One time in a college biology class I had to write an essay about mitochondria, and instead of reading the boring ass textbook, I skimmed it, re-played Parasite Eve, and wrote my paper about all the scientific inaccuracies in the game's narrative. I got an A.
I remember some kid wrote into...I think it was EGM...that or Gamepro....that his biology teacher was offering free points on a test depending on the facts their students wrote down and this kid apparently wrote down a bunch of things from the game, amazing his teacher.
The premise of "Person A goes into the past in B's body to save them but in the process loses their memory and thinks they're A" is actually a really interesting one, and that could have been a really plot warping twist...if the actual characterization of Aya and Eve was strong enough to carry it.
Which is why the Memory thing shouldn’t have lasted for so long. Cause only at the End does Aya and her Actual Character come back, only to completely divorce herself from the Series by the end with a point Blank bullet to the Heart! What a fucking Betrayal!
Imagine thinking a sequel would ruin an already finished product. Delusional. A sequel doesnt magically make the first game unenjoyable if you already enjoyed it. Grow up.
I find it kinda funny how every single retrospective look at the 3rd Birthday ALWAYS neglect to mention one of the biggest slaps in the face. The unlockable "Confidential File" cutscene that sequel baits.
I thought the twist in the original Nier was twisted and F*cked, but this is on another level. I’d actually marvel at it, if it wasn’t the franchise conclusion.
I’ll play devil’s advocate for the text dumps in PE1. Part of the appeal of the horror was the scientific sounding grounding to the events, and they serve to try to buoy the plausibility of them. It… Doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, but it is a cool idea and was probably a bit more convincing in the 90’s.
It was also more in line with the original novel writing style. It made a weird horror novel where you have pages dedicated to medical writing on the subject of cellular division or surgery. After all, Sena was a pharmacologist before he became a writer.
Seriously, 2010s Action Girl Humiliation was such an unnecessary fad "Get To Know this awesome female character you've loved for a decade! By finding out that she was actually a sniveling coward this whole time!"
I actually think I disagree. Other M, despite its narrative flaws, managed to maintain a tense atmosphere in a variable space, and used its gameplay to great effect in conveying the feelings of dread and isolation. I could easilly imagine someone not caring for the story, but staying for everything else. Or, to put another way; Other M is a fairly well-made game, whose biggest flaw is that it is overwritten, choosing to repeatedly exposit the lead's thoughts and feelings instead of just conveying it through the cinematography. If the game cut out 80% of Samus' dIalogue, most complaints would go away. 3rd Birthday actively tries to not be a PE game, and even insults tne player for wanting it to do so. It doesn't weaken its lead by over-dramaticising her like Other M did, but instead beat her with a lead pipe, and put the gun in your hand to deliver the killing blow. The sheer disrespect is what makes it all so agregious. Other M can be written off as a bad day and moved on from, albeit with the occasional mockery. There is no coming back with 3rd Birthday, the whome thing is rotted out from top to bottom, and that just hurts all the more.
@@GambeTama Other M was meant to "Break" Samus. Show her as a giant pussy who is subservient to her father figure as a good japanese broodmare should. Why else have her break down after seeing Ridley despite killing him every Tuesday? And not being allowed to use her own weapons despite being literally part of her body? Adam tells her when to breath shit and blink. It's ridiculous. It's like having Doomslayer suck a fucking pacifier while shitting his pants after looking at an Imp.
You know the terminus to this path. Lesser known and overshadowed Square-Enix games will only lead you to SaGa, and then you will know true mechanical despair.
I still remember that rat transformation scene straight up made me quit the game and haunted me as a kid, PE1 was one of the first few games I played on PSX and that scene looked so real at the time lol
@@ShadowWolfRising The 3rd Birthday is WAY worse. Other M is bad, but 3rd Birthday literally destroys everything the previous games build up irreparably, only way you can continue Parasite Eve after that is straight up a hard reboot. Imagine if Other M actually forced the player to kill off Samus themselves, that's what The 3rd Birthday did
@@Nk3ATR third birthday is nothing but Aya clones. The director of third birthday made sure to state it wasn't parasite Eve 3, it was just the third game
I know there's no Parasite Eve 3, but suppose some creepy guy somewhere wrote a fanfiction sequel where he constantly strips Aya of half naked, dresses her in sexy outfits, has her constantly sensually moaning, and dumbed down her mentality to that of an amnesiac child, making the twist that she isn't actually Aya, but Eve a literal child that swapped bodies into an adult, then proceed to marry her to a grown man (Kyle) in the games ending, and said grown man reveals he knows it's Eve in Ayas body by flashing the 2 engagement rings like it's some kind of Flex, (one for Eve and one for Aya) somehow does not make the context of all the creepy shit in the game better.. It makes things definitively worse ALOT WORSE!! That's not a flex Kyle, that's a crime
the spoiler is that isn't Aya its her clone Eve from the 2nd game who was a girly girl college student so it makes sense she wouldn't be a tough tomboy like Aya.
That final twist and ending in 3rd Birthday, is so insane, so bizarre, and so deeply troubling to me as a writer, that I really struggle to imagine a mentally sane person could come up with it. It may just be the worst plot twist I've seen in any video game.
-I like how Aya's Japanese voice actress in Third Birthday actually somehow sounds much LESS like a hentai doujin heroine compared to the English one. It's a really rare and bizarre case.-
@@ZerosGameInn Yeah, I know. Her Jap voice on the other hand is Maaya Sakamoto, which made me drop my jaw on the floor when I found out. No wonder, her performance as Aya felt more believable and less submissive-fetish fueled compared to Yvonne. I guess Square Enix gave her more freedom when it came to the choice of emotions for the character because they knew how famous and respectable seiyuu she is in the industry. Square Enix in general seems to give their Jap voice actors a lot more freedom compared to their English ones. I remember that Vanille's English VA in FFXIII was forced by the voice director to give her a really cutesy moe voice, while the Jap VA was allowed to voice the character in whatever way she liked.
I love Parasite Eve. To the music, Yoko said that her compositions were experimental in PE. I love the soundtrack. Too bad that she doesn't do a lot of techno tracks like she done in the past. Since she became the lead composer for the Kingdom Heart series, shes been pretty much stuck with orchestrated soundtracks. Also, always have two different armors when playing the first game. PE regeneration is slow if you use it too many times in battle. But when you switch your armor, you can regain PE regeneration at its normal rate. The game is pretty difficult if you're not paying attention.
Yep, much like Michiru Yamane for Lament of Innocence, in isolating the compositions to instruments available in the 11th century mostly. Harry Gregson Williams had a neat interview to that end when working on Kingdom of Heaven.
41:55 I really appreciated you bringing this up. The fandom behavior thing is ultimately wasted effort because when the dust settles, an IP is the name a corporation gets to try and sell us again after artists have done their thing. Franchises really only have the weight we give them. I disagree with one point though. You saying these companies "will eventually ruin the thing you love". I feel that original work will always exist no matter how many bad sequels it gets. I don't care about the health of a brand so these corporations aren't hurting me, just their bottom line. Even if they piggyback off a work I like to do it. Good video overall though as per usual.
Yep, that “eventually” part was more fatalistic than late stage capitalism critique, but still interesting. Conspicuous consumption is still with us as a relic of the Cold War, yet in our ever shrinking modern world (globalism/globalization) people make this zombie concept persist through fandoms.
Okay, so I've never played 3rd Birthday. I played PE2 first when my mom bought it on a whim when I was like 12, and beat it at least ten times. I knew _everything_ about that game. (You can beat the slider puzzle in three moves.) I played PE1 as an adult, which was a fantastic game from start to finish and blew my mind. I've watched several videos on 3rd Birthday. I knew it was bad. I did not know it was a direct insult. Now I know why it's not just disliked as a disappointment, it's overtly reviled as a deliberate slap in the face. If Aya actually acted like Aya, then those costumes wouldn't be saucy fanservice, they would be comedy. The clothing degradation would go from "oh no my clothes are falling apart uwu" to *_"I don't need pants to kill you."_*
Parasite eve is one of my favorite games of all time.I still have revisit it to do the extra content with all those floors.I dread the sewer level tho.
Playing The 3rd Birthday as a kid before even knowing it had 2 prequels prior is a completely different expirience, cuz by itself, The 3rd Birthday, storywise almost feels like it’s a one off
You left out the fact that after you kill Aya, they make Kyle marry Eve/Aya! And he KNOWS THEY BOTH KNOW. God 3rd birthday was disgustingly bad lol. Christ.
Naoshi Mizuta gave a really bad first impression with Parasite Eve II. Go and listen to his songs from Final Fantasy XI,XIII-2,XIV,XV Episode Prompto and Stranger of Paradise and i'm surprised he didn't get fired after PE2...but tbh i don't know what you have to do to get fired from Square Enix.
That closing statement about corps not being your friends and how they will inevitably let you down, not only hits so hard but is a message more people need to internalize. I myself am coming to the terms that I need to stop making excuses for nintendo. Thier games shaped so much of who I am today, but they don't actually care about me or any of thier other Fandom, and we as fans need to stop buying the bullshit everytime they fuckup or do something fucked up.
It really bothers me that Nintendo wears this mask of being the family friendly nostalgic company of your childhood and in reality they're one of the most anti-consumer companies out there.
You glossed over Motomu Toriyama's involvement in the story for 3rd Birthday. The plot and treatment of Aya(and Eve) makes a lot more sense when you realize it's the partial brain child of the waifumaster himself.
And immediately demonstrates the problem of designing a waifu before a decent character, especially when you realize what creepy taste some developers have the moment they can work on a girl character.
If I had to choose between Kojima or Motomu Toriyama..........yeah, I'd take Kojima. Kojima might do some cracked out ideas with it, maybe creating a Squad/Army of Mitochondria Soldiers and base building.
While i’m getting sick and tired of remakes, I couldn’t think of a game more deserving than PE1! Imagine seeing Aya in New York on current hardware, it would be so awesome! ❤️
Really love Parasite Eve 2 now but as a kid I hated it, took me like five attempts just to get to the second No.9 boss. The turning point was stopping trying to play it like Resident Evil and seeing it more as some DnD hybrid thing - it's all about positioning yourself correctly and taking pride in clearing an area, like you're some kind of magic rentokil agent. The multiple storylines are pretty good as well.
41:54 - man, I relate to this so much. Don't think there's been a single series that hasn't at some point let me down, and I don't feel like being major fan of any franchise or company where there will be a shitty or cynical product added at some point. Tenchu is the series that went downhill and left a real bitter taste in my mouth.
The opening to PE1 is still beautiful and disturbing to this day, the FMV was impressive for the time(this is 1998 PS1 horror and RPG games we're talking about). I legitimately said "Oh shit!" when Melissa then turned Mitochondria Eve showed up at the opera in this review; and Aya was such a badass, since Parasite Eve was titled as "The Cinematic RPG". Arise Within You will always be one of my favorite battle themes in any RPG. Parasite Eve 2 was okay, but we could definitely see the character designer giving up with Nomura taking his place when getting to the Burner boss fight. But in the beginning of PE2, an innocent woman getting transformed into a grotesque monster known as ANMC still haunts me to this day. Quite the squick in body horror, I know. Then there's The 3rd Birthday; it was so mediocre that the franchise remained dormant from there. 3rd Birthday is where Parasite Eve went through 'Kingdom Hearts syndrome', because time travel in Square Enix IPs, except it didn't work here unlike NEO TWEWY. And no, Symbiogenesis isn't an NFT oriented PE spinoff. Just imagine how Hideo Kojima could write a fourth Parasite Eve game. It would be absolutely bonkers!
PE1 and PE2 are not as polished as RE games or even Final fantasy but they are so fun and for science geek like myself i love the lore. The pre rendered backgrounds are always nice to see and the combat system is very unique. And the soundtrack is top tier.
Jo, my father is currently watching this video, he dosnt understand a single word you are saying, but he is a loooooooooong time Fan of this franchise. Hope he never finds out that I do speak English or I have to translate a ton of you videos
I remember the lead-up to 3rd Birthday's release. They hyped 38 year old Aya Brea up as their oldest female character, and said they wanted to 'explore the lifestyle of an older woman.' Except there is no 'lifestyle' because the plot floors the apocalypse pedal the whole time, and she's an immortal 25 year old bikini model with the mind of a 3 year old teenager. And the game wants you to salivate over her. They don't even do anything interesting with the time travel element, because everyone you try to 'save' is a shaggy dog story. The game could've been interesting if you unlocked different plot routes depending on which characters you managed to rescue, and witnessed the knock-on effects -- but no, they're just ceremonially sacrificed to give you a totally unscientific power-up. Man, 2010s Action Girl Humiliation was such an embarrassing genre shift. Lara, Samus, and most of all Aya deserved better.
I still don't get the dislike that PE2 gets. I definitely played it when I was older (got REALLY lucky finding for sale after being donated) so there's not really any nostalgia bias here. Sure it doesn't have the PURE ATMOSPHERE that 1 has. But it does its own thing in ways I really like. I'll also admit to being kind of awestruck by the final section of the game. One negative though is that BOY is the hidden stuff hidden as FUCK! You can beat a secret boss and still not get the powerful reward from it because it's REALLY not obvious or all that visible.
We desperately need more Horror RPGs. Like an actual mix of the 2, not one with a bit of lipservice to the other. Shadow Hearts Franchise, Odium/Gorky 17, Sweet Home, are some of the only ones I can think of off the top of my head (Ushiro to if Level 5 is still making that and EVER FUCKING RELEASES IT!). If Parasite Eve was ever to come back, I want the Game to be more RPG than anything else, but I want the Aesthetic, Theming, and Tone to be Horror. While Powerlessness can be a major aspect of Horror, I feel it isn't required. To me, one of the most interesting Silent Hill Stories.........was the one that never got passed being a pitch, that being the Cult and/or Silent Hill itself trying to spread to a 2nd Town, and an Exorcist goes in to prevent that. Let me repeat that, a Main Character who not only is aware of Silent Hill's Hellscape Fuckery, pretty much being in the know BEFORE EVEN GOING there, PURPOSEFULLY goes there with full awareness of what's going down and what will probably happen, but does so with the intent to actively fight it from the very start. That's fucking amazing and I am upset we never got that. A Great Concept for a Horror Anything does not require powerlessness, it just needs to utilize the fact the Protagonist can fight back. 3rd Birthday.........Dear Lord 3rd Birthday, I can't even think about that game or Motomu Toriyama without the phrase "Refreshing Vulnerability." echoing in my skull. Like what the actual hell were they thinking with that game? And that ending..........this fucking game cannot be canon if this franchise is ever brought back. It fucking can't.
I love the power fantasy the horror aspects bring to PE 1+2. They set up these monstrosities with the horror aesthetic, and that's a big part of what makes Aya so badass. You need a powerful villain to make the hero look powerful themselves, and those games Really set that up well.
The writer being an episodic show writer explains a LOT about the third birthday, because the story barely makes any sense, after each mission everything changes, almost like you are in a different timeline and wtf is that ending holy. I think Kbash described third birthday perfectly, it's a spinoff so a lot seems diferent but you just go with it since the gameplay is cool and all, but the more you play the more... wrong everything feels, the original Aya reminds me a lot of Motoko, ghost in the shell protagonist., but now aya sux, she's a completely different person, worse in every single way, and in a franchise that's sold on it's super baddas protagonist, it's uhh, a brave choice i'll say. The gameplay also loses it's charm on the first half , right at the first god awful boss fight with the twisted queen, enemies gets spongier and spongier, to the point that made me question "did anyone play test this at all?".
Oh this is going to be painful. My first parasite eve game was The Third Birthday. I was just a teenager, had no idea what it was about, but an apocalypse of monsters sounded cool. It was honestly really fun (minus the absolutely creepy ending), but I never knew how much of a Butchered Legacy it left. Looking at the older games, I can't help but feel that while I personally enjoyed 3rd, it's such a step in a misdirection. Can't wait to watch the video though, love your content.
The third game was that jackass crisis core/ffxv/type zeros directors job…He makes some of the WORST rpg battle systems in the industry and does not get action combat
Are you talking about Tabata@@morriganrenfield8240 ? Because I agree, also he really butchered Lunafreya and I never even played the game. I mean looking back on the Final Fantasy versus 13 trailers Stella looked like an awesome female character whose story I would enjoy picking apart. But nope we got a rather weak romance and a (fairly) bland love interest. I mean seriously this is why I ship Noctis with Prompto! They have actual dialogue with one another in the game and have great chemistry which made me ship them as a couple. We could have had a romance that rivaled Cloud and Aerith’s tragic relationship (two lonely souls who meet each other and find commonality with one another only for death to part them is how I characterize Clerith) but nope we got a bad romance. I really wish FF versus 13 was made.
3rd birthday also becomes very uncomfortable to play given the fan service is technically directed at a very young girl and even has a shower scene, which is creepy because you already know that a small girl is driving Aya's body. I get that 3rd birthday was meant to be a mobile/phone title, but geez, the script is really bottom of the barrel.
Honestly I just hope we get a sequel or remake based on FF7R’s gameplay. Maybe headhunt a Capcom dev for a third to get some of the horror vibes thrown in.
The worst part about 3rd birthday's plot twist is that, the sexualization of the game turns even worse cause they tell you that you are playing as Eve, a LITERAL TWELVE YEAR LOVE. Wich means that all the time Aya's clothes get ripped and torn apart that means... well you are already know. I seriously dont understand how the people that wrote this game didnt realize about this
Damn you and I Finished A Video Game are releasing Parasite Eve retrospectives around the same time. Gonna be interesting to see their approaches on talking about the franchise.
I play pe2 (an actual copy no less) at least once a year and due to how things are unlocked in new game+ I dont think ive ever played it the same way twice, which is one of the many things I enjoy about it, my biggest pet peeve would be that the new game + is easier than the main game and I dont mean in a you start with better stuff way, the enemies are actually weaker in new game+, upgrading pe costs less exp, etc...its like gee thanks for making it easy now that I start the game with an AR lol.
Parasite Eve 1&2 are both great. PE1 has a very scientific story that I love and it has some good charm. PE1 is kind of like a Bullet Hell RPG. PE2 has this RE3 vibe, but with RPG elements. PE2 is kind of like what if Jill or Claire had some super powers. And I like the puzzles in PE2. I hate the Fandom is split between PE 1&2 when they're both good in their own way.
You know, it's kinda funny how a series that started with the premise of cells are basically filled with literal magic, and that's the bit that of the series that remained grounded as it descended further into madness. Really glad I never played the third game. Let's me keep the memories of enjoying 1 and 2 without the bad oftertaste.
The 3rd Birthday might be the worst game I've ever played, it often gets a pass on the gameplay side, but it's was an utterly miserable experience. The only point in it's favor is that no gameplay loop can justify that fucking narrative. The impression I got when i finished is that the game just had no respect for anything. No respect for Aya, no respect for Maeda or Kyle (who went on with the marriage knowing it was Eve on Aya's body), no respect for the soldiers you can allegedly help and lastly, no respect for the player. It's an absolute disgrace.
I have played 3rd Birthday 7 times just to try to figure out the plot. I didn't understand it until you explained it here. For anyone wondering, *that's* how poorly-told and convoluted that plot is. Thanks though, Kbash. Big help
35:45 Wow, sexy outfits for a character that was depicted as sexy since her inception? I'VE NEVER SEEN THAT BEFORE. Especially not with other iconic female characters or anything. Nope.
I loved the first game, didn't get around to the second, and I dislike the third. That being said, the interface for the third game is fucking gorgeous. Top tier PSP high style low res gold. Also, clothes getting shredded in combat is a neat idea if the end result wasn't so hypersexualised. If her Squeenix Sophistifuture outfit was torn away to reveal body armor would be neat. Or even twist the fanservice on it's head, what if "Aya" was extremely inhuman apart from her face and hands? Lean into the body horror with the clothing damage system. Oh well.
Tbh, could be an unpopular opinion but I feel the story ended after the first PE, i enjoyed it much more than PE2 and never played 3rd birthday, both of the sequels just felt like spin-offs or alternate realities set for the main character. Mainly because they ditched all the characters to give you new ones you never see almost ever, nor are they ever brought up in the story as if they never existed. All in all i still enjoy doing play throughs of PE the character movement might be a bit on the slow side when moving from screen to screen but was still good in it's own unique way, while the other 2 just tried to be something the original never wanted to be.
@@scuff4094 True, I also enjoyed they somewhat fleshed out side characters if you went back to talk to them from time to time. Like Torres refused to fire guns because of a gun accident with his "now" deceased daughter, Baker and his K9 partner Sheva who protected Daniels kid Ben. When eve hit the police station until she (Sheva) finally succumbed to the parasite cells, and Baker having to shoot his long time partner. The other games almost barely gave a reason to care about anyone in the game but Aya. Not to mention least in PE2 you didn't see any forboding enemies. Example - Going to the 9th floor to the sperm sample at the hospital in PE, if your in the dark hallway, run towards the camera, and it switches to show a window. Running up to the window it cuts to outside the window showing a building having an isolated thunderstorm, with lightning constantly striking the roof. Seeing that you get a sense that something else is going on in the background while your chasing down eve. Had PE stayed with the original story and combat system i feel we would have seen a lot better games from the series, and much better received.
I'm one of those weirdos that LOVES PE2. It has so many weird systems and cool little secrets. I got a gunblade one time I beat the game, lol. I think PE1 is the game to play if you want to sample the series, but I will always have a place in my...er, Playstation console for PE2.
I think the old heads at square enix were inspired by the best of international media like john capenter and late 80's early 90s action flix. And the the younger generation is derivative of the worst aspects of B-movies, at the time being emotionally stunted. So they just tell these big stories about nothing that aren't interesting.
Fun fact on PE1; the primary reason it came to exist at all was for it to be a tech demo for the engine that would be used to develop Final Fantasy 8. Hence it's short completion time and experimental gameplay. I hate that they didn't consult the original author. He better have at least gotten royalties.
The first game was excellent, and feels like a mystery. The second game was good in a different way, more like a horror/thriller movie like Tremors. 3rd birthday killed off the series in its destruction of the main character.
The general consensus is that 3rd Birthday Doesn't exist and if it was lost forever no one would give a shit. PE 2 is is the only I played it and like it but never beat it.
I played 3rd birthday before I knew what parasite eve even was and I played the entire thing and I cant remember much of the story so I must not have payed much attention to it lol but I remember really enjoying the gameplay
"Careful aya,thats a lil more black than thier used to dealing with" sounds ridiculous and woke ass hell considering her partner is a black cop and it takes place in nyc
Here to drop a bomb for PE1 *spoilers*: After level 37 it only takes about 4000 exp to level up anytime after that. You can level up from 37 To 99 in a couple good hours farming mobs in the museum. Have fun destroying EX game and the Chrysler Building :3
Yakuza Like a Dragon had a full on RPG combat system with the character running around a modern city. Get the crew of that game to do a Parasite Eve remake but specifically get a writer or lead designer like Junji Ito who won't shy away from making you have nightmares with the body horror. Next thing you know you have a RPG in a modern city with body horror. Don't want it to be an RPG? There are other crews out there. But the fact remains that if someone could body slam Square Enix hard enough to get Parasite Eve a remake could not only happen but be absolutely amazing.
I became obsessed with the second one, replaying it to the point where I was pretty much speedrunning it. I don't really mind Square's Japanese "not really role-playing" games in any way shape or form but games like Vagrant Story and Front Mission 2 are the real gems. Whether you love or hate Sony, it's probably because of how many unique and interesting franchises they've turned into household names. I kinda miss those early Playstation days, where Sony would pretty much sign anything and countless amazing releases flew completely under the radar.
While I don’t so much think the 3rd Birthday is a good game (especially its completely unengaging narrative outside the twist), the idea that of the game not being true to its series’ nature is misleading. It’s funny, because Parasite Eve as a franchise has always had a sense of deception in its marketing. Like “mature sexual themes” as a key part of the ESRB rating. It’s front and center when you see the rating, causing the mind to come to inappropriate places, especially for the teenage mind. The people who see the sexualized imagery in the ads, are they wrong to think that will be the standard expectations? Instead of a disturbing plot about genetically modified sperm and impregnating unwilling victims like Melissa? And “could only come from the minds behind Final Fantasy VII”? That’s not only a dubious concept designed to drum up sales for a game about as close to VII as Vagrant Story is to FF Tactics, but it’s also lowest common denominator what with pretending that VII was revolutionary in any way beyond getting people to FINALLY notice the quality of Final Fantasy... The staff behind Parasite Eve were veterans, and claiming that VII was their crowning achievement is selling their talent short. As for II, so many odd design decisions (much as you mentioned) that aside from the bonus unlockables, it really does a lot derivatively overall, causing debatably the worst identity crisis in the franchise. Especially the ambient music; ugh. To me, the only question is which is duller? The environments or the music? That’s worthy of debate for sure. The 3rd Birthday is too a product of its time, and just meh in so many ways, that its plot isn’t worth defending, even from a mechanical point of view. I was more “huh” upon the ending’s revelation, and yet, like a lot of classic misdirection moments in the history of media, is it truly right to dismiss it as “bad” rather than “different”? The terms are used interchangeably often, and really shouldn’t be.
One time in a college biology class I had to write an essay about mitochondria, and instead of reading the boring ass textbook, I skimmed it, re-played Parasite Eve, and wrote my paper about all the scientific inaccuracies in the game's narrative.
I got an A.
truly one of mitochondria moment of all time
I remember some kid wrote into...I think it was EGM...that or Gamepro....that his biology teacher was offering free points on a test depending on the facts their students wrote down and this kid apparently wrote down a bunch of things from the game, amazing his teacher.
KBash has become the mitochondria of the video game analysis genre
KBash is the powerhouse of the RUclips.
@Gravity Queen the dude produces better content than most gaming tubers in my opinion. He's just built different.
Couldn't agree more
All the mitochondria (plural). Soon he will activate inside us all.
Did u learn a new word 😂 what a stupid place to use it 😮
To hear The Third Birthday categorized as "some weird smelly thing" on the timestamps brings me to primeval laughter
The premise of "Person A goes into the past in B's body to save them but in the process loses their memory and thinks they're A" is actually a really interesting one, and that could have been a really plot warping twist...if the actual characterization of Aya and Eve was strong enough to carry it.
I was about to try to sell you 999 but it doesn't have the "thinks they're A" part. Foiled again!
Which is why the Memory thing shouldn’t have lasted for so long. Cause only at the End does Aya and her Actual Character come back, only to completely divorce herself from the Series by the end with a point Blank bullet to the Heart!
What a fucking Betrayal!
Parasite Eve is one of my favorite games of all time.
I'm so glad Square never ruined it with any sequels.
@Meat Head They never made a sequel.
@Meat Head
It's a great sequel.
Imagine thinking a sequel would ruin an already finished product. Delusional. A sequel doesnt magically make the first game unenjoyable if you already enjoyed it. Grow up.
@@AgentSephiroth Calm down
I actually like PE2, great that they stopped at 2 and let the series rest.
I find it kinda funny how every single retrospective look at the 3rd Birthday ALWAYS neglect to mention one of the biggest slaps in the face. The unlockable "Confidential File" cutscene that sequel baits.
Hi there.
Please elaborate?
I've not ever heard of this.
Still got the 8+ year old (Me) memories of my dad playing this and freaking out by the melting and flying baby...
I thought the twist in the original Nier was twisted and F*cked, but this is on another level. I’d actually marvel at it, if it wasn’t the franchise conclusion.
It's strange. After the section about PE2, the video became multiple minutes of tortured souls screaming into the darkness, and then the outro
I’ll play devil’s advocate for the text dumps in PE1. Part of the appeal of the horror was the scientific sounding grounding to the events, and they serve to try to buoy the plausibility of them.
It… Doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, but it is a cool idea and was probably a bit more convincing in the 90’s.
It was also more in line with the original novel writing style. It made a weird horror novel where you have pages dedicated to medical writing on the subject of cellular division or surgery. After all, Sena was a pharmacologist before he became a writer.
I’ve heard The 3rd Birthday get compared to Metroid Other M a lot and, frankly, I think the comparison is completely fair.
Seriously, 2010s Action Girl Humiliation was such an unnecessary fad
"Get To Know this awesome female character you've loved for a decade! By finding out that she was actually a sniveling coward this whole time!"
@@Densoro I can only think of Lara Croft going through that as well, not sure I'd call it a fad.
I actually think I disagree. Other M, despite its narrative flaws, managed to maintain a tense atmosphere in a variable space, and used its gameplay to great effect in conveying the feelings of dread and isolation. I could easilly imagine someone not caring for the story, but staying for everything else.
Or, to put another way; Other M is a fairly well-made game, whose biggest flaw is that it is overwritten, choosing to repeatedly exposit the lead's thoughts and feelings instead of just conveying it through the cinematography. If the game cut out 80% of Samus' dIalogue, most complaints would go away. 3rd Birthday actively tries to not be a PE game, and even insults tne player for wanting it to do so. It doesn't weaken its lead by over-dramaticising her like Other M did, but instead beat her with a lead pipe, and put the gun in your hand to deliver the killing blow.
The sheer disrespect is what makes it all so agregious. Other M can be written off as a bad day and moved on from, albeit with the occasional mockery. There is no coming back with 3rd Birthday, the whome thing is rotted out from top to bottom, and that just hurts all the more.
@@GambeTama Other M was meant to "Break" Samus. Show her as a giant pussy who is subservient to her father figure as a good japanese broodmare should. Why else have her break down after seeing Ridley despite killing him every Tuesday? And not being allowed to use her own weapons despite being literally part of her body? Adam tells her when to breath shit and blink. It's ridiculous. It's like having Doomslayer suck a fucking pacifier while shitting his pants after looking at an Imp.
@@GambeTamaWell, you'd be wrong.
You know the terminus to this path. Lesser known and overshadowed Square-Enix games will only lead you to SaGa, and then you will know true mechanical despair.
But if one perseveres, holding to noble ambitions, they shall be graced by the incandescent radiance of a scarlet sun.
I still remember that rat transformation scene straight up made me quit the game and haunted me as a kid, PE1 was one of the first few games I played on PSX and that scene looked so real at the time lol
That scene and twisted metal's clown car haunted kid me for a long, long time. I actually like PE1 tho.
So basically, third birthday is the Other M of the series
Yes pretty much, I can't even figure out which is worse in that regard.
@@ShadowWolfRising The 3rd Birthday is WAY worse. Other M is bad, but 3rd Birthday literally destroys everything the previous games build up irreparably, only way you can continue Parasite Eve after that is straight up a hard reboot. Imagine if Other M actually forced the player to kill off Samus themselves, that's what The 3rd Birthday did
@@Nk3ATR damn, i liked it.
Both games had decent gameplay in terms of action, but in turn, excluded their roots of what they originally are in their respective genre.
@@Nk3ATR third birthday is nothing but Aya clones. The director of third birthday made sure to state it wasn't parasite Eve 3, it was just the third game
I know there's no Parasite Eve 3, but suppose some creepy guy somewhere wrote a fanfiction sequel where he constantly strips Aya of half naked, dresses her in sexy outfits, has her constantly sensually moaning, and dumbed down her mentality to that of an amnesiac child, making the twist that she isn't actually Aya, but Eve a literal child that swapped bodies into an adult, then proceed to marry her to a grown man (Kyle) in the games ending, and said grown man reveals he knows it's Eve in Ayas body by flashing the 2 engagement rings like it's some kind of Flex, (one for Eve and one for Aya) somehow does not make the context of all the creepy shit in the game better..
It makes things definitively worse
ALOT WORSE!!
That's not a flex Kyle, that's a crime
Third birthday still isn't parasite eve 3 so at least there's that
What they did to Aya in the 3rd game was criminal
I didn’t even know they made a third game
Technically not Aya. It was clones
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 The real Aya walks past Eve in ending. Aya either body jumped like Eve or regened a new body through mitochondria control.
the spoiler is that isn't Aya its her clone Eve from the 2nd game who was a girly girl college student so it makes sense she wouldn't be a tough tomboy like Aya.
That final twist and ending in 3rd Birthday, is so insane, so bizarre, and so deeply troubling to me as a writer, that I really struggle to imagine a mentally sane person could come up with it. It may just be the worst plot twist I've seen in any video game.
-I like how Aya's Japanese voice actress in Third Birthday actually somehow sounds much LESS like a hentai doujin heroine compared to the English one. It's a really rare and bizarre case.-
her eng voice is Yvonne Stahovski who was also Miranda in Mass Effect 2
@@ZerosGameInn
Yeah, I know. Her Jap voice on the other hand is Maaya Sakamoto, which made me drop my jaw on the floor when I found out.
No wonder, her performance as Aya felt more believable and less submissive-fetish fueled compared to Yvonne. I guess Square Enix gave her more freedom when it came to the choice of emotions for the character because they knew how famous and respectable seiyuu she is in the industry.
Square Enix in general seems to give their Jap voice actors a lot more freedom compared to their English ones. I remember that Vanille's English VA in FFXIII was forced by the voice director to give her a really cutesy moe voice, while the Jap VA was allowed to voice the character in whatever way she liked.
@@ZerosGameInn So she is a hentai doujin protagnonist.
@@Samm815 no idea what that means
@@ZerosGameInn I don't believe you
I love Parasite Eve. To the music, Yoko said that her compositions were experimental in PE. I love the soundtrack. Too bad that she doesn't do a lot of techno tracks like she done in the past. Since she became the lead composer for the Kingdom Heart series, shes been pretty much stuck with orchestrated soundtracks.
Also, always have two different armors when playing the first game. PE regeneration is slow if you use it too many times in battle. But when you switch your armor, you can regain PE regeneration at its normal rate.
The game is pretty difficult if you're not paying attention.
Yep, much like Michiru Yamane for Lament of Innocence, in isolating the compositions to instruments available in the 11th century mostly.
Harry Gregson Williams had a neat interview to that end when working on Kingdom of Heaven.
Also the jank exp chart that soft-capped you at level 38 unless you ground your ass off xD
41:55 I really appreciated you bringing this up. The fandom behavior thing is ultimately wasted effort because when the dust settles, an IP is the name a corporation gets to try and sell us again after artists have done their thing. Franchises really only have the weight we give them. I disagree with one point though. You saying these companies "will eventually ruin the thing you love". I feel that original work will always exist no matter how many bad sequels it gets. I don't care about the health of a brand so these corporations aren't hurting me, just their bottom line. Even if they piggyback off a work I like to do it. Good video overall though as per usual.
Yep, that “eventually” part was more fatalistic than late stage capitalism critique, but still interesting.
Conspicuous consumption is still with us as a relic of the Cold War, yet in our ever shrinking modern world (globalism/globalization) people make this zombie concept persist through fandoms.
Okay, so I've never played 3rd Birthday. I played PE2 first when my mom bought it on a whim when I was like 12, and beat it at least ten times. I knew _everything_ about that game. (You can beat the slider puzzle in three moves.) I played PE1 as an adult, which was a fantastic game from start to finish and blew my mind.
I've watched several videos on 3rd Birthday. I knew it was bad. I did not know it was a direct insult. Now I know why it's not just disliked as a disappointment, it's overtly reviled as a deliberate slap in the face.
If Aya actually acted like Aya, then those costumes wouldn't be saucy fanservice, they would be comedy. The clothing degradation would go from "oh no my clothes are falling apart uwu" to *_"I don't need pants to kill you."_*
That fandom identity commentary hits so much
Parasite eve is one of my favorite games of all time.I still have revisit it to do the extra content with all those floors.I dread the sewer level tho.
yeah, ive never truely "beaten" the game, i get too the last part and have no idea what im doing.
Playing The 3rd Birthday as a kid before even knowing it had 2 prequels prior is a completely different expirience, cuz by itself, The 3rd Birthday, storywise almost feels like it’s a one off
You left out the fact that after you kill Aya, they make Kyle marry Eve/Aya! And he KNOWS THEY BOTH KNOW. God 3rd birthday was disgustingly bad lol. Christ.
Naoshi Mizuta gave a really bad first impression with Parasite Eve II. Go and listen to his songs from Final Fantasy XI,XIII-2,XIV,XV Episode Prompto and Stranger of Paradise and i'm surprised he didn't get fired after PE2...but tbh i don't know what you have to do to get fired from Square Enix.
His work in PE2 is actually pretty great, which is why they trusted him to go on to other projects.
That closing statement about corps not being your friends and how they will inevitably let you down, not only hits so hard but is a message more people need to internalize.
I myself am coming to the terms that I need to stop making excuses for nintendo. Thier games shaped so much of who I am today, but they don't actually care about me or any of thier other Fandom, and we as fans need to stop buying the bullshit everytime they fuckup or do something fucked up.
It really bothers me that Nintendo wears this mask of being the family friendly nostalgic company of your childhood and in reality they're one of the most anti-consumer companies out there.
You glossed over Motomu Toriyama's involvement in the story for 3rd Birthday. The plot and treatment of Aya(and Eve) makes a lot more sense when you realize it's the partial brain child of the waifumaster himself.
And immediately demonstrates the problem of designing a waifu before a decent character, especially when you realize what creepy taste some developers have the moment they can work on a girl character.
Toriyama really needs someone to share his directorial and writing duties. Everytime they've let the man handle it solo we all suffer for it.
41:55 Damn, KBash just dropping a gigantic unilateral truth bomb at the end of a review of a niche series
I know, that hurt so much 😢
My favorite running KBash joke is definitely "tic tac toe" games on people's forehead.
I’ve never clicked on a vid so fast. Parasite eve 1 and 2 are great I’ve sunk so many hours in them. 3rd birthday is kind of meh though.
Would y'all accept a reboot of the series but kojima putting his weird hands on it
I feel like Kojima would naturally be the one to handle a series this bananas.
Yes? It probably would be better than it ever was.
"Aya is running around almost completely naked because she breathes through her skin. Also Mitochondria for some reason"
I’d take a reboot but no not from Kojima
If I had to choose between Kojima or Motomu Toriyama..........yeah, I'd take Kojima.
Kojima might do some cracked out ideas with it, maybe creating a Squad/Army of Mitochondria Soldiers and base building.
Okay NOW the bunny ears make sense for the final game!
Parasite Eve 1 and 2 are fantastic games that should be fondly remembered and I highly recommend both
Even though I know that needle isn't real I still get squimish at the injection scene
While i’m getting sick and tired of remakes, I couldn’t think of a game more deserving than PE1! Imagine seeing Aya in New York on current hardware, it would be so awesome! ❤️
Consider the setting of the game Yakuza like a Dragon and it could totally work. That game even had a full on RPG style combat system.
SE would 100% screw it up.
HELL YEA Parasite Eve! I would love to see a video on Legacy Of Kain!
Really love Parasite Eve 2 now but as a kid I hated it, took me like five attempts just to get to the second No.9 boss.
The turning point was stopping trying to play it like Resident Evil and seeing it more as some DnD hybrid thing - it's all about positioning yourself correctly and taking pride in clearing an area, like you're some kind of magic rentokil agent. The multiple storylines are pretty good as well.
41:54 - man, I relate to this so much. Don't think there's been a single series that hasn't at some point let me down, and I don't feel like being major fan of any franchise or company where there will be a shitty or cynical product added at some point. Tenchu is the series that went downhill and left a real bitter taste in my mouth.
AHHH 😫
My Heart man! Tenchu, it still stings at what they did to my Boy!
I have never seen a worse character assassination than Third Birthday, holy shit its so bad
The opening to PE1 is still beautiful and disturbing to this day, the FMV was impressive for the time(this is 1998 PS1 horror and RPG games we're talking about). I legitimately said "Oh shit!" when Melissa then turned Mitochondria Eve showed up at the opera in this review; and Aya was such a badass, since Parasite Eve was titled as "The Cinematic RPG". Arise Within You will always be one of my favorite battle themes in any RPG. Parasite Eve 2 was okay, but we could definitely see the character designer giving up with Nomura taking his place when getting to the Burner boss fight. But in the beginning of PE2, an innocent woman getting transformed into a grotesque monster known as ANMC still haunts me to this day. Quite the squick in body horror, I know. Then there's The 3rd Birthday; it was so mediocre that the franchise remained dormant from there. 3rd Birthday is where Parasite Eve went through 'Kingdom Hearts syndrome', because time travel in Square Enix IPs, except it didn't work here unlike NEO TWEWY. And no, Symbiogenesis isn't an NFT oriented PE spinoff.
Just imagine how Hideo Kojima could write a fourth Parasite Eve game. It would be absolutely bonkers!
I would pay money for a Parasite Eve by Hideo Kojima.
TWO ENTRIES , I REFUSE THAT 3rd BIRTHDAY is the sequel to the series. NEVER
PE1 and PE2 are not as polished as RE games or even Final fantasy but they are so fun and for science geek like myself i love the lore. The pre rendered backgrounds are always nice to see and the combat system is very unique. And the soundtrack is top tier.
Jo, my father is currently watching this video, he dosnt understand a single word you are saying, but he is a loooooooooong time Fan of this franchise.
Hope he never finds out that I do speak English or I have to translate a ton of you videos
I remember the lead-up to 3rd Birthday's release. They hyped 38 year old Aya Brea up as their oldest female character, and said they wanted to 'explore the lifestyle of an older woman.'
Except there is no 'lifestyle' because the plot floors the apocalypse pedal the whole time, and she's an immortal 25 year old bikini model with the mind of a 3 year old teenager. And the game wants you to salivate over her.
They don't even do anything interesting with the time travel element, because everyone you try to 'save' is a shaggy dog story. The game could've been interesting if you unlocked different plot routes depending on which characters you managed to rescue, and witnessed the knock-on effects -- but no, they're just ceremonially sacrificed to give you a totally unscientific power-up.
Man, 2010s Action Girl Humiliation was such an embarrassing genre shift. Lara, Samus, and most of all Aya deserved better.
I would say that Parasite Eve is a good candidate for this era of horror remakes, but then I remember Square Enix would have to make it...
I love this duology!
Ok now that's just mean 😂😂😂
I still don't get the dislike that PE2 gets. I definitely played it when I was older (got REALLY lucky finding for sale after being donated) so there's not really any nostalgia bias here.
Sure it doesn't have the PURE ATMOSPHERE that 1 has. But it does its own thing in ways I really like. I'll also admit to being kind of awestruck by the final section of the game.
One negative though is that BOY is the hidden stuff hidden as FUCK! You can beat a secret boss and still not get the powerful reward from it because it's REALLY not obvious or all that visible.
Wow, Third Birthday must've been erased from my memory. Completely forgot it existed 'til now.
Believe it or not that is the right thing to do.
Lucky you.
We desperately need more Horror RPGs.
Like an actual mix of the 2, not one with a bit of lipservice to the other.
Shadow Hearts Franchise, Odium/Gorky 17, Sweet Home, are some of the only ones I can think of off the top of my head (Ushiro to if Level 5 is still making that and EVER FUCKING RELEASES IT!).
If Parasite Eve was ever to come back, I want the Game to be more RPG than anything else, but I want the Aesthetic, Theming, and Tone to be Horror.
While Powerlessness can be a major aspect of Horror, I feel it isn't required.
To me, one of the most interesting Silent Hill Stories.........was the one that never got passed being a pitch, that being the Cult and/or Silent Hill itself trying to spread to a 2nd Town, and an Exorcist goes in to prevent that. Let me repeat that, a Main Character who not only is aware of Silent Hill's Hellscape Fuckery, pretty much being in the know BEFORE EVEN GOING there, PURPOSEFULLY goes there with full awareness of what's going down and what will probably happen, but does so with the intent to actively fight it from the very start. That's fucking amazing and I am upset we never got that.
A Great Concept for a Horror Anything does not require powerlessness, it just needs to utilize the fact the Protagonist can fight back.
3rd Birthday.........Dear Lord 3rd Birthday, I can't even think about that game or Motomu Toriyama without the phrase "Refreshing Vulnerability." echoing in my skull. Like what the actual hell were they thinking with that game?
And that ending..........this fucking game cannot be canon if this franchise is ever brought back.
It fucking can't.
I love the power fantasy the horror aspects bring to PE 1+2.
They set up these monstrosities with the horror aesthetic, and that's a big part of what makes Aya so badass.
You need a powerful villain to make the hero look powerful themselves, and those games Really set that up well.
The writer being an episodic show writer explains a LOT about the third birthday, because the story barely makes any sense, after each mission everything changes, almost like you are in a different timeline and wtf is that ending holy.
I think Kbash described third birthday perfectly, it's a spinoff so a lot seems diferent but you just go with it since the gameplay is cool and all, but the more you play the more... wrong everything feels, the original Aya reminds me a lot of Motoko, ghost in the shell protagonist., but now aya sux, she's a completely different person, worse in every single way, and in a franchise that's sold on it's super baddas protagonist, it's uhh, a brave choice i'll say. The gameplay also loses it's charm on the first half , right at the first god awful boss fight with the twisted queen, enemies gets spongier and spongier, to the point that made me question "did anyone play test this at all?".
the 3rd birthdays horrendous story is a result of square not having a creative license to make anything new after a dispute with the books author.
Oh this is going to be painful. My first parasite eve game was The Third Birthday. I was just a teenager, had no idea what it was about, but an apocalypse of monsters sounded cool. It was honestly really fun (minus the absolutely creepy ending), but I never knew how much of a Butchered Legacy it left. Looking at the older games, I can't help but feel that while I personally enjoyed 3rd, it's such a step in a misdirection.
Can't wait to watch the video though, love your content.
What they did with this series was criminal:
1: masterpiece
2: generic RE clone
3: I dont even know what that was
100% Lore accurate!
I rather have the a 3rd generic RE clone than whatever 3rd birthday is !!!
The third game was that jackass crisis core/ffxv/type zeros directors job…He makes some of the WORST rpg battle systems in the industry and does not get action combat
Are you talking about Tabata@@morriganrenfield8240 ? Because I agree, also he really butchered Lunafreya and I never even played the game. I mean looking back on the Final Fantasy versus 13 trailers Stella looked like an awesome female character whose story I would enjoy picking apart. But nope we got a rather weak romance and a (fairly) bland love interest. I mean seriously this is why I ship Noctis with Prompto! They have actual dialogue with one another in the game and have great chemistry which made me ship them as a couple. We could have had a romance that rivaled Cloud and Aerith’s tragic relationship (two lonely souls who meet each other and find commonality with one another only for death to part them is how I characterize Clerith) but nope we got a bad romance. I really wish FF versus 13 was made.
I'm highly doubtful you've played any of these games, just regurgitating internet hivemind talking points. Yikes.
3rd birthday also becomes very uncomfortable to play given the fan service is technically directed at a very young girl and even has a shower scene, which is creepy because you already know that a small girl is driving Aya's body.
I get that 3rd birthday was meant to be a mobile/phone title, but geez, the script is really bottom of the barrel.
Unfortunately in line with the marketing of the series, especially that odd bit of imagery with Aya self-fellating herself with her gun?
Honestly I just hope we get a sequel or remake based on FF7R’s gameplay. Maybe headhunt a Capcom dev for a third to get some of the horror vibes thrown in.
The worst part about 3rd birthday's plot twist is that, the sexualization of the game turns even worse cause they tell you that you are playing as Eve, a LITERAL TWELVE YEAR LOVE. Wich means that all the time Aya's clothes get ripped and torn apart that means... well you are already know. I seriously dont understand how the people that wrote this game didnt realize about this
I think the people who wrote this game are classic Japanese pervs and Maeda is a self-insert -_-;
Dizzy from Guilty Gear
Nothing new.
@@natanmayugen8251 very different situation
@@malum9478 Huh, a young creation get a adult body at alarming rate and marry 3 to 5 years later?
Sounds like a classic move.
@@natanmayugen8251And has a child.
Damn you and I Finished A Video Game are releasing Parasite Eve retrospectives around the same time. Gonna be interesting to see their approaches on talking about the franchise.
Who would've thought that the discount Hojo from 3rd Birthday was a bad guy.
What a twisted twist
I read the book forever ago and the whole over explaining text crawl stuff is extremely in the same vain as the novel lol to an insane degree
I play pe2 (an actual copy no less) at least once a year and due to how things are unlocked in new game+ I dont think ive ever played it the same way twice, which is one of the many things I enjoy about it, my biggest pet peeve would be that the new game + is easier than the main game and I dont mean in a you start with better stuff way, the enemies are actually weaker in new game+, upgrading pe costs less exp, etc...its like gee thanks for making it easy now that I start the game with an AR lol.
When I first discovered Parasite Eve. I had a rude thought, "does the writer just picked the the most recognizable term in biology?"
...it's based on a sci-fi book which is pretty damn good. So no. What's with these brain dead takes?
@@jplayer073 wow, such hostility from fellow fans. Is it brain dead to make poke fun at things you love or attack someone for making fun of it?
I actually love Parasite eve 2 as well as 1. Never played Third Birthday tho.
Parasite Eve 1&2 are both great. PE1 has a very scientific story that I love and it has some good charm. PE1 is kind of like a Bullet Hell RPG. PE2 has this RE3 vibe, but with RPG elements. PE2 is kind of like what if Jill or Claire had some super powers. And I like the puzzles in PE2. I hate the Fandom is split between PE 1&2 when they're both good in their own way.
I agree. The haters of PE2 need to stfu already
3rd Birthday's not called Parasite Eve for a reason.
finally, someone who had an idea
whoa ive never been this early before. fuck yea parasite eve!
Holy shit I was literally hoping you'd do a vid on Parasite Eve while I was jamming to the police theme from PE 1 and doing the dishes.
You know, it's kinda funny how a series that started with the premise of cells are basically filled with literal magic, and that's the bit that of the series that remained grounded as it descended further into madness. Really glad I never played the third game. Let's me keep the memories of enjoying 1 and 2 without the bad oftertaste.
Square Enix have the perfect recipe for their own Survival Horror Franchise, but somehow they keep fvking it up & then completely abandoned it...
in short it was a license dispute that killed it.
The music in the first game was incredible.
The music for both Parasite Eve games were incredible.
The 3rd Birthday might be the worst game I've ever played, it often gets a pass on the gameplay side, but it's was an utterly miserable experience. The only point in it's favor is that no gameplay loop can justify that fucking narrative.
The impression I got when i finished is that the game just had no respect for anything. No respect for Aya, no respect for Maeda or Kyle (who went on with the marriage knowing it was Eve on Aya's body), no respect for the soldiers you can allegedly help and lastly, no respect for the player. It's an absolute disgrace.
I am glad that youtube recommended your channel to me
That NYPD joke freaking killed me 😂 the shame my coworkers are gonna give me over that burst of laughter was worth it
I have played 3rd Birthday 7 times just to try to figure out the plot.
I didn't understand it until you explained it here.
For anyone wondering, *that's* how poorly-told and convoluted that plot is.
Thanks though, Kbash.
Big help
35:45 Wow, sexy outfits for a character that was depicted as sexy since her inception?
I'VE NEVER SEEN THAT BEFORE.
Especially not with other iconic female characters or anything.
Nope.
The fanservice in 3rd birthday gets even worse for me when I think about the fact that it’s happening to someone who has the mind of a 13 year old
I loved the first game, didn't get around to the second, and I dislike the third.
That being said, the interface for the third game is fucking gorgeous. Top tier PSP high style low res gold.
Also, clothes getting shredded in combat is a neat idea if the end result wasn't so hypersexualised. If her Squeenix Sophistifuture outfit was torn away to reveal body armor would be neat. Or even twist the fanservice on it's head, what if "Aya" was extremely inhuman apart from her face and hands? Lean into the body horror with the clothing damage system. Oh well.
in pe3, aya is not physically on the field. just hopping around in ppls minds. yet her clothes get ripped....
Tbh, could be an unpopular opinion but I feel the story ended after the first PE, i enjoyed it much more than PE2 and never played 3rd birthday, both of the sequels just felt like spin-offs or alternate realities set for the main character. Mainly because they ditched all the characters to give you new ones you never see almost ever, nor are they ever brought up in the story as if they never existed.
All in all i still enjoy doing play throughs of PE the character movement might be a bit on the slow side when moving from screen to screen but was still good in it's own unique way, while the other 2 just tried to be something the original never wanted to be.
this.. and also Ayas original model should have been left alone ..her long hair design was always the best.
@@scuff4094 True, I also enjoyed they somewhat fleshed out side characters if you went back to talk to them from time to time. Like Torres refused to fire guns because of a gun accident with his "now" deceased daughter, Baker and his K9 partner Sheva who protected Daniels kid Ben. When eve hit the police station until she (Sheva) finally succumbed to the parasite cells, and Baker having to shoot his long time partner.
The other games almost barely gave a reason to care about anyone in the game but Aya. Not to mention least in PE2 you didn't see any forboding enemies. Example - Going to the 9th floor to the sperm sample at the hospital in PE, if your in the dark hallway, run towards the camera, and it switches to show a window. Running up to the window it cuts to outside the window showing a building having an isolated thunderstorm, with lightning constantly striking the roof.
Seeing that you get a sense that something else is going on in the background while your chasing down eve. Had PE stayed with the original story and combat system i feel we would have seen a lot better games from the series, and much better received.
I'm one of those weirdos that LOVES PE2. It has so many weird systems and cool little secrets. I got a gunblade one time I beat the game, lol. I think PE1 is the game to play if you want to sample the series, but I will always have a place in my...er, Playstation console for PE2.
Nothing weird about it, PE2 trumps the first game on many levels. It's people that don't get it that are weird.
I think the old heads at square enix were inspired by the best of international media like john capenter and late 80's early 90s action flix. And the the younger generation is derivative of the worst aspects of B-movies, at the time being emotionally stunted. So they just tell these big stories about nothing that aren't interesting.
Fun fact on PE1; the primary reason it came to exist at all was for it to be a tech demo for the engine that would be used to develop Final Fantasy 8. Hence it's short completion time and experimental gameplay.
I hate that they didn't consult the original author. He better have at least gotten royalties.
New Kbash video and new Tekken trailers? Today is def a good day.
Also can you explain mitochondria to me? I don't think I've heard it enough
“The mitochondria is the powe-“
The first game was excellent, and feels like a mystery. The second game was good in a different way, more like a horror/thriller movie like Tremors. 3rd birthday killed off the series in its destruction of the main character.
Parasite Eve set a very high bar for zombie-like mutant gore that neither Resident Evil or Deadspace were ever able to meet.
The general consensus is that 3rd Birthday Doesn't exist and if it was lost forever no one would give a shit.
PE 2 is is the only I played it and like it but never beat it.
I’ve never heard someone complain about PE 2 and then the praise 3rd birthday as fun. That has got to be the most baffling thing I’ve ever heard
I played 3rd birthday before I knew what parasite eve even was and I played the entire thing and I cant remember much of the story so I must not have payed much attention to it lol but I remember really enjoying the gameplay
"Careful aya,thats a lil more black than thier used to dealing with" sounds ridiculous and woke ass hell considering her partner is a black cop and it takes place in nyc
I saw Einhander referenced. The day is getting closer to its own video.
I spent an entire high school summer running PE2 and Vagrant Story countless times maxing out everything. Fond memories.
'I'msupportingkbashbecauseIwantedtomakethispartofthevideolonger' What a madlad 😂
Here to drop a bomb for PE1 *spoilers*: After level 37 it only takes about 4000 exp to level up anytime after that. You can level up from 37 To 99 in a couple good hours farming mobs in the museum. Have fun destroying EX game and the Chrysler Building :3
1 and 2 were great. 3....well 3 had clothing destruction 😅.
1 and 2 are absolute legends.
What a wild roller coaster, I became a fan of Parasite Eve then immediately was smashed over the head with a hammer.
36:34 Yeah
That's how I read that title
Yu-Gi-Oh X *ZEAL*
XD
Yakuza Like a Dragon had a full on RPG combat system with the character running around a modern city. Get the crew of that game to do a Parasite Eve remake but specifically get a writer or lead designer like Junji Ito who won't shy away from making you have nightmares with the body horror. Next thing you know you have a RPG in a modern city with body horror. Don't want it to be an RPG? There are other crews out there. But the fact remains that if someone could body slam Square Enix hard enough to get Parasite Eve a remake could not only happen but be absolutely amazing.
not with its license problem with the books author it wont.
This is legitimately the worst analysis ive ever heard.
I became obsessed with the second one, replaying it to the point where I was pretty much speedrunning it.
I don't really mind Square's Japanese "not really role-playing" games in any way shape or form but games like Vagrant Story and Front Mission 2 are the real gems.
Whether you love or hate Sony, it's probably because of how many unique and interesting franchises they've turned into household names. I kinda miss those early Playstation days, where Sony would pretty much sign anything and countless amazing releases flew completely under the radar.
Still love both Parasite eve and Parasite eve 2.
i was so excited for the third birthday when i was a kid i got it after i got out of the hospital as a present and well yea imagine how that felt.
While I don’t so much think the 3rd Birthday is a good game (especially its completely unengaging narrative outside the twist), the idea that of the game not being true to its series’ nature is misleading.
It’s funny, because Parasite Eve as a franchise has always had a sense of deception in its marketing. Like “mature sexual themes” as a key part of the ESRB rating. It’s front and center when you see the rating, causing the mind to come to inappropriate places, especially for the teenage mind. The people who see the sexualized imagery in the ads, are they wrong to think that will be the standard expectations? Instead of a disturbing plot about genetically modified sperm and impregnating unwilling victims like Melissa?
And “could only come from the minds behind Final Fantasy VII”? That’s not only a dubious concept designed to drum up sales for a game about as close to VII as Vagrant Story is to FF Tactics, but it’s also lowest common denominator what with pretending that VII was revolutionary in any way beyond getting people to FINALLY notice the quality of Final Fantasy...
The staff behind Parasite Eve were veterans, and claiming that VII was their crowning achievement is selling their talent short. As for II, so many odd design decisions (much as you mentioned) that aside from the bonus unlockables, it really does a lot derivatively overall, causing debatably the worst identity crisis in the franchise. Especially the ambient music; ugh.
To me, the only question is which is duller? The environments or the music? That’s worthy of debate for sure.
The 3rd Birthday is too a product of its time, and just meh in so many ways, that its plot isn’t worth defending, even from a mechanical point of view. I was more “huh” upon the ending’s revelation, and yet, like a lot of classic misdirection moments in the history of media, is it truly right to dismiss it as “bad” rather than “different”?
The terms are used interchangeably often, and really shouldn’t be.