Parasite Eve: The 3rd Birthday Preview

I’ve already mentioned how popular developer Square Enix is. As you know, Square Enix is responsible for some of the best franchises that we have seen on Sony’s consoles such as Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. Although Square Enix is famous because of its RPG’s that doesn’t mean that developers can’t make a great action third person shooter. Honestly, I didn’t know that Square Enix is working on shooters so I was rather surprised when I heard about Parasite Eve: The 3rd Birthday.

In fact, Parasite Eve stared as a horror RPG back in the 1998 on the PlayStation and it has used similar game mechanics as Resident Evil series, fixed camera with 3D character in pre-rendered environment. Parasite Eve looked a lot like Resident Evil and even the story was similar because it was involving outbreak of monsters in New York City. Well, now is the time to go back to the Manhattan and fight the monsters as Aya Brea once again. Interesting thing about this game is that it’s not actually a sequel of the Parasite Eve 2, instead it’s more like a spin-off, therefore the name of the game isn’t Parasite Eve: The 3rd Birthday, it’s just 3rd Birthday. So what will Square Enix offer to us with this game?

Unlike previous games that were survival horror RPGs this game will be more like a third person shooter. Interesting thing that 3rd Birthday was originally planned as game for mobile phones but after some changes Square Enix has decided to release it exclusively for the PSP. In this game you will have to defend the city of New York and entire world from the invasion of monsters once again. It’s just like in any other third person shooter game, you need to shoot the monsters with all sorts of realistic guns, but there’s a feature that makes 3rd Birthday more interesting than other shooters on the market. This time Aya has a special ability that allows her to enter the minds of other humans on the battlefield and possess them. Each human that she possesses will turn into her but it will keep its own weapons. Focus is on this mind-possessing feature that will allow you to take control over the battlefield by quickly switching from one human host to another. Since ammo is limited in this game, key of survival is to switch between human hosts and defeat monsters that way. If the human host dies while it’s possessed by Aya, Aya has a quick chance to get out of his body before he dies. Zapping through human bodies is simple and quick and it’s the only way to defeat your enemies since all of them are few times bigger and stronger than you. Since all monsters in this game are stronger than you, you’ll have to work with other humans in order to survive, but that doesn’t mean that Aya is helpless in the battlefield. Unlike in previous games, Aya is now more agile and deadly than before. She can dodge and roll in order to avoid attacks and she can even run and shoot at the same time. If you want to target an enemy, you just have to press the L button and you’ll lock him as your target so you won’t have to focus on aiming. Instead, you’ll just have to focus on running and shooting. Unlike previous games, 3rd Birthday is filled with action and it’s really quick, fun and intense.

As for the graphics, game looks great from what I’ve seen, but just like in the any game that is developed by Square Enix focus will be on CG cutscenes. They are rendered perfectly and they will look amazing on your PSP. As for the campaign, we should expect to see 12 to 15 hours of intense third person action.

So what can we expect from 3rd Birthday? It will be fast, fun and filled with action. Game looks amazing and I’m sure that CG cutscenes will leave you speechless. So far, there’s no information about the release date but we’re hoping to see 3rd Birthday soon enough.