Parasite Eve: 3rd birthday was a mistake

How does it feel that we can never get fucked-up games like this anymore?


This series had some seriously unnerving body horror moments that managed to thoroughly horrify me. The 1st game is based on a book, the 2nd not so much. PE1 had a solid story, but PE2 was where I lost my shit the most. This series was a product of it's time. You can never see fucked-up concepts like this in horror anymore, half of the charm was in the visuals, the other was how the stories were handled. Like in PE2, there are lots of little touches that crank the unease up. There are enemies that are failed experiments; some are just "3 heads stapled together and they roll at you", some are harmless and all they do is "laugh," but which you still need to kill to exit combat.

I also really liked the concept of "evolution" being behind things that seem like magic. Eve is practically a biological demi-god in PE2 and is the peak of human evolution. The game has descriptions of what your unlockable skills do, like coating your bullets in cancer cells, superheating enemies at an atomic level, absorbing cell energy to heal yourself. It's this kind of attention to detail that I really liked. It didn't feel any different from regular magic, but can you imagine if you had a game that COULD make "evolution magic" feel different from plain magic?

OP…

Haven't tried the 2nd game but I really enjoy the first and listen to the soundtrack at work.

That game is from 9 years ago. That's almost 20 years ago.

The 2nd's not a bad game, but it's very obvious just how big RE2 was when it came out. Don't play the 3rd unless you want a reason to hate everything ever.

Dead Space was OK, but it wasn't "as fucked up." DS is action-horror, while PE is horror-RPG. You compare their stories to one another and you can see the Japs outdid DS. In 1998.

What exactly is the reason 3rd birthday is hated?

Pants-on-head retarded story and shitty third person cover shooter gameplay.

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That pretty much tarnished the game series.

I fapped to that transformation scene

Also I goofed my item management and used an item that I was only supposed to equip, made the final battle unbeatable and I'll never know the joys of using the Gunblade.

Son, don't. It is a travesty that shits on the original lore and the characters. It doesn't help that the story is a god damned flaming mess.


Same thing here in Europe. Square's logic always was kind of screwy and still is.

But yeah, I refuse to go through Square's games without a guide anymore. I've been burned way too many times already.

Did you figure out that Mayan puzzle on your own?

I think I had to? I didn't have regular internet access when I was 12 and playing the game, but it's also been so long I don't remember said puzzle.

Still my favorite world map theme.

You sir are a gentleman of refined taste and are definitely my nigga.

It doesn't have a strong atmosphere and the story is OKish but some death scenes were Resident evil 2 haunting, especially the eye surgery one

I listen to this track when I want to relax.

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DS is ok in a sense. It's horror is jut a little too predictable for my taste. It is more like The Thing; fairly straightforward and while disturbing, it's already set in a setting which primes you to expect stuff to go wrong. PE on the other hand is is like Videodrome; you never know what the fuck you're going to see next.

Yeah nowadays you can just Amazon or even easier use a US PSN account.

Back in the PS1 and 2 days you had to buy an American console AND deal with Jewish importers. Very few people bothered.

It's the girl's moans that get you right?

I have a very firmly developed transformation fetish.

t. OP with a corruption fetish.

Is this the love child of the first Silent Hill and Resident Evil games or something OP?

No its the prototype for final fantasy 7 and vagrant story based on a japanese novel its also the sequel too about a parasitic kidney with a hyperpreg agenda.

I've been meaning to ask, which ending of the original PE is the "canon" ending? Is the it first ending, or is it the ending you get on your second playthrough that has you climbing the Chrysler Building?

Also, I remember some users speculating that 3rd Birthday was a dream Aya was having after the ending to PE2 (I've only played the first so I wouldn't know). However, we all know SquarEnix won't finish the series due to the fact that they made 3rd Birthday for the same reason why Ubisoft made Assassin's Creed.

Wasn't the original PE developed over here in America?

Real talk Holla Forums, what the fuck was up with the 3rd Birthday's story?

and the rest is history.

Turd Birthday is just shit.

The only game developed by Squaresoft's American branch back then, at least to my knowledge, was Secret of Evermore.

Co-developed, Japanese side worked on story and the entire, while the American side worked on getting the accuracy of New York in the game.

Parasite Eve threads always remind me that I could be listening to the soundtrack instead of just sitting in the dark dealing with insomnia.

PE2 is a great game. Battle system is different from PE1 but is still fun, and the setting is great. 3rd Birthday is God's punishment for a life of sin

I brought this game years ago and I've been meaning to either dig up my old copy (which I am sure is gone by now) or pirate it (which torrents for are seem to be impossible to find).

It's a clusterfuck.
Who the fuck thought that

1) Destroying your licence's beloved main character personality, even just falsely

2) MAKING THE PLAYER FUCKING KILL SAID BELOVED CHARACTER

would be good ideas?
It's even more ironic that the very last thing you do is press SQUARE.

It's sad because they actually had a good team on this game (the soundtrack particularly, is stellar you should check it out
Shimomura actually redid lots of PE1 pieces, and the rest is also solid) unlike the abortion that was PE2.

I seem to recall hearing the PC version was a pain to find these days, but you might try asking in the share thread. Pretty sure it's shown up there before.

I miss games of quality.

I didn't enjoy PE too much. Granted I only got to the zoo, but I am not a fan of turn based combat.

Fucking hell, the first game was something else. Kinda glad I wasn't so invested to watch the franchise get shit on.

Yeah dead space had some awesome stuff. I remember the opening from numero 2.

Terrifying and awesome

hey if y'all liked the weird combination of horror and jrpg battle system, you fellers might like koudelka and, to an extent, the shadow hearts series

PE1's final area was a disaster movie buff's wet dream. God damn, what an amazing final area.

Mayan puzzle wasn't hard for ~10 year old me back then. I knew how mayan numbers worked.

The puzzle that screwed me was the '3033' cash register one at the motel, though. English is not my first language and while I had a good grasp of it, the red poster with clues about how to get the password mentioned something about 'Need to remember the password, simply check the "still" and you will!' - I had no idea what 'still' stood for back then (a photograph in this puzzle's case). But my uncle helped me with that one. Then it was a matter of doing the calculation for the ages of the persons in the two pics that are part of the clue.

Fun times. Games today aren't as fun and engaging as the ones back then… 3rd b-day was a travesty.

Third Birthday was an objectively bad game but I still have a sneaking respect for the sheer don't give a fuck philosophy behind it.
Fuck you. You figure that shit out.
Fuck your focus group. Jump from shit tier redshirt to shit redshirt until you find the magic puzzle box pattern to beat challenges to unlock weapons you badly need
We don't fucking know either. Suck it.
Eat a dick. Play as this clone/skinwalker/whatever shit bitch
Don't get me wrong it was a terrible fucking game but this kind of throw shit at the wall and see if it works philosophy would never fly at current day SE. I appreciated that they didn't slam it with DLC either. Just challenge unlockables.

Have a playthrough of PE1 on the go right now, The difficulty oddly spiked for me when I went up against the crab monster in the warehouse. I seem to remember my first playthrough being ridiculously easy from tooling everything into my superweapon. This time around it feels more proper in terms of difficulty. Will probably ex it and get to the Chrysler building to see the proper ending.

Yeah, that crab is a bitch. I was also considerably stuck against it first time around until I got its patterns down and did some minor equipment changes.
For the crab, you want low bullet turn counts (2 is best). If you use 3-5 bullet count weapons, you'll most likely get hit before completing your turn.

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It's not just shit, it's the kind of shit that drains any fun and cannot be sort of enjoyed the way ridiculously bad games can be. It's just a dreary mess that seems to aim at depressing you and succeeds with flying colors that are all shades of greyish blue.