The 3rd Birthday is the third Parasite Eve game. Even though I have never really played the first two games I can safely say the addition of "birthday" in the title makes about as much sense as the game's plot...which is none of course. Luckily Square hasn't lost their touch when coming up with amusing gameplay mechanics that make for a surprisingly fun and fast paced 3rd person shooter on the PSP.Also, as far as I can tell this game has basically nothing to do with the first 2 Parasite Eve games. Even though I didn't play them I am aware that they dealt with viruses or parasites and the like which caused monsters whereas this game deals with spirits and spontaneous monster evolution.
Graphics:
Square as always manages to make everything pretty. This is one of the best looking PSP games I've ever seen. The character models are highly detailed, as are the monsters. The cutscenes are fantastic and plentiful too. The only minor gripe is the scenery is lacking in scope. It is all long corridors and that's about it. Just not much to look at really.
Gameplay:
Parasite Eve 3 Birthday plays out as a 3rd person shooter which on the PSP is normally a headache no matter how well it's done. Square decided to prove us wrong though and made one that isn't a headache. Instead of being allowed to direct your shots you lock on to everything, which is great actually. Also your guns have specific ranges so you do have to get within arms reach of your nasty foes more often than not. Luckily Square implemented a dodge system and the ability for our hero Aya to spirit swap to other people giving her another escape option.
These dodge options are great and really make the game feel not cheap when you get hit. Aside from a bad camera now and then the game feels very skill based and you have to plan your resources. You get a meter that builds as you play allowing you to go super Aya and deal significant damage. It is best to hold onto this power and unleash it when necessary. Her grenades are also something you have to conserve but always unleash too. Sometimes having that 1 extra grenade can mean the difference in a big boss battle.
The boss battles are also a lot of fun and they sometimes offer different gameplay mechanics to fight them, like one out of a helicopter and one you fight while perpetually falling and body swapping.
The only aspects of the gameplay that were mediocre was the level up systems and equipment. The skill spheres that you can equip in the game never really made any sense to me. I kinda understood that matching colors allowed them to level up...and having them together let them connect but I didn't understand what that meant or how it affected anything at all. Also, it never seemed beneficial to swap out a level 7 skill for instance, for something new that was at level 1. So it felt like once you made your bed with how you were going to format your skill grid that's it, you're stuck with it.
The equipment I nitpick because it felt like there weren't enough choices. Oh, it LOOKED like there were enough choices in weapons, but they never unlocked. I had no idea why or what I was doing wrong but most of the weapons for me never unlocked for use. I literally stuck with the same few weapons through the whole game...(all 5 hours of it).
And that brings me to my final gripe about the game, it is really short. That is ok for me since I just got through two games that were 50 hours each and they both kinda sucked. 5 hours of decent fun is better that slogging through a 50 hour game that makes me want to pluck out my ass hair. But it is still a gripe given that it is only 5 hours long, and that counts the pretty long cut scenes the game has. Just saying it is slightly better that it is a good 5 hours, and 5 levels too.
Story:
The story in this game is a total mess. It's good that it doesn't reference the first two games if you've never played them but really it probably would have made more sense. You play as Aya the sexy memory deprived vixen of the previous games who is locked away in her "cell" for whatever reason even though she is employed by a special defense organization. So as a prisoner...err employee of this group you are tasked with traveling back in time to correct the past and eradicate the monsters that came about 2 years ago for unknown reasons.
Aya has a special ability that allows her to soul jump to other people and this defense group built a machine that lets her travel to the past. And just like the Matrix if you die in the machine you die in real life....oooooooooooh!!! Basically the game plays out from there as you try and destroy the monster's hideouts and major bases.
Throughout the game Aya slowly gets her memories back and this is where the story stops making sense. Aya remembers that she got married and a SWAT team comes in to gun her down and everyone else. They do indeed kill everyone but Aya remembers that for some reason in her dying moments she picked up a gun and shot her sister. I'll get to that later.
Anyway the story falls apart since the onset of the plot revolves around the very moment the SWAT team kills everyone. It falls apart because they never...EVER explain why the SWAT team was there to kill them. I swear the guy who wrote this saw Kill Bill, loved the imagery of a dying bride and went with it without having any real plot ideas. So what happens is they get shot up except for the sister who somehow discovers she has a soul transferring power and in an effort to save Aya transfers into her. This causes the sister's body to collapse and die being without a soul and Aya sees this happen which is why in her memory she thought she shot her. Instead she kills off the SWAT team with the gun and ends up surviving.
What she wasn't aware of is that she was no longer Aya but her sister who died not having a soul, and Aya's soul was destroyed in the process of the transfer. For no reason at all this event also caused the rise of the two major monster types...again...for no reason at all. So the villain through it all was trying to find the starting point to the monsters and replicate the process through him so he could become a higher being even though none of this stacks up scientifically where you could somehow repeat the process.
Still, the soul transfer killed Aya right? So why doesn't it kill any of the military guys you inhabit while playing the game? It SHOULD! What of the SWAT team? And don't get me started with the time travel plot holes. Also if a soul transfer is what birthed the monsters....why does it never spawn any more monsters while playing the game? You soul transfer ALL the time!
Sound:
Good music, good sound effects, decent voice acting. The major issue here is Aya! OMG stop making out of breath noises and gasping! I swear her script read like this during a cutscene: "Ah, ehh, oooh, eeee, heea, aaaaaaahh, urrrr." On and on! She makes these sounds at unnecessary moments too. Like she bends over to pick up a gun "eehh!" Or turns a corner to point a gun at something "gasp!" Shut the fuck up!
Conclusion:
The story didn't make any damn sense but it was an entertaining ride all the same. The characters at least seemed to know what was going on so that was good enough for me I guess. This is probably the best 3rd person shooter I played on the PSP, but thank god I have a Vita now and I won't have to put up with gimped gameplay ideas for lack of a second stick!
*Yeah I bought the game because Aya is hot...sue me.*
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