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Rating: Average Parasite Eve isn't as disappointing as Square's Saga Frontier was earlier this year, but it comes pretty close. What could have been the ultimate mixture of Final Fantasy 7 and Resident Evil instead ends up being nowhere near as good as either game. On the surface, Parasite Eve appears to have everything going for it. The graphics, especially the rendered cut-scenes, and wonderful. The story line is awesome. The battle system is both innovative and interesting. So what the heck is wrong with Parasite Eve? Quite simply, it's just not that fun to play. One of the biggest problems of the game is its painfully slow pace. The simple task of moving from place to place takes place slowly enough to cause a person with nerves of steel to go into convulsions. Aya, the main character, shuffles her feet while just barely moving forward to the point that she might as well get on the ground and crawl. And the so-called "run" button doesn't help matters much, either. Square should have called it the "jog in place while very, very slowly moving forward" button. The constant loading time makes the game even slower and more annoying. Parasite Eve's battle system is a nice breath of fresh air. Since the game is really more like a Resident Evil-style adventure than a true RPG, it only makes sense that its battle system should be more like an action game than a traditional RPG. The battle system is like an RPG in that you can only attack when your time meter is full, but it's like an action game in that you can move aruond while waiting for your meter to charge back up, and you have to manually dodge the enemy's attacks. Unlike the rest of the game, the battle system is very well done. Innovative battle system and all, the game bills itself as a "Cinematic RPG," and by RPG standards it doesn't cut the mustard. The weapons, equipping, and inventory systems all suck, and the game is way too short. Most RPGs really get on a roll around the ten-hour mark, but after ten hours of Parasite Eve, the game is over. At this point, you can go back and play the game through again with an increased difficulty level, but it's still the same game at heart and quite frankly, I don't think it's worth playing all the way through once, much less twice. Sure, the rendered cut-scenes in this game are great, but that's all they are: rendered cut-scenes. Gameplay is what it's all about, and Parasite Eve's gameplay comes up short, both literally and figuratively.
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