For some reason I’ve been in the mood for some Parasite Eve action lately, so I finally fired up Parasite Eve II over the weekend.

Parasite Eve II is basically Square’s version of a Resident Evil game. It came out on the original Playstation in 2000, and as far as I can recall, is the only game I’ve ever bought and literally not played more than five minutes of. I don’t remember why exactly, but after looking on Wikipedia, it may have been because the Playstation 2 launched right around the same time. I may have thought it looked like crap by then, or maybe it was just too different from the original Parasite Eve. Don’t remember.

The original Parasite Eve was pretty awesome. I did play that one through to the end, as it was one of the first Playstation games I had (and it also had a Final Fantasy VIII demo disc which blew my mind.) The original was basically Square-style-RPG-meets-survival-horror, and it was a surprisingly nice mix. Very creepy, very moody, and great looking for its time.

So maybe I’ll revisit the first game as well, but since I never played through the second and have owned it for almost a decade, I’m starting there. The second game dropped most of the RPG elements in favor of a more straightforward survival-horror experience. A couple of hours in, it’s been fun times. VERY Resident Evil, to the point where it feels like I’m playing a ‘lost’ RE game. The controls are pretty bad, but bearable.

The crazy thing is imagining that we ever thought these kind of graphics were impressive. Super low-resolution backgrounds, crappy textures, rudimentary 3D models with horrible shaky animation, jaggies out the wazoo. Even the pre-rendered scenes are a joke. Easily the ugliest generation, yet so many games from that era still retain a certain charm. Parasite Eve, Silent Hill, FFVIII, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, I can’t quit you.