Really liked the combat and thought the overdive mechanic was neat, but not being able to rotate the camera freely really killed the fun and made running away from enemies or trying to focus on enemies really frustrating. (I guess it's because the PSP only had ONE analog nub and they needed to use it for character MOVEMENT instead of camera control. 😤)

The storyline was a pile of crap and Aya Brea didn't deserve to be done dirty like this.

If they (highly unlikely) ever decide to remake a Parasite Eve game, I hope to god it's not this one.

The first two missions are amazingly design for a handheld shooter. The combat system is designed around the controls of the PSP to make a fluid, fast-paced cover shooter where you are constantly changing your weapons and vantage point to flank enemies with yourself. The boss battles are straightforward and do an excellent job of showing off the strengths of the combat system and how you should think about encounters. The game basically uses Z-targeting from Metroid Prime, which means you don't have to manually aim, but still feel in control and can run and dodge easily while firing.

And then the third mission introduces the sniper rifle, which you have to manually aim. Using PSP controls. And they expect you to quick scope flying insects which are outside of your FOV. It's miserable to control because obviously this is a huge weakness of the PSP's controls.

In addition, this is an RPG where the only option to grind/practice is to replay story missions that you have already completed. No side quests of any kind as far as I could tell.

This game is made by a lot of Square's heavy hitters and it starts out so strong, so I was extremely disappointed when it then quickly becomes just... very bad.

I have absolutely no fucking idea what the story of this game was. First two games were pretty generic horror setups but this game goes off the rails with time travel and body swapping and I don't even know what. Putting all that aside though I rather liked the gameplay, felt like a natural evolution of the 2nd game making it a more actiony shooter, and a lot of the guns were fun with decent variety for the game length. The costume mechanic in particular was amusing, even if I am for sure not beating this game 10 times.

This is not a full review, but since I cannot see myself finishing this game right now, I really just want a space to share my thoughts.

First, the positives. This is a very technically impressive game; the action is silky smooth and the models are all great quality for the PSP. The menus and UI have a very clean and well designed look to them. However it really doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of originality to the visuals, the monster designs just kind of a gnarled mess and the character designs aren't anything to write home about. Even Aya herself has been downgraded from her older design, I feel.

And then the gameplay is... frustrating. I like the concept of it's core mechanic, the Overdive system. You have the ability to switch between the bodies of nearby allies to give yourself an advantage over enemies. Sometimes, it does offer a bit of strategic thinking. But I just, don't think it really works in practice?

The other mechanics are all really just, not enjoyable. Sometimes you just have to, target an enemy without shooting it and wait for a bar to fill, then you can order your squad to shoot it all at the same time. It feels weird to just, have to stop what you're doing, stop shooting, and wait.

And the cover system is just so awful. The little blocks you hide behind break all the time, and thing is, when you're reloading, you don't duck behind cover like you think you would. That would make too much sense. You just, stand up, out of cover, and the enemy can just, go to town on you. And levels last way too long, even at the beginning. And when you keep dying because the enemies have way too big of an advantage over you, it just makes it go on even longer.

Not knowing the whole story, I can't comment on all of it, but I can tell it's probably not going to be a winning narrative, when the game expects you to do read files just to learn about what is actually happening in the story. I'm not saying the game should tell you, but it should s h o w you and give you bits and pieces through the cutscenes. But after two levels I honestly just, didn't really have much interest in seeing where things would go.

There's just no soul to the story so far, and you're told things that were probably supposed to have some sort of emotional weight, but I just don't really feel anything because the story so poorly sets up who it's characters are, what they're like and what is even going on. If you didn't read the in-game lore encyclopedia, then you wouldn't have a single clue. A fucking codex shouldn't be required reading for the basic understanding of a story.

I haven't played the original Parasite Eve, or it's sequel, yet. But after giving this a try, I feel like my time would be much better invested in those games, instead of this.

The follow up to the excellent Parasite Eve duology, and the very thing that killed it so badly it'll likely never come back.

Which is a real shame, because the PE games are incredibly fun and unique, and are perhaps one of the earliest, if not THE earliest, official examples of the extremely rare Survival Horror JRPG fusion genre. Worse still is that the gameplay ideas and enemy design is actually not too shabby (I actually really like the design of "the Twisted"), but the story, core gameplay execution, and intentional design of the characters and scenarios tear up what little good will this game has. Especially the story, which is a wet SHART of a time travel mess with an exceptionally insulting ending to boot.

Let's put away the fact the story is terrible for now, and talk about what it was as a game and why it was almost worth trying to enjoy, up until it showed it really wasn't worth the effort. The game more or less does away with the Survival Horror JRPG root the first two games have and opt for a much more third person shooter perspective, with the twist of body hopping to dart around the battlefield and potion for "focus fire" or reach harder to reach locations. This is bad enough, as the survival horror elements with JRPG mechanics really gave the series it's identity (even if the second one is more action oriented), but, It gets worse and more difficult to enjoy when the soldiers you are stuck with tend to die off due to the staggering and ever ascending difficulty spike after the first major time loop. This isn't even getting into the fact that the core gameplay very quickly boils down to keeping as much distance as possible from foes and "focus fire as much as possible" on singular targets and very slowly move forward, with very little desire to engage in larger groups or one-on-one encounters. While I understand the idea of the concept, trying to crate a squad based approach in a psudo-tactical RPG, its execution is nothing more than a repetitive slog with very little room for experimentation.

This game honestly irritates me. Every now and then, I have the very strange desire to give it a go again, because something deep inside keeps saying "No, Parasite Eve was amazing. Just give '3rd' a chance. it may be better than you think", and like having a piece of candy corn once every Halloween, I'm very swiftly reminded that doing THAT was a mistake. I so, SO badly wanted to like this game. Especially since its release prompted me to try and get the first two games (out of a genuine interest and of irritation). Yeah, 3rd Birthday was my first PE game. Laugh all you want, but at least I learned to travel back in time and play something better. Can't wait to play Parasite Eve once again at the end of this year. Maybe I'll make a fresh file this time.

I have so much I could say about this game but I will save you all the multi page rant and leave it on two things; one gameplay related and one story related.

On the gameplay side of things this game has far and away the worst boss fight I've ever seen. All of the gameplay mechanics come together in a way that just falls apart when you add an enemy that can only be damaged by a certain weapon type that has extremely nonfunctional aiming system, constantly charges at you as fast as possible, and it just keeps going into a second phase where it does the same thing but faster. The most sensible way I could find to beat this and the most sensible way guides I found showed to beat it were to pause the game when I managed to hit it somehow and just walk away for ten minutes because this game is so broken that if you're doing sustained damaged before pausing it will continue doing it after its paused. This game just, does not play well at all.

On the story side of things, major spoilers ahead, You basically are playing as a child in an adult's body the entire game and this becomes INSANELY uncomfortable considering how hard they sexualized "Aya" the entire game. Ignoring how hard it ruins the characters from the other Parasite Eve games and the story just does not make any sense on its own, this just skeeves me the hell out and I have to wonder what the fuck anyone working on this was thinking.

This may be my least favorite game of all time now.

1/10