The Cinematic Nature of Parasite Eve from 1UP.com

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The Cinematic Nature of Parasite Eve

Square's theatrical RPG was a bizarre evolutionary dead end in video game storytelling.

arasite Eve is, after fifteen years, a forgotten footnote in the great video game canon. Yoko Shimomura's soundtrack endures lo these many years later, but otherwise it's just another of those wacky experiments from Squaresoft's golden age; a piece of trivia for RPG fetishists and PS1 buffs. Failure is the game's greatest legacy. Not as a game -- it's actually pretty great to play, even now -- but as a model for telling stories in games. Director Takashi Tokita and his team called their game a "cinematic RPG," an explicit attempt to meld the flash of film with what was at the time video game's best storytelling tools. It didn't work, but it was a necessary evolutionary step, fitting for a game that is itself all about evolution.

The common complaint about most story-based video games goes like this: I'd like the game if it wasn't for all the cut-scenes. As video games scrambled tooth and nail to tell stories, they naturally turned to the language of film for creating human drama. How else would you get two people in the game to talk to each other naturally? If you leave the player in control while the characters around them speak naturally, the scene loses its dramatic impact. Think about poor Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2 trying to have a serious chat about the miseries of life under the combine as Gordon Freeman spastically spins in circles, crowbarring everything in sight as he roots around for ammo like a pig for truffles. So the formula has gone like this: play a little game, stop for a brief cinema while the characters talk or there's a big action set piece impossible within the parameters of the game, play some more, watch a long cinema at the end. Technology has improved the formula, smoothing the transition by keeping the game's characters and models consistent across cut-scenes and play, but it's been largely the same since 1998 benchmarks like Metal Gear Solid.

Parasite Eve, another alumni of 1998, saw a different path. The story: On Christmas Eve in 1997, the mitochondria in the cells of New York City's citizens revolt, possessing an opera singer, taking the name Eve, and mutating people into freaky monsters or orange goo. The mysterious cop Aya Brea is the only one who can stop her from ending civilization/ruining Christmas.

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Square's other games, particularly director Tokita's previous works like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy IV, had proven that movie-style scenes complete with spoken dialogue and dramatic staging weren't necessary to make a great game story. Simple, static backgrounds, text dialogue, music, and simple blocking were enough to hook players. Consider scenes from Chrono Trigger like when hero Crono is placed on trial. It's an impressionistic sequence, with slower pacing and simpler dialogue than you'd find in a movie or television, but it works marvelously.

Rather than throw out that storytelling style, Squaresoft kept the format in Parasite Eve. Most scenes with NYPD Detective Aya Brea, her partner Daniel Dollis, and the sinister Eve show characters moving in simple, exaggerated gestures with text dialogue. Instead of using the PlayStation technology to do voiced dialogue sequences, Square added drama to these scenes by adding small touches of animation and flare to highly detailed static backgrounds. These were the same sort of pre-rendered backgrounds seen in Square's recent hit Final Fantasy VII, but rather than massive vistas, these were smaller, more intimate places. One early scene has Brea and Dollis driving in a police cruiser to a crime scene, and the flashing police lights and blurred background mimicking a city streets rushing by add a dramatic flare while maintaining the slower pace of RPG stories.

Eve borrows the scenery activity of film, but not the human element. When Aya is exploring the New York on foot, fighting genetic mutations, most of the backgrounds are completely static. Chinatown, the Brooklyn Bridge, all of them look like frozen paintings with Aya running over them. Had Square kept a consistent presentation, throughout, Eve's silent story might have been more effective.

Consistent presentation wasn't really the point, though, as the other half of Eve's storytelling style demonstrates. Also borrowed from Final Fantasy VII are Eve's approximately 20 minutes of pre-rendered cut-scenes, action sequences drawn in a more advanced graphical style than the in-game characters and locales. Unlike Final Fantasy, Parasite Eve tried peppered these big payoff moments more liberally throughout the game. The intended effect was to have more dramatic peaks and valleys more often, over the course of the game's roughly seven-hour run time. Even with text-based dialogue and mostly still sets, the effect would be a film-like pace filtered through the lens of a familiar role-playing game.

Parasite Eve's little movies don't wow like they did fifteen years ago, but there is a strange beauty about them now. Something about the smooth-lined characters and jerky, rubbery monsters has an otherworldly effect that brings out the personality of the rough polygonal characters you see while you're playing, not unlike Yoshitaka Amano's delicate concept art did for the original Final Fantasy games. No matter how appealing they are, though, they ultimately don't fit in with the actual pace of the game. In the field, Aya, the game's strategic fights, and the pace through would-be "dungeons" like central park and the subway system are all simply too slow to be relied on to keep up a dramatic pace. The game's most cinematic elements, its CG movies, take away from the more subtle cinematic qualities of the animation in dialogue scenes.

So Parasite Eve was an evolutionary dead end as far as storytelling methods go, and Square seemed to realize it quickly as Parasite Eve 2 was paced more like the old Resident Evil games than its predecessor. The game shouldn't stay forgotten, though. Freed of technological restrictions, there's something to be said for a style of game that switches wildly between presentations like Parasite Eve does between its CG cut-scenes, slightly-animated story scenes, and its slow play. Games, after all, aren't movies. Tools that aren't effective when trying to mimic movies could be used to tell stories unique to video games if used correctly. Why else do people still love the way Blizzard builds CG cinemas into games like Diablo III? Square may never revisit these ideas, but today's game makers would do well to re-examine the peculiar failure that was Parasite Eve.

Author

Anthony John Agnello

Anthony Agnello is a writer living in New York whose work has appeared in Fast Company, Edge, The Gameological Society and many other publications. His great hope is that someone makes a game that looks and feels like upstate New York and that the game will be Klonoa 3. He owns two beaches and likes long walks on cats. Follow him on Twitter @ajohnagnello.

Comments (22)

This article feels so unfinished
Posted: userComment.createdDate by Outworldly_Sphinx

It could have explored a little more PE series and talked about PE2 and the newest PSP game, besides it's roots as a book and the original Japanese horror movie.
Unlike PE which was a slow-paced try at a movie-like storytelling, this article feels a little rushed.

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WTF DID JUS' READ?
Posted: userComment.createdDate by BlackMetal22

Another slow news days, another senseless article. Is this site hurting for internet hits or something?

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I loved the Parasite Eve
Posted: userComment.createdDate by Togegawa1

games. now Xenosaga was the one with the long cut scenes. I went through a bag of popcorn and was still wandering when I'd get to play the game.

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Great
Posted: userComment.createdDate by ksmith24

Definitely a very good job, thanks a lot for sharing with us !!

<a href="http://www.collegehelpcenter.org">go to college</a>

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It's strange, but
Posted: userComment.createdDate by spilltheink

I feel like your reasoning for saying Parasite Eve has unique, interesting storytelling is the exact same reasoning many use to insult or discount many current gen games. Many games, (most of) which I will neither condemn nor praise, use mostly static backdrops, over-emphasized gestures, text, and music to give feeling to scenes; in my opinion, it feels a little off to call this style of storytelling a "dead end."

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Parasite Eve
Posted: userComment.createdDate by Otaku_Hanzo

Is one of my favorite Square games and I would love a reboot. Funny thing about this article is that I -just- got my hands on another copy of the game and the sequel. Currently on Day 5 in PE1. Love it.

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- parasite eve
  Posted: 03/12/2013 by lough24
  
  Man it is a amazing game still play it would be cool to see another game
  
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Loved the graphics
Posted: userComment.createdDate by Alucart

But this game was incredibly boring for me to play. Not even Aya's visual appeal could keep me convinced this worth actually spending 9 hours of playtime. Its as the author mentioned there was essentially too little going beyond action. The backgrounds were lifeless. No moving parts to distract from the lesser action moments. The music was cool but with nothing really going on to couple witht beautifully crafted techno-opera-esque melodies and wails it seemed put me to sleep more than encourage me to press onward.
Not a good game for me. Great music though!

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Parasite Eve
Posted: userComment.createdDate by LordCool

Is one of those games that I truly wish they'd have given 1. A proper sequel and 2. Kept going on the ps2 or ps3. I know 3rd birthday came out for the PsP but I never got to play it. I really loved this game and it was a part of my middle school years growing up and it will always have a special place in my heart.

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Everytime there's a PE article...
Posted: userComment.createdDate by orient

...I lambast the fact that it has never been released in Europe/Australia, ever. Not even on PSN. It's probably due to licensing stuff but I don't care -- PE2 is one of my favourite PS1 games; I need to play the original. I know it can be obtained by "other means" but I'd like to play it on a console preferably.

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- PSN
  Posted: 03/03/2013 by AxlSkull
  
  Maybe it's because of your region settings I don't know, but last I checked both P.E and P.E II where available on the PSN.
  I know I am going to get the first one I really need to try it.
  
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- Must be the region...
  Posted: 03/03/2013 by orient
  
  ...because it definitely isn't available on my PSN and I'm not going to mess around with setting up a new account, because why should I have to? All I want to do is give them money for a game. Oh well, now I'm playing it for free.
  
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Loved this game...
Posted: userComment.createdDate by San_Andreas

...PE was flawed, to be sure, and it wasn't as good as FFVII or Xenogears, but I thought it was pretty thrilling and atmospheric. I just wish I'd completed the Chrysler Building.

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I loved these two games!
Posted: userComment.createdDate by deedward9

When I recieved Parasite Eve 1 & 2 for Christmas I was so excited. At the time, I had left console games for some time, mostly frustrated at how poor I was at platformers and action games, so I'd moved to the PC for other experiences.
These were the first Playstation games that I recieved after I purchased a used playstation at a yard sale my last summer in college and I loved playing them to death.
I'm so glad to see another article about one of the game series I loved the most.

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Is there a way...
Posted: userComment.createdDate by ggigox

to not loose all these articles? Can't you back them up or something? 1UP has all these amazing articles and interviews that it would be a shame if they get lost

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- Yep...
  Posted: 03/03/2013 by AxlSkull
  
  Good question, I was also wondering about that. So many great articles...
  
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- Well....
  Posted: 03/03/2013 by donstarlancer
  
  You could copy them in a word doc if you want to keep them. The images should still stay up too. I just the same last week with a few features I haven't read yet but looked really interesting.
  
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Crazy...
Posted: userComment.createdDate by bullet656

I thought there would be no more 1up articles, and then up pops this one about a game that I just downloaded last night (although haven't played yet).
I've heard about this game over the years, but for some reason never gave it a shot. Yesterday I was browsing through alot of 1up's old articles and came across a discussion about Parasite Eve that made me want to play it. I decided to look it up on the PSN and it was only $6 and I could play it on the PS3 or the Vita. I couldn't pass that up.

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- Yep...
  Posted: 02/28/2013 by McBiggitty
  
  We have a few more left in the chamber. Stay tuned!
  
  Flag
- cool
  Posted: 03/01/2013 by bullet656
  
  I'll be sure to check them out.
  And if you're reading this, good luck at ign. I'm going to miss 1up.
  
  Flag
- Thanks!
  Posted: 03/01/2013 by McBiggitty
  
  Much appreciated. If you have an IGN profile, add me on there too -- it's been nice to keep in contact with a handful of 1UPers on the other side.
  
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