The original Parasite Eve had a lot going for it--an RPG set in modern day New York, a gameplay that resembled a blend between Final Fantasy and Resident Evil, a more mature storyline, music that surpasses just about all games before and since, and a level of cinematic gameplay never seen before with some of the nicest graphics of its time.
Parasite Eve II throws all that away and becomes a bad Resident Evil clone minus the gore and interesting monsters. Instead of uniquely blending two styles of gameplay, Squaresoft decided to blatantly rip off Capcom's RE franchise. It plays exactly like Resident Evil minus the eerie atmosphere and minus the zombies.
Visually the game is ugly, stale, and boring. Great detail was put into Aya's polygon count and high-res textures (which looks like it could be a PS2 character); however, this comes at a price--every other polygonal creature in the game looks very bad. Very low polygons, laughable textures. And the pre-rendered backgrounds? They all start to look the same about 2 hours into the game.
Parasite Eve II was built around the rather annoying trend in games of not allowing the player to get everything the first run through--so instead of making a game lots and lots of fun to play, Squaresoft makes you *have* to play it again to see everything. Or in other words, Squaresoft has so little confidence in their game-making ability (as of lately, a rightly placed lack of confidence) that they resort to cheap tricks to extend the life of the game and replay value. Die hard fans will buy into it, casual gamers and those who look for entertainment value in their "games" will just say "Screw it" after the disappointing ending. Ironic that Square's attempt to increase replay value will wind up decreasing the game's appeal, and cut its shelf life in half before people stop buying it.
I still am waiting to see if Squaresoft *can still* do something right, so far it's not looking good.
Parasite Eve II throws all that away and becomes a bad Resident Evil clone minus the gore and interesting monsters. Instead of uniquely blending two styles of gameplay, Squaresoft decided to blatantly rip off Capcom's RE franchise. It plays exactly like Resident Evil minus the eerie atmosphere and minus the zombies.
Visually the game is ugly, stale, and boring. Great detail was put into Aya's polygon count and high-res textures (which looks like it could be a PS2 character); however, this comes at a price--every other polygonal creature in the game looks very bad. Very low polygons, laughable textures. And the pre-rendered backgrounds? They all start to look the same about 2 hours into the game.
Parasite Eve II was built around the rather annoying trend in games of not allowing the player to get everything the first run through--so instead of making a game lots and lots of fun to play, Squaresoft makes you *have* to play it again to see everything. Or in other words, Squaresoft has so little confidence in their game-making ability (as of lately, a rightly placed lack of confidence) that they resort to cheap tricks to extend the life of the game and replay value. Die hard fans will buy into it, casual gamers and those who look for entertainment value in their "games" will just say "Screw it" after the disappointing ending. Ironic that Square's attempt to increase replay value will wind up decreasing the game's appeal, and cut its shelf life in half before people stop buying it.
I still am waiting to see if Squaresoft *can still* do something right, so far it's not looking good.