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One of them is a police officer. The other is an ancient evil threatening all life on Earth. The horrifying bond between them will continue until something dies.

In 1998, Squaresoft released a video game called Parasite Eve, a pseudo-sequel to the 1995 Sci-Fi Horror novel of the same name by Hideaki Sena. It was unique among RPGs available at the time because of its blend of RPG, Action-Adventure and the then-new Survival Horror genre.

The story revolves around Aya Brea, a New York City police officer whose mother and sister were killed in a car accident when she was a child. While Aya is attending an opera performed at Carnegie Hall on Christmas Eve in 1997, all hell breaks loose when both the actors and the audience burst into flames. The only survivors are Aya, her date (who runs away never to be seen again after the fire), and the lead actress, Melissa, who just so happens to be harboring a primordial horror inside her body known as Mitochondria Eve.

Aya discovers that contact with Melissa/Eve has granted her strange powers, called "Parasite Energy", and so she teams up with Daniel Dollis (her partner) and Kunihiko Maeda (a Japanese scientist and Mr. Exposition for the novel's events) to figure out Eve's motives and stop the strange mutations sweeping across Manhattan.

The game has two sequels, Parasite Eve 2 and The 3rd Birthday. The series is also available on the PlayStation Network.


This game provides examples of:

  • 11th-Hour Superpower: The Final Boss fight is largely a cutscene, as bullets laced with Aya's cells are brutal anathema to the Final Boss.
  • Abandoned Hospital: Sort of. Saint Francis Hospital does have two nurses (one who leaves right away) and a patient (who also leaves) as survivors, but for the most part, everyone is either dead or gone and the music that plays when the lights go out add to the creepy atmosphere.
  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: Not just that but it's only ever a few inches below ground. Even more grating since the games take place in New York City.
  • Adaptation Expansion: The game is essentially a sequel to the film and the book.
  • A.K.A.-47: The game uses a mix of real gun names and being just off enough not to have to send out royalties.
  • Antagonist Title: The titular Eve is the Big Bad.
  • An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The game starts on Christmas Eve, with Aya shooting at monsters, and the next few days are more gun battles with creatures, and plenty of explosions.
  • Anti-Frustration Feature: Some bosses have more than one phase. When you reach the next phase, Aya's PE meter will start to recharge at normal speed again rather than having the player be stuck with a slower recharge if they had used a lot of Aya's powers previously.
  • Armor of Invincibility: The Cr Armor 2, which is found in the 61st to 70th floors of the Chrysler Building on New Game Plus. Its defense power and PE defense stat are already in the triple-digits, it already has an HP Up attached to it, and it has the maximum slots at 10.
  • Artistic License – Gun Safety: Daniel fires his gun at the entrance to the SoHo gun shop while Aya is standing in the way. Lampshaded when Maeda immediately asks him if he's really a police officer.
  • Artistic License – Physics: A scene involves looking at what appears to be a standard optical microscope to check out how Eve's mitochondria affects people. The biggest goof with this scene is that the microscope is apparently able to show sub-atomic particles, something impossible even with modern microscopes. In addition, if we were to assume each scene transition is zooming in closer and closer, the mitochondria apparently are smaller than atoms.
  • At the Opera Tonight: The audience shall burst into flames! And later, it'll melt and merge into a giant blob.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • Guns with high rate of fire effect. While you can attack enemies multiple times in a single turn, each shot does less damage than a single shot. On top of this, guns with high rate of fire roots Aya to the ground until she finishes attacking, which can leave her open to enemy attacks.
    • Likewise, rocket launchers look and sound awesome and they can cause splash damage to multiple targets, but they have their own ammo supply (which is extremely limited), have to be reloaded after every shot, and has the slowest AT charge compared to other weapons.
    • You can add hot and cold elemental mods that will do more damage to enemies vulnerable to them. But on the flip side, enemies also have resistances to them. While adding both to a gun is possible, the weakness/resistance multipliers override each other, so there's no real point in adding them to a gun.
  • Badass Army: The Navy.
  • Bad Powers, Good People: Aya is imbued with mitochondrial abilities similar to Eve's. But Aya is a heroic NYPD officer who uses her abilities to fight Eve and her monsters.
  • Barbie Doll Anatomy: Eve's last couple of forms (and the Ultimate Being's third) sport a distinct lack of auxiliary sexual characteristics. Whether to chalk it up to maintaining a rating below Adults Only or to the PS1's limited rendering capability is a toss-up. However, a closer look at the backside of the Ultimate Being's 3rd form will show what looks like a giant ballsack hanging off the base of its phallic tail.
  • The Battle Didn't Count: Several times. The last fight with Eve is the only one where you actually defeat her. In all the others she simply decides the battle is over. You also never gain experience points from any of these fights.
  • Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Aya (a noted Fair Cop), Maeda (The Smart Guy), and Daniel (The Big Guy) respectively.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Entries in Melissa's diary that Aya accesses in a backstage dressing room within the opera house details her determined resolve to retain her lead role in the opera, with statements like "I'll even sell my soul to the Devil if I have to" and "I don't care if I die. I just want to get through this show." being written there. She gets what she wanted in the end: She manages to play the lead role as she desired, but her immuno-compromised physical state gets so bad that Eve overtakes her body while she's performing on stage, which happens at the start of the game, before taking over entirely shortly thereafter.
  • Big Applesauce: A JRPG set in Manhattan during Christmas season.
  • Body Horror: You are fighting sentient mitochondria that can warp bodies into various bloody masses, similar to The Thing (1982).
  • Body of Bodies: The Mixed Men enemy, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Three unfortunate humans fused into one quadrupedal abomination.
  • Bonus Dungeon: The Abandoned Warehouse in Day 5 and the Chrysler Building starting Day 2 on New Game Plus.
  • Book Ends: The game begins and ends with the heroine going to the opera.
  • Boring, but Practical:
    • Pistols. While it may be cool to have a submachinegun, rifle, or a grenade launcher as your primary weapon, the Pistol wins out because it has a quick first shot and follow up shot time. This is the only thing you cannot improve with guns. Pistols can become even more powerful when you mod them and/or beef up their stats once you got the items and points to do so, especially after several runs of New Game Plus. Combine all that on top of their fast AT recharge and you got a weapon that can easily shred enemies with little effort.
    • The Club 4 has a notably weaker attack power than Club 5 (80 vs. 102) and even lacks the latter's Quickdraw ability. However, it has both the critical hit increase and counterattack stats, making it more ideal as Aya's Emergency Weapon.
  • Boss-Only Level: The entire Day 6 mostly consists of the Final Battle.
  • Brainy Brunette: Maeda, the Asian and Nerdy scientist from Japan, and Klamp, the Big Bad's resident Evil Genius Mad Scientist.
  • Brutal Bonus Level: Chrysler Building, which can be accessible in New Game Plus, has seventy plus floors, all of which are maze-like and randomly generated. And to top it all off, it has no Save Points.
  • By-the-Book Cop: Given the trifecta of being a survival horror game, set in New York City, and with most of the characters as police officers, it's a little shocking that none of them are cowardly, corrupt, or incompetent. The one exception gets incinerated in short order.
  • Canis Major: The Boss of Day 3 is a mutated K-9.
  • The Cavalry: The US military (particularly the Navy) eventually intervenes to try and stop Eve.
  • Chekhov's Gag: During his introduction, Wayne brags to Aya that he could make her shotguns or rocket launchers. Without a proper guide it's easy to dismiss this as Wayne being his usual smartass self rather than a hint to his role as the game's Ultimate Blacksmith.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Maeda's handgun that he gives to Aya halfway through the game. It can shoot special bullets that cause a ton of damage to the Ultimate Being.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: The little girl Aya keeps seeing and the doctor who appears in her flashbacks are important characters in the game. The first is Maya, Aya's long-dead twin sister who is the source of Aya and Melissa's respective mutations via transplants, being the original host of Mitochondria Eve. She's also the True Final Boss only accessible to fight in New Game Plus. The second one is Hans Klamp, the one who performed said transplants and is immediately revealed to be a major antagonist.
  • Chest Monster: Appears only in the Chrysler Building.
  • Citywide Evacuation: After two major incidents involving Eve lighting people on fire and turning them into puddles of goop, the entire city is evacuated to prevent more casualties while Aya and her companions try to stop Eve.
  • Collision Damage: Bumping into enemies will cause Scratch Damage unless your armor's defenses are absurdly high.
  • Counterattack: Some weapons will have this as a special effect, allowing you to attack back if you are hit by an enemy.
  • Combat Stilettos: At the start of the game, Aya kicks ass with the high-heeled sandals she wore on her date at the opera.
  • Continuity Nod: Aya's mother's name is Mariko, the same as the girl who received Kiyomi's kidney in the novel.
  • Continuity Snarl:
    • In regards to the Optional True Final Boss. After beating Maya, the original Eve, Aya states that her body has returned to normal before she had ever met Eve, meaning her powers were now gone. Word of God says this ending is the true ending that leads into the sequel. However, the sequel states that Aya willingly sealed her powers after the Manhattan Blockade Incident so that she wouldn't freak people out. The contradiction could stem from one of two things: Either the developers weren't anticipating a sequel and probably forgot about the events of the second ending from the first game when it came to making the sequel or there was a hiccup in the script's translation.
    • The game also can't decide if Aya was the Sole Survivor of the opera on Christmas eve, or if her sort-of-boyfriend made it out too. The other cops were laughing that said boyfriend Screams Like a Little Girl, so it's unlikely that they were lying about his survival. However, the press reporters maintain that Aya was the only one to make it out.
    • Aya's rank is also inconsistently addressed, with people calling her officer and detective on different occasions (either way, she acts and is treated as the latter).
  • Contrived Coincidence: Where to begin? The Hero happens to attend a play which the Big Bad (or rather, her Living Bodysuit) is part of. Then turns out, the Big Bad's Livingbodysuit had a kidney transplant when she was young and the donor happens to be The Hero's late twin sister. Oh, The Hero also received an eye transplant when she was young, from the same donor above. And who performed the surgery to the latter case? The resident Evil Genius. On a slightly minor note, the Older Sidekick happens to take a glimpse at the Evilgenius' computer screen for him to see that his ex-wife and child are part of a list for the Evil Plan.
  • Creepy Centipedes: The Boss in the second sewer stage on Day 5 and the third (Floor 30) in Chrysler Building during New Game Plus. This creature takes damage as a whole, but then splits into multiple independent fighting parts after taking enough damage. The head section can inflict poison status on Aya, while the tail section can inflict blindness.
  • Creepy Cockroach: A giant mutant cockroach is the fifth Boss in Chrysler Building during New Game Plus, and the first of three bosses (including the True Final Boss) in said area not to be rehash. It can whip you with its antennae and sometimes poison you. It can also lay an egg that can hatch very quickly and grow into a new cockroach (which can also lay an egg as well should the first roach die), requiring you to have a lot of firepower and speed to be able to kill the boss quickly and end the fight before you're caught in an endless loop.
  • Crutch Character:
    • The ultimate first-playthrough armor (B Suit 1, N Jacket or N Suit being the popular options) will be Aya''s most tenured armor in New Game Plus playthroughs as they have the most available slots (4, 5 and 6, respectively) until the player finally get their hands on the actual best armor in the game found in the Chrysler Building, the Cr Armor 2 (which can modified to have the max 10 slots complete with an already attached HP Up).
    • Club 3 is the best Club in normal playthroughs as it has far better stats than Clubs 1 and 2 and even has the 1st strike ability in addition to the Video Game Stealing ability that the Club 2 also has. It becomes obsolete once the players acquire Clubs 4 and 5 in the Chrysler Building as the two have even far better stats and their stealing ability doesn't cut Aya's attack power in half like Clubs 2 and 3 do.
    • Any guns acquired in the normal playthroughs outside the Infinity +1 Sword (be it the junk weapons or/and Torres' Beretta M92FS) have decent stats, but are far outshined by the guns found on the Chrysler Building.
    • The Acid and Tranquilizer effects are great at easing your way through Random Encounters, but the Cyanide found in Chrysler Building is capable of One-Hit Kill. It is possible to equip all three, however.
  • Death by Racism: Maeda's introduction sees him accosted by a racist-sounding cop for his difficulty with English. Said cop gets his cells lit on fire five seconds after telling him to "go back to [his] own country."
  • Degraded Boss:
  • Delicate and Sickly: As Daniel reveals to Aya at the start of Day 2, Melissa has been often sick in life. If her needing a kidney transplant as a child is anything to go by, she's been sick since childhood. She was also a beautiful actress while she was alive.
    Daniel: She was sick often — always on some kind of medication. The people at the opera said they were amazed she could even stand on stage.
  • Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: See 11th-Hour Superpower.
  • Developer's Foresight: The last good luck charm Maeda gives Aya cannot be put into storage. There is actually a gameplay reason for this. At the Final Battle when Daniel gives Aya the special bullets to Maeda's gun, they replace the good luck charm in the inventory. Thus, it ensures the player will always have the space necessary to receive the bullets.
  • Does Not Like Guns: Torres, because his daughter was accidentally shot in the past.
  • Do Not Run with a Gun: Aya is forced to remain on the spot where she stand while firing, which leaves her vulnerable to enemy attacks while she's shooting. This is also one of the main reasons that guns with high rate-of-fire effect are Awesome, but Impractical.
  • Dual Boss:
  • Elite Tweak:
    • Tools and Super Tools offer all sorts of weapon and armor customization possibilities, if you're willing to put up with their rarity and the regular Tools' destruction of donor equipment.
    • Bonus Points can be spent on the ATB gauge, inventory limit, or on buffing weapons and armor. Only the last option can carry forward into New Game Plus, though.
  • Emergency Weapon: Aya must carry a billy club with her so that she's not left completely defenseless if she runs out of ammo. She can use a tool to enhance a new model with an old one, but the player isn't allowed to discard them entirely.
  • Expy: Hans Klamp bears a similarity to Professor Hojo from Final Fantasy VII. This becomes more apparent towards the end of the game where Klamp basically sets the plot of the game in motion to having Eve give birth to the Ultimate Being just for the sake of science and evolution.
  • Fan Disservice: Melissa Pierce is a certified Statuesque Stunner... except the more she shows skin, she becomes more and more of a Humanoid Abomination.
  • Fight Woosh: A quick inversion of colors, accompanied by a heartbeat sound effect.
  • Final Dungeon Preview:
    • The Museum of Natural History has nothing to find or explore the first two times you visit since you're only there to progress the plot. The hallways leading to other parts of the museum are blocked off. By the end of Day 5, the museum is fully explorable and serves as the final area to navigate before dealing with the Big Bad.
    • Before fighting the Day 4 Boss the scene cuts to a Navy Cruiser as they try to make a move on Eve. The cruiser is where the Final Boss will be fought.
    • Speaking of Day 4, the Chrysler Building which hosts the True Final Boss and can be unlocked in New Game Plus, can be glimpsed in the hospital window.
  • Flunky Boss:
    • The Worms in Day 2. They emerge from the ground one after the other, while getting larger in size.
    • The Giant Centipede will separate into four creatures if you damage its HP by half. It is the Boss of both the second sewer stage in Day 5 and the third level of the Chrysler Building.
    • The seventh and penultimate Boss Battle in the Chrysler Building is a Queen Bee producing several weaponized offsprings throughout the fight.
  • Foreshadowing: Looking out a particular window in the hospital grants a view of the Chrysler Building encased in Eve's mitochondrial goo, alluding to its importance in the EX Game.
  • Full-Frontal Assault:
  • Gainax Ending: In the normal ending, while attending an opera with her friends, something happens with the mitochondria in Aya's cells. It has an effect on the people around her, causing the eyes of everyone in the audience to glow, The developers stated that "best" ending, not this one, is the ending in the Chrysler building followed by the sequel.
  • The Ghost: Lorraine, Daniel's ex-wife, who he keeps going on and on about, but whom we never see once, if you do not count the giant orange blob Eve makes her a part of.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: There are a couple of optional boss versions of these. Their weak points are only accessible once you take out the oversized pincers.
  • Giant Spider: The final boss of Day 4. You'll engage it in a Rooftop Battle. It's also the very first boss of the Chrysler Building in New Game Plus.
  • Godzilla Threshold: When Eve and the giant mass of genetic material that is birthing the Ultimate Being infest the Statue of Liberty, the U.S. government authorizes the use of a nuclear warhead to destroy the monster.
  • Going Through the Motions: Each character has a set of stock animations that they go through in scenes, but the oddest example is Aya just fidgeting in place while talking.
  • Grey Goo: It's the "pink" variety- the kind made from people.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • Aya's parasite energy recharges at a slower rate the more you use it in battle and further use can make it stop charging completely. Only by changing your armor in the middle of the fight can her energy be recharged at a normal rate again. Nothing in the game or the manual ever tells you this.
    • You could use the two Mod Permits Capt. Baker gives you on a later time, despite dialogues making it look like it's mandatory to use them right away.
    • Better fully reload your named gun right after the Final Boss fight since the number of bullets left before you switched with Maeda's gun will carry over to New Game Plus.
    • If you give Wayne 300 junks, he'll make you the game's best guns. Aside from very vague hints from him ("junks are good for parts"), nothing in the game tells you this. Oh, and there's ten of them overall!
    • Beating every Boss in the Chrysler Building will cause the monsters in its designated ten-floor area to disappear. Too bad it's never stated because it's actually helpful; the first ten floors (of 77) have plenty of enemies that drop junks for the games best weapons (see above), while the 61st to 70th floors have enemies that give thousands worth of experience points that could help the player boost Aya's level as early as Day 2 during New Game Plus playthroughs.
    • Fighting Maya can be very difficult due to her helper healing her for 1000 HP and further healing boosts it by another 1000 points. You can prevent Maya healing herself by not attacking her when her help is summoned, but good luck figuring that out on your own.
  • Homage: A possible one— the dog transformation sequence holds some similarities to the infamous "kennel scene" in John Carpenter's The Thing (1982).
  • Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Eve makes herself known on Christmas Eve.
  • I Call It "Vera": Right before fighting the Final Boss, Wayne will ask Aya to name both a weapon and armor of her choosing. This is actually relevant as the weapon and armor named are the ones the player starts with in (every) New Game Plus.
  • Iconic Outfit: Aya's Little Black Dress, which is her most popular outfit in the entire series.
  • Infinity -1 Sword: A few since the actual best guns in the game takes a lot of time and effort to acquire, specifically collecting 300 junks each for ten of them.
  • Infinity +1 Sword:
    • The Super Tool Kit can be used to construct one.
    • The guns that Wayne makes if you give him 300 junks have the best base stats in the game and when combined with the Super Tool Kit can be upgraded to something truly amazing.
    • Torres' Beretta M92FS. It's the only weapon in the game that can reach the maximum 10 slots. But it also has mid-tier stats since it's acquired only halfway through the game, so modifying its stats with tools and boosters would take time. This option is popular for players who don't have the time or/and patience to collect the 300 junks mentioned above.
    • A high powered submachinegun with a high Rate of Fire and Random Rate of Fire mods will allow Aya to do massive damage to a single target per turn. The Random Rate of Fire removes the damage penalty and with a 10x RoF mod, Aya shoots out 15 rounds per turn. Also because the submachinegun fires like how a machine gun would, Aya doesn't stand around long enough for this to be a problem. But getting such a setup requires going through most of the Chrysler Building.
  • Interface Screw: A result of the Confusion status ailment, which makes Aya move in random directions.
  • Infinite 1-Ups: A glitch allows players to acquire numerous Trading Cards during the hospital level in Day 4. The trick is clicking on the back on the wall of a fallen cabinet during the first time arriving on that specific area.
  • Inventory Management Puzzle: Limit 50 items on Aya's person at any given time, from the gun and armor she's currently wearing to individual trading cards to bits of junk found on the ground to Maeda's damnable trinkets. Wayne only has external storage space for 128 items apiece (equipment and non-equipment), which gets somewhat frustrating when half the weapons and armors are one-time pickups from the Chrysler Building.
  • It's Raining Men: When Aya is seemingly unable to damage the Final Boss, Daniel (who is watching the fight from a helicopter) takes the special bullets that Madea meant to give to her, jumps out of the chopper, throws the bullets to Aya while he catches on fire as he falls down, and crashes into the freezing sea below. Somehow, he survives without a scratch.
  • It's Up to You: As Aya is the only person unaffected by Eve's aura (which causes everybody else to burst into flame), the military gives her the task of personally delivering a tactical nuclear warhead to Liberty Island, where Eve is giving birth. This doesn't stop them from sending a squadron of helicopter gunships to Take The Bullet from the random combustions that await as Aya closes the gap toward her destination, though.
  • Kaizo Trap: After defeating the final boss of Day 4, you must evade a falling jet and then immediately fight a Mook.
  • Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Aya is wearing a Little Black Dress throughout Day 1.
  • Kill It with Fire: Anyone except Aya who comes close to Eve will combust to death.
  • Kryptonite Factor: The Ultimate Being is almost Nigh-Invulnerable by constantly evolving to heal itself of whatever damage Aya does to it. In its final form, its defenses are so high that Aya's powers and weapons are effectively Scratch Damage (unless you abused the hell out of New Game Plus). Maeda's special bullets come into play and they cause massive damage (in the 4 digit range!) to the Ultimate Being since the bullets are laced with Aya's cells. Ergo, Aya's mitochondria are extremely harmful to the creature.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Maeda encounters a racist cop who makes fun of Maeda's choppy English and tells him to go back to his own country. A few seconds later, said cop gets lit ablaze as his mitochondria rebel against him.
  • Little Black Dress: Aya's dress when she goes to the opera at the beginning.
  • Living Bodysuit: Mellisa Pierce, Eve's host.
  • It's All Upstairs From Here: The Chrysler Building.
  • Magikarp Power:
    • The N Suit found on the Museum in Day 5 has the same defense power as the B Jacket 1, the often recommended first-playthrough ultimate armor, but has significantly lower PE defense stat and comparatively lower critical evasion stat, not to mention no special effects attached to it. However, it has the highest max slots available of all the first-playthrough armors with 6 (compared to B Jacket 1's 4) and if a player collected enough tools and stat boosters, they could modify it as their tenured armor up until they get the actual best armor in the game in the Bonus Dungeon during New Game Plus, the Cr Armor 2note .
    • Torres' Beretta M92FS. It's acquired in Day 3 and is the only weapon that can reach the highest max slots available (which is 10), but it also has mid-tier stats. Modifying its stats with tools and boosters would take time, but doing so would also make it a great ultimate gun (especially for players who don't have the time or/and patience to collect 300 junks).
  • Mangst: Pretty much the whole cast. They all have legitimate reasons to be mopey and sad, but mostly they just get pissed off.
  • Marathon Level: The Chrysler Building has no save points at all and until you can get an elevator key, you're forced to trek up the building via stairs. If you don't feel safe and want to leave so you can save your progress, the return trip will be just as long. It's such a slog that there are several guides dedicated to it alone on the web.
  • Metal Slime: The Chrysler Building's squirrels. Cute? Maybe, by NMC standards. Valuable? Definitely, dropping a Medicine 4 or Revive most every time. Annoying? Hell yes, as you have to kill them before they either escape or hit you with a nigh-unavoidable machine spray laser that causes Confusion, then escape.
  • Mirror Match: The True Final Boss has the same appearance as Aya when the latter does the Liberate attack, which just so happens to be the most effective arsenal during the Boss Battle. Hell, she's even possessing the body of Aya's late twin.
  • Mook Maker: The Mixed Men attack by lobbing bouncy brains at Aya. The brains count as NMC's in and of themselves.
  • More Dakka: Machine guns usually have attachments that let this be effective on all your firearm types.
  • Monumental Damage:
    • The game opens with people being mass-incinerated in Carnegie Hall.
    • The Chrysler Building can be seen as being engulfed with goo through the window of the hospital's 13th floor in Day 4. In New Game Plus, you will see how it is left in gory ruin due to being Maya Brea/the Original Eve's nesting ground.
    • Eve brings her giant pile of mitochondria to Liberty Island and starts covering the Statue of Liberty with it, necessitating a bombing run.
  • New Game Plus: Finish the game and you can unlock the "New Game Ex". Aya's levels and stats are reset, but she brings with her a bunch of Bonus Points as well as the gun and armor that Wayne engraved for her aboard the Navy ship along with the ones left at the NYPD storage room.
  • Not Completely Useless:
    • The Rate Of Fire mods in their entirety do more damage than a single shot (up to 130%), but they still have the downside that Aya stands there while shooting all of the shots. This makes larger Rate of Fire mods more and more useless, but the Rate of Fire 2x mod is seen as a decent compromise since the total damage is 120% and Aya doesn't stand around long enough to be a problem most of the time. If attached to a submachinegun, it becomes even less painful to use as submachineguns actually fire rapidly.
    • The Random Rate of Fire mod, which increases the base Rate of Fire without the damage penalty at the cost of unable to choose your targets, makes more sense if you're fighting a single target. And most boss fights are with a single target.
  • Nuke 'em: The government resorts to this to take out Eve and her baby. It kind of works, but Aya has to finish her off twice and blow up the baby again. It is an oddly small nuke, only destroying the Statue of Liberty.
  • Old Cop, Young Cop:
    • Daniel and Aya respectively. In fact, Daniel is a contemporary and former partner of Da Chief.
    • Torres and Wayne respectively, as well. Torres is a jaded experienced cop (implied to be slightly younger than Daniel and Baker) who lost his daughter to a gun accident, while Wayne is around Aya's age and is always eager to experiment on gun customization. The two often clash because of their varying viewpoints.
  • Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: The Final Boss is born minutes before the Final Battle, while the True Final Boss uses the body of The Hero's late twin sister appearing in the age she died before transforming.
  • One-Woman Wail: Eve's theme.
  • One-Winged Angel: Eve goes through three forms. The Ultimate Being goes through five, and the last one is unstoppable.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: The NMC Dogmen appear to look much like a conventional werewolf and one of their main attacks IS a howl. Otherwise, they possess no lycanthropic traits.
  • Peninsula of Power Leveling: The museum is the best place for Level Grinding as monsters there give you thousands worth of Experience Points. Same goes for the 61st to 70th floors of the Chrysler Building once you unlock New Game Plus, as long as you don't kill the area's Boss in the 70th floor otherwise the monsters will disappear for good.
  • Pixel Hunt: Annoying when most of the good weapons and items are not in boxes and have to be found by mashing X at random pieces of scenery, particularly in Soho. Made more aggravating by the fact that on a real PSX, the low resolution of TVs makes this worse. PS1 emulators can heighten the contrast and increase the resolution to the point of making this much less severe.
  • Point of No Return: Several areas in the game are closed off once you go past them in the story, so you better make sure you explored and obtained everything before moving on. This is more apparent towards the end of day 5 and the start of day 6 where the final battles take place outside of the city.
  • Post-Final Boss: After defeating the Spiderwoman at the hospital at the end of Day 4, it'll send its spawn after you right after the player escapes a falling jet (It's a Long Story).
  • Power-Up Letdown: Several weapon mods don't really work as well as they sound
    • The Heat and Frost mods. It's not obvious which one a given enemy is weak or strong against, and at best you're probably saving about one or two shots if they're weak against the type.
    • Rate of Fire after a certain point. It's just not worth having Aya be vulnerable while she's dumping ammo.
    • Random Rate of Fire increases the rate of fire by 1.5x without the damage penalty, but Aya can't choose her targets.
    • Attack All Enemies w/ Rate of Fire: It'd make sense if you have an overkill weapon on large groups of mobs, but this is rarely encountered.
  • Psychic Powers: Sort of. The "awakened" mitochondria in Aya's body allow her access to Parasite Energy, and when invoked she can heal herself, create a protective barrier, and cure status ailments. Her more potent abilities are a concentrated energy ray and a berserker rage that allows her to attack all enemies on-screen multiple times.
  • Randomly Generated Levels: The Chrysler Building's floors are given random layouts except for ones that contain bosses, and they can rearrange if you leave and come back. Killing a boss locks in the layouts for the preceding floors.
  • Recurring Boss: You will fight Eve four times throughout the game.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: If you could stomach calling one of the more common enemies a rodent anymore.
  • Sad Battle Music: "Someone Calls to Me, Someone Looks for Me", the very somber music that's playing when fighting the True Final Boss: the original Eve, possessing the body of Aya's late twin sister.
  • Same Plot Sequel: Interestingly, the game acknowledges the events of the book/film as canon to the storyline (Maeda's entire role is essentially to provide a recap of said plot in the form of an Exposition Dump), yet the story of the game is in essence a slightly altered retelling of the book's plot.
  • Save Point: Aya uses telephones to contact NYPD headquarters to save her progress.
  • Scratch Damage: Getting your armor's defenses high enough will result in this, but making your armor even stronger beyond that will make you immune to damage.
  • Second Episode Introduction: The entire NYPD besides Aya and Daniel, Maeda, and Daniel's son Ben are all introduced throughout Day 2. While Klamp is formally introduced here, he had an Early-Bird Cameo in Aya's flashbacks during Day 1.
  • Sequel Goes Foreign: Takes place in New York City whereas the original novel takes place in Japan.
  • Sewer Gator: The final boss of day one is a mutated alligator in the sewers beneath Carnegie Hall. A couple more can be optionally fought in the sewage treatment plant under Chinatown.
  • Shout-Out: There is a Chocobo banner hanging in front of the Museum of Natural History (and a stuffed Chocobo just before the Back To Back Bosses).
  • Sidequest: The warehouse. While the story says the warehouse could be a place Eve is hiding in, she actually isn't there. You don't need to go to the warehouse to finish the game, but going there anyway can net you some good items, weapons, and a rocket launcher if you can survive the tough random encounters and the boss of the place.
  • Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Melissa Pierce, the Living Bodysuit of the Big Bad, has green eyes and auburn hair.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The True Final Boss fight with Maya Eve atop the Chrysler Building in the New Game Plus.
  • Spread Shot: The Burst ability found in shotguns allows for multiple enemies within firing range to be hit with one shot.
  • Sprite/Polygon Mix: Of the "Polygons on Bitmap Background" sort.
  • Status Effects: Has the general flair. Poison damages you over time, Paralysis slows you down or makes you completely immobile, Darkness reduces the range of your guns, Confusion remaps your directional controls to random directions, and Defense Down does exactly that and is the only effect that cannot be cured. All effects vanish when the battle ends. For the monsters, only 3 gun mods provide certain effects: tranquilizer rounds (stops enemies from doing anything), acid rounds (effectively poisons them), and cyanide rounds (instantly kills if affected)
  • Storming the Castle: The final act of Day 3 has Eve causing chaos in Aya's precinct by mutating the dogs and other animals there. Aya returns the favor by attacking the museum, Eve's Supervillain Lair, in Day 5.
  • Super Window Jump: Day 5, after Dr. Klamp spills the beans on his role in the plot, Eve combusts all living beings in the museum, but Daniel and Maeda narrowly escape death by jumping out a second floor window.
  • Sword of Plot Advancement: Maeda's handgun is a Double Subversion. He gives it to Aya near the end of Day 5 but it has pathetic stats. However, it turns out that Maeda had it modified so it could shoot special bullets which becomes useful against the Final Boss.
  • Taking You with Me: Klamp attempts this in a bid to rid Eve of her enemies. It doesn't work, mainly because of Aya's quick reaction time and her own evolved cells.
  • Tears of Blood: The Statue of Liberty looks like it's crying blood, just before the reconstituted and nuked cells of the Central Park patrons knock it over. It looks like it's ready to do so in the intro. Combined with the chilling Primal Eyes playing in the back, it can be rather creepy.
  • Tech-Demo Game: Parasite Eve was, by and large, a tech demo for the graphics engine that would later fuel Final Fantasy VIII. Luckily, it still managed to be a decent game in its own right.
  • That Man Is Dead: Used to terrifying effect; Melissa tries to call herself by that name, before correcting herself and declaring herself to be Eve. The way it is worded heavily implies that this is the moment Eve took over completely despite Melissa's efforts, figuratively killing Melissa in the process.
    Melissa/Eve: I'm Melissa... No... I am... I'm... I am EVE!
  • Token Trio: A variant. It has The Hero with mixed ancestry, the African-American Older Sidekick, and the Asian and Nerdy scientist.
  • Too Dumb to Live: The woman who plays host to Eve. Prior to her performance, she was taking her medications in extremely high amounts in fear that she might get ill and be unable to play her part in the opera. The problem with that? Her meds were immunosuppressants, meaning that they make her immune system weaker, so she was increasing the likelihood of becoming ill, not reducing it. From the description given in her journal, she was taking enough that a minor infection would have been fatal to her, let alone something like Eve.
    • This is a subversion: When Maya and Mariko died in the accident, they were listed as organ donors. Melissa received a liver transplant from Maya and was on immunosuppressants because the doctors thought her illness was rejection syndrome, not parasitic infection. Aya's awakened mitochondria also came from her sister: a corneal transplant. Mysticism related to this is why she sees her sister at random moments through the game.
    • The crowd in the Central Park amphitheater. You'd think after hearing what happened in Carnegie Hall, along with the event being cancelled anyway, that people would stay home. Even barring that, you'd also think that seeing a monster floating on stage would be a sign that it's time to pack up and go home. But for whatever reason, the crowd stays, giving Eve a convenient source people to turn into goop.
  • Touch of Death: The Final Boss will crawl after Aya and slowly pick up speed. If it reaches her at any point, it will glomp her from above and instantly kill her.
  • True Final Boss: The original Eve (A.K.A Maya).
  • Twisted Christmas: The game's plot begins on Christmas Eve, and then takes place across 6 in-game days, meaning it happens across the entire Christmas week.
  • Two First Names: Melissa Pierce, the Living Bodysuit of the Big Bad.
  • Two Girls to a Team: Aya and Cathy are the only female cops shown in the NYPD 17th Precinct, not counting Sheeva the police dog who dies anyway.
  • Ultimate Life Form: The Ultimate Being, which is the Final Boss of the regular game.
  • Underground Monkey: The majority of the Chrysler Building monsters.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: After defeating the Ultimate Being, it starts to chase after you and gradually picks up speed. When you reach the boiler room, Aya notes that she should overload it so that the ship explodes and kills the creature. However, you can actually skip the self destruct sequence and keep going. If you choose not to blow up the ship, the creature will move so fast that it will catch up and kill you instantly no matter what you do. Only by rigging the ship to explode will the creature move at a pace that keeps you on your toes yet still give you a chance to escape.
  • Universal Ammunition: The only weapon that doesn't share ammo is the rocket launcher. So if your 7.62x51mm battle rifle is running low on ammo you can borrow a few rounds from your 9mm service automatic and your 40mm grenade launcher. Especially since what normally are considered ammo properties are attached to the guns and transferable.
  • Useless Item:
    • Lampshaded by Maeda's "charms", which he hands over to Aya throughout the game. They each fill an item slot but serve no purpose. In the finale, Maeda tries to deliver the 11th-Hour Superpower to Aya, but Daniel holds him back initially, assuming it's just more voodoo junk.
    • There's an item actually called "junk." It does nothing but take up space while you have it, but collecting enough junk is the way to get one of the Infinity+1 guns.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: Where Aya keeps her badge while dressed for a night on the town. Where she keeps her gun in that outfit remains a mystery. Don't even ask about her billy club and body armor.
  • Video Game Stealing: You can steal items off monsters with the use of nightsticks that have the ability to steal items. Don't think about it too much.
  • We Can Rule Together: Eve's stock offer to Aya throughout the game, until she discovers Aya is the ultimate subversion of herself.
  • With This Herring: Justified. At the beginning of the game, Aya's on a date at the opera and has her badge and gun, which as an NYPD officer she would be required to carry even when off-duty, which is when shit first goes to hell. The next day, when Captain Baker assigns her to the case, the first thing he does is to give her a permit that authorizes her to take an M16 rifle out of the police armory which is in the words of the armorer, "the most powerful gun I can allow you to have."

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