If you’re reading this, good job! This is currently work-in-progress and simply contains some notes.

The gameplay is fine overall, though the combat does get repetitive. Especially by the end game (Museum). Until then, it’s mostly fine. There were times where I got a bit disoriented, or I couldn’t find what I needed to…but the game keeps you moving thruout.

The Museum is where the game gets really repetitive, since the enemies become bullet-sponges and have attacks that are difficult (practically impossible) to dodge. This also applies to the bosses.
Basically, instead of actually making the fights more interesting, they just buffed the enemies. It didn’t really amuse me.
By the time I reached the second-to-last boss, I had gotten a bit sick of constantly running around and dying while the enemy just soaked up damage…so I used cheats to help me finish the game. I’ll note that I could have beaten the game without cheats, but it would have taken me ages to do so. Even with cheats, the game still took me about an hour and a half to beat.

The story wasn’t particularly deep and, in fact, I rolled my eyes a few times (lovingly). The constant references to Mitochondria are amusing considering all the memes, though if we put that aside it is unsettling. There was a moment in the story where I witnessed:

The thing with these kinds of interactions is that it’s a very cliche (of the Japanese variety) interaction, as real people wouldn’t act like this. It’s funny to witness but c’mon guys.
To be clear, this isn’t what was actually said in the game, but it’s basically it. You have the police approach the scientist who says a bunch of really creepy, unsettling and downright suspicious stuff while the police listen in bewildered rage (which indicates that they believe what he’s saying). And then they just leave while pretending they don’t believe him. The police should have arrested him.

Also, Aya is pretty cute.

You can read my first impressions below.

So far, I’m liking Parasite Eve a lot. I find the Mitochondria stuff amusing as well. I wasn’t expecting to hear Richard Dawkins’ name mentioned.

I find the sewer to be a bit disorienting, though I wasn’t as annoyed as I expected myself to be. What I did find quite annoying is the museum, where the random encounters really started to grate on me.

There were times where I had trouble finding stuff and figuring out where to go next, so I did keep a walkthrough around just to refer to every now and again.

Day 5 onwards the game gets really tedious. I think this is a shame, because the rest of it is pretty solid. The enemies start to have a lot of health, have a tendency to do a lot of damage (and have attacks that are difficult or practically impossible to dodge) and you do a bit less damage too. So, seeing as this was the case, I decided to use cheats to beat the game. I determined that I could beat the final boss without cheating, but it would have taken forever (and I only decided this after about ≈45 minutes of me running around trying to fight the penultimate boss).

First impressions are okay as far as graphics are concerned. The story continuing on from where it is is fine too, I guess. But the first game didn’t have tank controls and this one does…so getting used to that is going to be a challenge, I can tell.

So far, they made the game resemble Resident Evil a lot. They gave it tank controls (mentioned above), the camera angles are (mostly) fixed. They also made it so that you have to press a button to go up or down stairs/ladders which is…a choice, I guess. You also have to press a button to open doors.
In the previous game, you could walk up and down stairs freely. To go up a ladder or open a door, you just had to walk up to it.

I’m about 50/50 on the tank controls. I don’t like that it was added, though I understand why, considering it’s a bit closer to the Resident Evil formula.
It’s way more survival-horror than the previous game was, though I haven’t yet seen how abundant ammunition is. The atmosphere is certainly more unsettling.

• Okay, I looked it up after getting confused in the credits. Apparently it’s adapted from a novel? And that this novel was first adapted into a film and two manga series? What?
• I ended up referring to the walkthrough here to help me get thru the first game. I’ve mostly ignored walkthroughs for the second game, though I did look at the wiki for the first boss fight (just to confirm if I was doing it right or not).
• There is a fan-made Chronicles of Darkness supplement for Parasite Eve, which I’ve been looking thru. I may write about it in the near future.