So I bought Parasite Eve on eBay, because I'm crazy. It's 6 bucks on PSN but might as well pay 32 dollars for a complete version.

This game looks exactly like my nostalgia of PS1 games. Granted, it's one of the best looking games released on the system, but in my mind all PS1 games look like this. The pre-rendered backgrounds, low poly models going through their animations while you read the story. The music is in-cuh-redible, it's this weird blend of fake synth noises trying to recreate real things; the synthetic voice in the opera tracks is half-creepy half-goofy in a way that modern sound design can't really recreate. The gameplay is alright, not special, but at very least not savagely hard like I expect all older games to be (as a rule).

I wonder how much it would cost to create a modern game that looks like this? We see plenty of 8 bit art styles and 16 bit art... Where's the 32 bit art? Where's the game that lovingly recreates the style of pre-rendered backgrounds, fixed camera, awesomely primitive kind-of-shader effects? Would it cost that much to make something like this? Or a modern version? Fez and Resonace have their pixel art heritage, an art style created by technical limitations. Is there promise in recreating the art style of early 3D? Ryan Payton's Republique claims the original Resident Evil as a heavy influence on the look and feel, but I can't think of much else that really recalls this era directly.

Also, holy shit could Square do no wrong in the early 90s. I wonder what happened, really? Did all the inspired creators get bored or disinterested? Did the addition of Enix push them all out? A lot of them still work for Square, was there no second generation to take over? Nowadays the Sauare games I'm most excited for come out of Eidos. If you told me that 15 years ago I would've called you a madman.

Hell, you know who should make another Parasite Eve game? Eidos Montreal, the guys who made Deus Ex. They appear to know how to blend RPG and action, how to blend classic with modern.

The 3rd birthday was a sequel to parasite eve but it was on the psp so no one played it. I agree parasite eve had some style to it also fun.

Square seems to be in a weird Place from a decade a go

@SlightConfuse said:

The 3rd birthday was a sequel to parasite eve but it was on the psp so no one played it. I agree parasite eve had some style to it also fun. Square seems to be in a weird Place from a decade a go

Wasn't that also a third person shooter, though?

Anyway, I'd guess that 32-bit art has never taken off because it's butt-ugly and lacks charm. It was seemingly trying to be somewhat realistic and wowed us then but now we've got Crysis and The Witcher 2, so those games look pretty bad. You could say that Nintendo games look bad, and you wouldn't be wrong, but they weren't trying to look realistic. They also didn't have fixed camera angles, which aren't really that fun to try to control.

Or, maybe I'm entirely wrong and the generation that grew up on fixed camera angles and ugly polygons hasn't quite gotten old enough to make some throwbacks to that yet.

@Brodehouse said:

Hell, you know who should make another Parasite Eve game? Eidos Montreal, the guys who made Deus Ex. They appear to know how to blend RPG and action, how to blend classic with modern.

Ohhhhhh shit! That sounds awesome. I'd love to see a stylistic crossover between PE and DX.

The big thing I remember from Parasite Eve:

tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap tip tap

The game definitely needs a bit of work in the sound department too. :)

Really loved the first PE. Agree about the music. Also really, really love the combat system, which I think is the greatest casualty of "Modern Games". Can't remember the last time I played a game like that.

Honestly, the only things I remember about PE was the obsessive talk about mitochondria and how incredibly short the game was.

@Brodehouse said:

@mtcantor Man, hearing that it's about 8-12 hours makes it far more likely I actually play through it. I never have the desire to do anything for more than 40 hours. Even the games I end up playing for more than 40 hours, it's not like they became more fun. And stories especially suffer from being dragged on too long. Greg Kasavin thought it was too short and didn't like that it was a linear story and not a CRPG where you made choices. Which is actually hysterical when you think about Bastion. I guess it did have those two choices at the end. http://m.gamespot.com/parasite-eve/reviews/parasite-eve-review-2548880/

Keep in mind, I haven't touched PE since it first came out. I remember very clearly that, at the time, it was shocking how short the game was.

All worth it for that shower scene I'd say.

@mtcantor Man, hearing that it's about 8-12 hours makes it far more likely I actually play through it. I never have the desire to do anything for more than 40 hours. Even the games I end up playing for more than 40 hours, it's not like they became more fun. And stories especially suffer from being dragged on too long.

Greg Kasavin thought it was too short and didn't like that it was a linear story and not a CRPG where you made choices. Which is actually hysterical when you think about Bastion. I guess it did have those two choices at the end. http://m.gamespot.com/parasite-eve/reviews/parasite-eve-review-2548880/

@Hailinel said:

@Brodehouse

@mtcantor Man, hearing that it's about 8-12 hours makes it far more likely I actually play through it. I never have the desire to do anything for more than 40 hours. Even the games I end up playing for more than 40 hours, it's not like they became more fun. And stories especially suffer from being dragged on too long.

Greg Kasavin thought it was too short and didn't like that it was a linear story and not a CRPG where you made choices. Which is actually hysterical when you think about Bastion. I guess it did have those two choices at the end. http://m.gamespot.com/parasite-eve/reviews/parasite-eve-review-2548880/

Kasavin's opinions as a reviewer were always suspect.

Here. Fixed that for you.

Would be awesome if there was an actual Parasite Eve sequel for consoles/PC. It's been long enough right?

Always good to see people appreciating the game. It's a favourite of mine.

@SlightConfuse said:

The 3rd birthday was a sequel to parasite eve but it was on the psp so no one played it.

Being on the PSP was the least of its problems, unfortunately.

Parasite Eve 1&2 are the only games I've ever imported. Great stuff.

If you like the story, I'd recommend Greg Bear's "Blood Music". It's the story which inspired the story which the game is based on.

Would be awesome if there was an actual Parasite Eve sequel for consoles/PC. It's been long enough right?

Loved PSE 1 and 2. I really wish they would give this franchise some new life. Then again, the last time I said that was with Brave Fencer Musashi, and look at the shit show they created afterwards.

As for the whole PS1 graphics thing, I'm curious if you ever played Vagrant Story. If not, I highly suggest picking it up. It uses a modified version of the PSE combat engine, was created by Yasumi Matsuno (aka the baddest muthafucker in video games), and it also happens to be THE best looking PS1 game released.

great game! i totally agree with you about the 32-bit charm. this was also the first psone game i downloaded after getting my ps3 and it really took me back to a wonderful age. it's now my mission to bring back the greatness of 32 bits.

@Brodehouse said:

@supamon

Would be awesome if there was an actual Parasite Eve sequel for consoles/PC. It's been long enough right?

Square can hardly turn a profit on their Final Fantasy games (can hardly develop them, it seems like). I don't want a Parasite Eve trailer on the launch of the PS4 and then six years later we're like "did they cancel it?" "yeah they cancelled it" "no guys we're still makin it!" But if they handed it to Eidos...

True but I have to imagine if Eidos took the reins they'd probably change it to a third-person game and I'm not sure if that's a good thing after seeing Resident Evil 5.

Wow, not sure how I missed this game. Gonna pick this up after I finish FFVIII, can't wait to check it out.

I played 3rd Birthday and thoroughly enjoyed it, although it is nothing like 1 and 2. 1 is easily my favorite out of the three. I would love to see a remake or a true Parasite Eve 3 for next gen or even current gen consoles.

@Brodehouse said:

Where's the 32 bit art? Where's the game that lovingly recreates the style of pre-rendered backgrounds, fixed camera, awesomely primitive kind-of-shader effects? Would it cost that much to make something like this?

Nowhere, because it's much more difficult to pull this stuff off in 3D, and less desirable to mass audiences.

I read the book Parasite Eve and enjoyed it. Didn't really enjoy the game enough to keep playing though.

@supamon

Would be awesome if there was an actual Parasite Eve sequel for consoles/PC. It's been long enough right?

Square can hardly turn a profit on their Final Fantasy games (can hardly develop them, it seems like).

I don't want a Parasite Eve trailer on the launch of the PS4 and then six years later we're like "did they cancel it?" "yeah they cancelled it" "no guys we're still makin it!"

But if they handed it to Eidos...

@Brodehouse

@supamon

Would be awesome if there was an actual Parasite Eve sequel for consoles/PC. It's been long enough right?

Square can hardly turn a profit on their Final Fantasy games (can hardly develop them, it seems like).

I don't want a Parasite Eve trailer on the launch of the PS4 and then six years later we're like "did they cancel it?" "yeah they cancelled it" "no guys we're still makin it!"

But if they handed it to Eidos...

Please stop holding Eidos Montreal up as a bastion of quality development as if Human Revolution was developed in a vacuum outside Square Enix's influence.

Parasite Eve was such a great game. I still own my original copy with the Squaresoft Collector's demo disk. I never did manage to finish the game, though. It was the first double-disk game I had ever played that required me to change disks mid-game, and I didn't realize that I was supposed to do that. I turned it off and tried booting up disk 2, but it wouldn't allow me to. I remember the first disk ending on a tough boss fight, and I didn't feel like doing it again, so I just gave up. Since then I have never played the game up to that point. I've been thinking about getting it and the sequel again on PSN just so I don't have to hook up my PS2. 
 
PE2 is one of my all-time favorite games. I'm probably in the minority on this, but I found it to be vastly superior to the original in pretty much every way. Maybe that's just because I was more into survival horror games than RPGs at the time, but I'm sure I'd still feel the same about it now. Loved the crazy, contrived survival-horror puzzles; loved the combat, atmosphere, the tons of customization options, the huge and sometimes frightening bosses, and the totally arbitrary way that about four lines of dialogue throughout the entire game used voice-acting. And of course, that shower scene. That was pretty great at the time, too. Man...I REALLY need to replay PE2.
 
I would kill for a proper sequel these days. I never played 3rd Birthday, but based on what I've seen and heard, I didn't miss much and it wasn't at all what I was looking for from a PE game.

@Brodehouse said:

@Hailinel

@Brodehouse

@supamon

Would be awesome if there was an actual Parasite Eve sequel for consoles/PC. It's been long enough right?

Square can hardly turn a profit on their Final Fantasy games (can hardly develop them, it seems like).

I don't want a Parasite Eve trailer on the launch of the PS4 and then six years later we're like "did they cancel it?" "yeah they cancelled it" "no guys we're still makin it!"

But if they handed it to Eidos...

Please stop holding Eidos Montreal up as a bastion of quality development as if Human Revolution was developed in a vacuum outside Square Enix's influence.

? I like Eidos Montreal's game more than I've liked anything to come from Production Studio 1 (or any of Square's Japanese dev studios) in a long while. And I say this as a guy who actually liked Final Fantasy 13. I don't want to see this theoretical Parasite Eve game developed by Square dev studios because they're stylistically tone deaf. I don't mind seeing Nomura's stuff, I just don't want all Square franchises looking that way. I don't deny that Square had a role to play, but I like them way more as a publisher side producer than the actual developers in this specific case. Hell, in this fictional case I'm way more excited than I am for Thief 4, which is what they're probably doing.

Well, between The 3rd Birthday and (to my knowledge) Square Enix no longer holding the Parasite Eve license, I doubt that this dream game of yours is ever going to come to pass, and given that Nomura designed Aya, it's a little late to suggest that the next game would be freed of his influence.

PE was awesome. I found a big portion of that game to be super memorable. 2 didn't do it for me, and the 3rd birthday was fun but I still haven't finished it.

Hell, it inspired me to watch the japanese movie. It's nuts!

Also, i'd love a new one. And a new Vagrant Story since they both had that circle grid combat thing going.