably even preferred it marginally over FF7 because between the two of them I thought PE had the better storyline and characters.

There was a rumor floating about back in 1999 that Madonna had purchased the film rights to the game. Square denied it and nothing ever came of it. A blessing perhaps?

Well, it's kind of cool Madonna took interest in Parasite Eve. lol. I don't know about her chops as a director/screen writer though. The game itself is actually based on books & movies in Japan so that's probably why she couldn't do anything with it. (Aka, legal copyright issues. Even if she bought movie rights perhaps there was a disagreement with the original creator?)

Very true. Could have been a legal snafu that caused Madonna to back down. She had never stated she wanted to play Aya in the film. But she is one savvy businesswoman and a good deal is a good deal.

Wayde, is this game turn-based when it comes to combat? I might get it off PSN at some point if it is.

I like Enya, I think my favorite album that she did was Shepherd Moons. That one was a little more folk and a little less new-age than most of her other stuff. I enjoyed the Lindsey Stirling one, too. This is the kind of music that I like to listen to when I'm doing a cross-stitch project, putting together a jigsaw puzzle, doing a crossword, etc. The music is present, but not enough that it breaks my concentration on whatever task I'm working on. Actually, it usually enhances my brain's ability to work on projects like that.

You would probably enjoy it,Tami. It is turn based,with Aya taking turns against her foes. Unlike FF games where it is a party fighting them. Thanks for your comment on the music. I decided to do that every now and then. Just put up a couple of songs I'm listening to. Then if folks don't want to comment about the blog,they might like the songs. Enya has gone very New Age with her recent material. My favorite album of hers is The Celts. But Shepherd Moons is a very close second. I only recently discovered Lindsey Stirling. Had no idea until yesterday she did these game related videos. Pretty cool!

Turn-based. Cool. I recently downloaded it on PSN but haven't played it yet. "Horror RPG" is an interesting phrase.

I remember playing through the game and getting frustrated with the final boss.  I quit, but i may still have my save file somewhere.

The climax is incredible! You should try it again just to see that part.

I have never played this game and its an awesome ps1 game I think I owned it at one point but it sat on my shelf with thousand arms another kick butt rpg I didnt play and im still regreting trading these games in along time ago stupid just stupid just like when i traded my devi summoner 1 & 2 just stupid grrrrrr it makes me so mad that I did that now thousand arms is a $168 game if you can find it same with parasite eve and the devil summoners are like $125 and up for used copys but any way do you own the game if so its worth some bucks on amazon especially if its a black label ha ha i knew you would put up parasite eve on a blog when you mentioned it on my Final Fantasy thread lol.

Yes,game trade regret is a terrible thing,my friend. Can't tell you the number of times I have felt it. So these days I tend to hang onto them unless it's a truly horrible game. Oh,btw,Skyrim downloaded perfectly! Thank you so much for sending me that. Started playing it a bit last night. Until I started falling asleep with my controller in my mitts. Wife nudged my chair and yelled "Hey!" at me. It was so good I did not want to quit!

This is a really great game; really innovative at the time and a underappreciated gem even now. It's too bad the sequel sucks so bad, though.

I feel that this game deserves a next gen treatment. Why do they do sequels and reboots of games that end up stinking? Yes I am talking to you,Duke Nukem!!!

This was a great game, and I bought it 4 months after beating Final Fantasy VII. I heard about it in IGNPSX's Japan imports articles. Back then I was still used to all the SNES-era cherrypicking and blind dart-throwing that seemed to dictate whether or not we'd ever get RPGs in the US - a trend which was thankfully killed by Square and Working Designs on the PS1 - and thought it was great when Square decided to release it over here. The game's cut-scenes looked impressive and I found it creepier than Resident Evil 1 or 2, not to take away from those games. PE was the first game I ever pre-ordered, and I still have my original copy.

It was a great franchise that was wrecked by it's own makers. They tried to make it something it was never meant to be. Sad but true. It will forever remain in my collection,though.

I tried playing this game when it first came out. I played for several hours, but it never really hooked me. Haven't gone back to this series since then. I still have the original game, though. In fact, I think I collected most, if not all, of the Squaresoft games on the PS1. heh

It's not for everyone,I'll admit. Just like I can't do RTS and sports games very much. Seems like people who play games like Madden get tunnel vision. Becomes all they want to play. But to each their own. While I'm not a Square/Enix fanboy,I think they have more hits than misses.

I just recently bought this on psn to play on my vita.  I really loved the proposed story line for the game can't wait to get a little time to play through it.

Wow! They have it to play on Vita? I'm gonna have to check the store out more often. I tend to pick up PS1 games on disk,but that is pretty cool.

I forget how awesome some of those PSX cutscenes look. That rat transformation was creepy, and even today the whole sequence looks none too shabby. This is why I hate that I can't get into JRPGs; they always have such good graphics and seem to have such great stories, but I just can't get into the gameplay enough to unlock those stories. Maybe I'll find a Let's Play or a Youtube video with just the cutscenes.

Love Lindsey Sterling's videos, such a talented woman.

And "Boadicea," which you were talking about yesterday to me. Now I don't even have to find it on Youtube; that's convenient! lol I must admit, I wasn't fond of it at first, found it a bit repetitive, and I don't tend to go for minimalism in music often; but somewhere around 1:45 I settled in, closed my eyes, and it became soothing. Thanks for the share!

Good blog, game seems like a very cool milestone to have.

It was tough to find that Boudicea video. There were dozens of remixes to wade through on YouTube. House,trance,classical,and even DubStep mixes of it. DubStep? Really? WTF is up with that? I think people latched onto the song because it was sampled so well in a hip hop song. Trying to remember who did it. I know I liked it. As for JRPG's I am the exact same way. Just not my cup of tea. Either too crazy or just too cutesy for me. With a few exceptions like the Persona series. My taste in anime runs parallel to that as well. Akira,Ghost In The Shell,Cowboy Bebop, and ones with a modern tech theme. Oh! Thanks Google. It was The Fugees! Song called Ready Or Not. Had Tupac on it. They did it on an awards show after he died. Sort of a tribute. It was quite moving I recall.

I have both games downloaded from PSN. I have the second one in physical form too but I've never finished it or the first one. I was really enjoying the first game but the difficulty spikes really early in the game and the random encounters are extremely frequent which put me off. I hate that they changed the perfectly fine control scheme of the first game to RE style tank controls in the second. That was a really dumb move IMO.

That was an awful blunder on their part. Why mess with what works? The second one was really hard to beat. Gets insanely tough toward the end. 

Oh and I love Enya. I have a Clannad album on which she appears plus Shepherd Moons. It is very soothing music.

Maire Brennan[lead singer] of Clannad is Enya's sister. Did not realize that until I became a big fan of their music. I have most of Clannad's music in my iTunes library. Listened to some songs just an hour ago in fact. Glad I'm not alone in liking Enya.

I've always been interested in this series, but I've yet to play it. I plan on at least picking up the 3rd Birthday eventually as that one is pretty cheap and easy to find (and I like playing on my PSP when I can't sleep!).