I'd love to buy Parasite Eve from the PSN store... if it would return.
I'd been meaning to watch the alternate ending to the game for a while now. Back when I had my uncle's copy and was playing it, probably 10 years ago, I actually attempted that damn Chrysler building. You can access it in a New Game+, it's 100 floors, a boss and checkpoint every 10 floors, and it gets harder as you go. There are new items within it as well. There's no way to save inside--you have to reach a checkpoint and go back, and damn, you better hope you're strong enough for the boss. The floor layout changes every time as well, and it's hard to find your way to the next floor. You never know if a room will be the stairs, items, or enemies, or how hard those enemies will be. It's one of those murderous challenges some RPGs contain. And if you beat the game the normal way again, the enemies get even stronger, even though you go back to level 1.
I tried. I got to the 70th floor before I finally gave up.
Today I remembered to watch the alternate ending on Youtube. Back then, had I earned this, I probably would've thought it was pretty cool, and even though I haven't played the game in so long, I was able to remember the details that made the ending important. However--I prefer the regular ending and I'm glad I didn't put myself through those last 30 floors. It's also funny that Aya walking away has a little "squish, gwik, spluck" sound from her footprints on the tentacle mush on the ground after an emotional moment.
I will protest those saying this is the "real ending" though, even if that's what was originally intended. The standard ending is better.
1. Eve tries to take over Aya. Eve has regrown Aya's sister from mitochondria cells and owns the body. So Eve is in two places at once, Melissa in wherever she is at the point in the game where you take on the building, and the reborn Maya. So I suppose that establishes Eve can be in any mitochondria, and only didn't try to take over Aya before because she wasn't the most evolved form in existence, but that's a SHIT explanation to the game compared to what you believe to be Eve's purpose through the main story if you never see this ending, that it was all a competition to make Aya stronger. Lame.
2. The resolution to the above problem is practically a deus ex machina. Somehow Maya's consciousness gets absorbed into Aya's body with Eve's, and then overtakes Eve's so she can be with Aya. How did she do this? The power of wanting to go home. It's a bullshit explanation--I know, because I used to try getting a pretty ending in my old stories with this crap. I suppose it's standard fair for a J-RPG, but the rest of the game is straight sci-fi and avoids that.
3. Aya loses her powers. I've not played the sequels because I felt the standard ending wrapped up the story so well that it didn't need to continue. I wondered if maybe the alternate ending is where they branched the sequels from, but that's impossible, because Aya has her powers in the sequels. In fact, the powers have grown immensely in the sequels. And since those sequels are the continued canon, this is not the "real ending".
4. In fact, it's almost not an ending, because while it's nice that Aya and Maya had a little closure there, it came from Eve reopening those wounds in the same scene, letting Maya's consciousness through. I guess the mitochondria remember your personality? Or at least your organs do, like our DNA tracks our ancestors' memories in Assassin's Creed.
But letting that slide, it doesn't resolve anything else that's happening in the game. I suppose if you take on the Chrysler building before the zoo, then nothing's really happened yet, but by day 3, the city's been evacuated, and by day 4, Eve already has another body forming the Ultimate Being. Is Aya losing her powers supposed to signify that all the mitochondria go back to normal? According to Eve early in the game, there never WAS a "normal" state--the mitochondria had been acting as was proper to form humanity all this time, and were waiting for their time to strike. Maybe it's supposed to signify all of Eve's influence is gone, since she triggered the awakening of powers in Aya... I guess everything goes dead, and hey, let's not worry about the police guy's wife, or all those people... yeah.
If we go by how it works in Parasite Eve 2, all those transformed monsters are still running loose. The mitochondria wouldn't be changing them any further, but there are still rats that shoot fire from their scorpion tails running all over New York, but now with no super-powered Aya to stop them. And the Ultimate Being would still be gestating.
5. And as for the Ultimate Being, maybe I didn't understand things clearly, but Eve refers to the reborn Maya as a purebred... how did she do that? The first Ultimate Being before the game begins dies because it was formed from that Eve and the mitochondria from the father's sperm contaminated it. The Ultimate Being in the game is formed because the scientist removes his mitochondria from frozen sperm before inseminating Eve.
Where did this thing come from? Is it purebred because it's grown from cells? But how did Eve do that? It doesn't seem to be explained, and again, undercuts anything else that's going on in the game.
It's a neat ending character-wise, but for the game as a whole, it does little with. I guess that's why you have to beat the game once before you can access it, but I don't consider it the "real ending" at all. And I'm glad I didn't go through the work to get it back then. Unless I want some special items, I don't think I'll be going through the Chrysler building again when I finally get the PSOne Classics version for my PSP.
I'd been meaning to watch the alternate ending to the game for a while now. Back when I had my uncle's copy and was playing it, probably 10 years ago, I actually attempted that damn Chrysler building. You can access it in a New Game+, it's 100 floors, a boss and checkpoint every 10 floors, and it gets harder as you go. There are new items within it as well. There's no way to save inside--you have to reach a checkpoint and go back, and damn, you better hope you're strong enough for the boss. The floor layout changes every time as well, and it's hard to find your way to the next floor. You never know if a room will be the stairs, items, or enemies, or how hard those enemies will be. It's one of those murderous challenges some RPGs contain. And if you beat the game the normal way again, the enemies get even stronger, even though you go back to level 1.
I tried. I got to the 70th floor before I finally gave up.
Today I remembered to watch the alternate ending on Youtube. Back then, had I earned this, I probably would've thought it was pretty cool, and even though I haven't played the game in so long, I was able to remember the details that made the ending important. However--I prefer the regular ending and I'm glad I didn't put myself through those last 30 floors. It's also funny that Aya walking away has a little "squish, gwik, spluck" sound from her footprints on the tentacle mush on the ground after an emotional moment.
I will protest those saying this is the "real ending" though, even if that's what was originally intended. The standard ending is better.
1. Eve tries to take over Aya. Eve has regrown Aya's sister from mitochondria cells and owns the body. So Eve is in two places at once, Melissa in wherever she is at the point in the game where you take on the building, and the reborn Maya. So I suppose that establishes Eve can be in any mitochondria, and only didn't try to take over Aya before because she wasn't the most evolved form in existence, but that's a SHIT explanation to the game compared to what you believe to be Eve's purpose through the main story if you never see this ending, that it was all a competition to make Aya stronger. Lame.
2. The resolution to the above problem is practically a deus ex machina. Somehow Maya's consciousness gets absorbed into Aya's body with Eve's, and then overtakes Eve's so she can be with Aya. How did she do this? The power of wanting to go home. It's a bullshit explanation--I know, because I used to try getting a pretty ending in my old stories with this crap. I suppose it's standard fair for a J-RPG, but the rest of the game is straight sci-fi and avoids that.
3. Aya loses her powers. I've not played the sequels because I felt the standard ending wrapped up the story so well that it didn't need to continue. I wondered if maybe the alternate ending is where they branched the sequels from, but that's impossible, because Aya has her powers in the sequels. In fact, the powers have grown immensely in the sequels. And since those sequels are the continued canon, this is not the "real ending".
4. In fact, it's almost not an ending, because while it's nice that Aya and Maya had a little closure there, it came from Eve reopening those wounds in the same scene, letting Maya's consciousness through. I guess the mitochondria remember your personality? Or at least your organs do, like our DNA tracks our ancestors' memories in Assassin's Creed.
But letting that slide, it doesn't resolve anything else that's happening in the game. I suppose if you take on the Chrysler building before the zoo, then nothing's really happened yet, but by day 3, the city's been evacuated, and by day 4, Eve already has another body forming the Ultimate Being. Is Aya losing her powers supposed to signify that all the mitochondria go back to normal? According to Eve early in the game, there never WAS a "normal" state--the mitochondria had been acting as was proper to form humanity all this time, and were waiting for their time to strike. Maybe it's supposed to signify all of Eve's influence is gone, since she triggered the awakening of powers in Aya... I guess everything goes dead, and hey, let's not worry about the police guy's wife, or all those people... yeah.
If we go by how it works in Parasite Eve 2, all those transformed monsters are still running loose. The mitochondria wouldn't be changing them any further, but there are still rats that shoot fire from their scorpion tails running all over New York, but now with no super-powered Aya to stop them. And the Ultimate Being would still be gestating.
5. And as for the Ultimate Being, maybe I didn't understand things clearly, but Eve refers to the reborn Maya as a purebred... how did she do that? The first Ultimate Being before the game begins dies because it was formed from that Eve and the mitochondria from the father's sperm contaminated it. The Ultimate Being in the game is formed because the scientist removes his mitochondria from frozen sperm before inseminating Eve.
Where did this thing come from? Is it purebred because it's grown from cells? But how did Eve do that? It doesn't seem to be explained, and again, undercuts anything else that's going on in the game.
It's a neat ending character-wise, but for the game as a whole, it does little with. I guess that's why you have to beat the game once before you can access it, but I don't consider it the "real ending" at all. And I'm glad I didn't go through the work to get it back then. Unless I want some special items, I don't think I'll be going through the Chrysler building again when I finally get the PSOne Classics version for my PSP.
