48. parasite eve (ps1) [🎮 8/10]

17 Apr, 2025

what happens if mitochondria and evolution goes too far. what if the powerhouse of the cell... was SENTIENT? [8/10]

HEAVY spoilers ahead !

everyone knows that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. been a good while since my last anaphysio class, but they generate ATP for fuel... energy, and all that stuff. i had a good gist of what they do for the body! i'd like to think i do!!

and yet, when parasite eve suggested that they might be SENTIENT, i had to scratch my head a little!!

what the fuck is this game even about.

well!! parasite eve is a pretty old horror game for the ps1. i played it on my beloved anbernic. it follows aya, a cop for the NYPD, who discovered of her own "mitochondrial powers" after witnessing an opera house (its audience, in particular) all burn to death by a sickly (<- important detail) lead singer whose mitochondria has evolved so far ahead that it has taken over her body as a sort of parasite. the now sentient, evolved mitochondria dubs herself as "eve", in reference to the first woman by which all human beings derive their mitochondria from. there are multiple "eve"s referenced throught the game. there is the first woman eve, and women who have been taken over by parasitic mitochondria are all also "eve". eve is bad because she is a parasite. parasite eve.

please don't roll the credits yet there's more to the weird plot i swear

for some reason, aya isn't affected by the spontaneous combustion phenomenon that those encountering eve all experience. for one, eve can sort of "hijack" other people's mitochondria and rearrange their DNA. since mitochondria delivers energy, and energy = heat, she can cause them to overwork themselves enough to a burning point. secondly, eve makes a remark about how aya's mitochondria is ALSO evolving. it's a mystery how or why, but she is on par with eve. at different points in the story, eve even encourages aya to join her and her plans to wipe out the human race. to bring about the age of the mitochondria, as they are superior and have lasted through centuries and wars and changes!! and that they've only kept humans "alive" so they can act like their vessels. for them to nourish the mitochondria enough for it to evolve past a certain point.

what a horrible way to spend christmas eve, i'd imagine. christmas day and the days after don't go so well, either! literally the day after, the opera singer, taken over by our main villainess eve, performs a christmas concert in central park. and she GOOPS the audience... turns them into this weird visceral gross sludge and there's actually a cutscene for it and it is very yucky. in an impressive way. for a game that's more than 20 years old and almost at 30, it STILL gets me a little sick. disaster on top of disaster, as eve constructs her plan to create the "ultimate being"... her child and final, indestructible vessel.

not the first time this happened

backtrack a few years back. the setting is japan. a scientist loses her wife in a car accident... a planned one. the mitochondria whispers things to its lady host, and so before the accident, the wife made sure to get herself registered as an organ donor.

i'll be honest and say this part sorta lost me.

so her kidney is to another woman, while the grieving scientist cultures her liver cells that eventually evolve too far and become almost human-like. another eve. liver eve convinces the scientist to "procreate" to get his ... reproductive sample. since liver eve is technically incomplete and cannot birth a perfect vessel herself, she indirectly gets the other lady pregnant (the one with the EVE kidney and rapidly multiplying EVE cells, at this point she has already probably become EVE too and they're both working together as a sort of hivemind). it all goes wrong, because of genetic incompatibilities with the male sperm, and the eves eventually ended up dying without a stable enough hosts as humans are weak, mushy, fleshbags. if anyone has played this game, i SERIOUSLY hope i got all the details right.

back to new york!

the new york eve now wants to correct the mistakes her "sister" has made. turns out she was working with a scientist and mitochondria researcher, dr klamp, to develop a sperm cell without the male mitochondria DNA that janked up the whole process in japan in the first place. her plan is to inseminate herself and give birth to the ultimate being, with her cells and evolved mitochondria. and aya has to stop her!! ... since she's pretty much the only one who can.

why aya?

well, it has something to do with dr klamp. dr klamp is a strange man. see, when aya was younger, she got into a car accident with her family and lost both her mom and sister. (sidenote: i like the small hint she gives in the beginning of the game, where she makes a quick comment about how she was raised by her dad to attempt to reassure her work partner. i didn't think it'd get some sort of depth, so this was nice!)

her sister, maya, had mitochondria that was rapidly evolving into eve. dr klamp was actually their doctor at the time, and since he was a researcher... he went ahead and did some. things!

• transplanted maya's kidney to melissa, the opera singer from before that got parasitized (is this even a word...) into the main game villainess eve. parasite eve.
• took maya's liver to culture her cells, much like the japanese scientist, as a "backup plan" (see where this is going...?)
• and then just because he IS a medical professional and is on the clock, he went ahead and transplanted maya's cornea into aya's damaged one. might as well save this non dying patient while he's out performing medical malpractice!

so naturally, with the very miniscule amount of eve cells in aya's eye, they weren't strong enough to sort of turn her own cells against her. what happened is that they developed a sort of symbiotic relationship, giving more energy than usual to her nucleus for her to develop superhuman abilities.

that's how she stops eve. that's how she eventually stops the ultimate being that was successfully created. do note that i'm still glossing over a LOT of details and events in the game... i think it's still work a check, if you haven't played it and have read my rambles up until this point!!

the game ends with you having to kill the ultimate being. it then introduces you to new game plus, which does have an alternate route you can take.

wait, what was that about the backup plan-

that's where the alternate route takes you!! i personally never did ng+, because the alternate route area has... 77 floors. and the game beat me around enough times already LOL, but more on that later.¹

when you reach the 77th floor, you will see that that's where dr klamp has been keeping "maya". the maya that's evolved from the liver cells, much like the case in japan. except it's eve!! and aya has to stop her, even watching her mutate into another form (since they are twins, it's a form that is identical to aya's "liberated form" or her final, very powerful ability - i like this detail)...

when aya finally defeats maya eve, she feels herself burn up. turns out maya eve has recognized that aya is the stronger one of the two, and wishes to possess aya instead. this NEARLY happens, if it weren't for both maya's intervention and aya's evolved cells. mostly the former!! and so with her help, she's able to eradicate eve from aya, making her powers more dormant in the process. the game ends after this, regardless of the fact that you haven't defeated the main game eve and the ultimate being, should you take this route before the final main story arc.

making sense of the endings

there are two endings in this game. the one with maya is considered the "true ending", and while i haven't played the 2nd game (won't for a while as to not burn myself out), it ties in with the fact that aya's powers are dormant in that game. or so i've heard.

the main story ending is... strange!² freaked me out the first time i saw it!! basically, aya and friends see another showing of the same opera she saw during christmas eve. and instead of everyone blowing up, there's this scene where it LOOKS like aya's cells try and "hijack" everyone in the theater. because after that, everyone's eyes start to turn this weird red violet... and then everything fades to black, before you're introduced to new game +... creepy!!

i tried to figure out what it could possibly mean, but a forum thread³ i saw mentioned that a common interpretation suggests that it was just aya's mitochondria influencing the cells of those around her. much like eve influences them negatively for them to mutate and combust, what aya does instead is sort of protect them so that no other human eve evolutions happen ever again. which again, they say lines up with the second game. but iunno!!

the same thread, however, someone mentions that BECAUSE aya did not go in the chrysler building (the additional ng+ route), that was eve taking over aya, who in turn takes over everyone else without maya to intervene. i think this is also a neat interpretation!! genuinely fascinating!! it acts as a sort of bad end, maybe?

me, though... i'd like to think that both endings have some merit to them. what i'd like to think happened is that the main story progresses -> aya kills eve and the ultimate being -> and then she thinks to herself "the job isn't over, i have to investigate the glowing building i saw when i was at the hospital"... which is the chrysler building. perhaps as a form of closure, some final investigations before they wrap it all up and return to normal.

there, she goes all the way up to maya eve, and then the events of the alternate route ensues.

it's only after the credits of that ending that she reunites with daniel, ben, and maeda in the theater because everything is back to normal... and it is! with aya's powers being dormant, her cells do one last attempt at trying to protect the cells of everyone around her from evolving into parasites. which could also maybe lead up to that dormancy... whether or not you do the chrysler route, my personal interpretation of that ending changes. i have decided to acknowledge the idea of a "bad ending".

so i guess that means i got the bad ending. LOL. but well!! to be fair!! it's all really up to interpretation!! the main game red eyes ending sorta pushes you to play the new game+ mode, so i think it's not too far off!!

my overall thoughts and things i haven't mentioned

i really wanted to emphasize the weirdness of the plot, so i took the time to detail it the best i can... because it's WEIRD, and honestly, i've come to embrace that weirdness. it makes the game a more unique experience, that way. speaking of the plot, i didn't know it was based on a novel of the same name⁴ until i did a bit of digging myself. which is neat! i'll check it out at some point.

gameplay (so many play styles!)

so much about the story... how does the gameplay hold up after so many years? well... pretty good, actually! parasite eve has this very unique battle mechanic, sort of like turn based combat with the way you and your enemy's attacks have a timer. you try your best to shoot your enemy while dodging around, you have some abilities you get over the course of leveling up. you can also build and customize your weapons and armor with tools you find in the game. it's very fun!!

however, with the clunkiness of ps1-era games, it's inevitable that it'd be... clunky. sometimes, the fight area is too cramped to properly dodge anything. at one point, an enemy pretty much locked me into a corner and kept attacking me until i died... and i couldn't do anything about it!! graah!!

it's an... alright amount of dificulty for a good chunk of the game, maybe? nothing TOO frustrating, and nothing that's just a walk in the park. but at the end, admittedly, the dificulty gets to a point where i had to rely on... um... my personal strategy of... uh... Tank Everything + Reload Save State.

but with the amount of customization you can do, there is LOTS of ways you can play this game. i've only seen one video of someone else's strategy¹, but they were attacking flawlessly and had multiple turns. i have no idea how they managed to get that!! in the comments, i saw someone who used a CLUB to beat maya eve, of all things!! the standard melee weapon that you can't upgrade at all. i think? i'm not sure!! there are also people who rely a lot on the abilities rather than guns. my battling was a mix of both, and i spent my bonus points to pump up my attack bar recharge... while my go-to ability was "haste". i like rushing enemies down and getting the fight done quick! :p

with that, the game is open to lots of replayability. which is why the ng+ mode is enjoyed by a lot!! iunno if i'll see myself doing it. the last fights in the main story was... a struggle!! i'm alright with just watching it, really :) butttt who knows!! it's definitely worth the play. maybe i just suck at allocating those power up points, haha.

the protag (and the other guys)

aya brea is a really cool protagonist. i like her!! in the game's short run time, i've come to like her a lot and was honestly rooting for her. female protagonists are so awesome. at some point, she expresses doubt about herself and her origins, pushing those around her away because she's scared of being like eve, a parasite and a monster. she's also got a very good heart. when the captain of the police force told her to just bluff her way in the press conference, she went out her way to tell people the truth about the mitochondria stuff. even if it means it'll freak people out. and despite the risks of it, she confesses in live television that there's SOMETHING about her mitochondria that makes her immune... personally, i'd be too scared to even say it. imagine the backlash! what if i'm ACTUALLY accused to be a monster, right? anyway. there was also a scene that i like that highlights her selflessness, where she was with the army's jets, flying towards eve and the ultimate being. aya's telling all the pilots not to sacrifice themselves and begging them to turn back, knowing they'd get combusted and die inevitably. it's definitely tragic, and this devastates aya. but she knows she has to keep her head up and keep going, because SOMEONE has to stop eve.

she is very brave and a strong character, who endures loss and struggle, but is still very determined to the very end to take eve down. despite all the danger. i do really like her, she is sooo cool. her little trio with daniel and maeda is nice too!! those other two are awesome, by the way. i screamed when daniel caught on fire trying to give the final bullets to aya and thought he was a goner when he got plunged into the water. and maeda is neat, i just like scientist characters :) seeing the cop who was racist to him spontaneously combust was funny and deserved.

the other characters were alright. the torres death did make me a little sad, i will admit. it's a solid cast!

other stuff

i've mentioned this before, but for an almost 30 year old game, the graphics are still good. the cutscenes are well done, most especially. there's some REALLY visceral transformations that made my face twist, and i do think they're quite effective given the genre. art direction deserves lots of praise. even the concept art for the characters is very pretty!⁵ music is nice too. fun times all around, really.

maybe the real parasites were the friends we made along the way

there's this one part just after defeating the main final boss, where humans were compared to the mitochondrial parasites, with the host being our planet. our need and desperation to survive as a species leads to the slow death of the earth. it's a message that rings more true now than it has then, with... the current state of things. it is only a matter of time before the host will start to rebel against the things we do to hurt it. there is also some optimism to be found in the way humans have endured disasters and wars, and are still thriving to this day. well, i can only comment so much on that BUT at the end of the day, parasite eve delivers a really solid story.

if anything, i'm satisfied with the way they decided to conclude the game. i'll definitely pick up the second game at some point, and the third game... um. well, i have not heard the best things about the third game.

but that's a discussion for another time! the next game in my list is earthbound :D

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#8/10 #apr 2025 media #games #media 2025 #media diary