2 New portable Square games out now

[Grandy]

Okay, this is a bit of a bump but I played 3rd Birthday.

My god, Aya Brea, what have they DONE to you?

The game barely acknowledges past events, Aya got new abilities from nowhere, lost all previous abilities, the plot goes nowhere FAST except in cutscenes where it goes nowhere SLOWLY. Aya's personality was erased from the previous games due to plot-induced amnesia (which let me say was really unnescessary, SE. It's not like Dissidia didn't also use it for all characters as well.) and instead we got the frail heroine whose clothes are ripped as she takes damage.

They didn't even say the word mitochondria. NOT ONCE.

 And you know Maeda? That likeable shy guy with a crush on Aya who could pass for Otacon if this was MGS and gave you useless charms but at least tried? Yeah, he's back. But now he's creepy. And some sort of mad scientist.

 "How creepy", you ask? Well in one scene he comments how Aya's tears must taste good. Yay~

 Also Aya can now Mindjack people, because nevermind the game based around that flopped, Square wanted it AGAIN.

 Also when she mindjacks people, their body look like hers. I'd accept it as an artistic thing if not for the fact half the NPCs reference the "woman looking for her sister", at the same time half don't acknowledge her at all. The game does a pretty poor job of making it clear if other people see her as her or see her as whoever she's possessing.

 New York? Doesn't look like New York anymore. Yeah, forget how the first game made an acceptable portrayal of NY, having you fight in the park, having various actual existing localities or anything. This game takes place on Tokyo-with-the-statue-of-liberty. Which brings me to: EVERYONE ACTS JAPANESE. The original game? I don't remember much, I'll admit, but I don't believe there was a shounen manga-ish speech about how "Soldiers in the battlefield only die when they give up on life", instead going for "Soldiers in the battlefield die when they ****ing get burned to death by lovecraftian creatures". Someone in G-Faqs described it well: It's a J-Novel set in NY. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against J-Novels, but this is Parasite Eve! At least keep the old feel from the previous game!

 The plot. DEAR GOD THE PLOT. Spoilers as follow.

 Aya has amnesia, goes to the past and mindjacks random police officers to prevent twisted from appearing. What are twisted? Apparently some sort of cthulu-wannabes that eat time and space, and appeared because, well, I'm not sure. Apparently because Aya died. And Eve (who BTW doesn't look like Eve) took over her body to prevent her from dying and became a possibility of existing rather than existing. CONFUSED? SO AM I.

 New characters come in! But they die without we knowing anything about them other than name so no one cares!


 But Grandy, you ask, is there anything redeemable about this? The gameplay is pretty good.

 That's it, really. The gameplay is good, but everything else is bad. I wouldn't mind the plot if it didn't use Aya Brea with no reason other than making gamers go "whoo, a game with Aya in eet, I wanted one since PE2". I wouldn't mind doesn't mean I'd like it, though.

 Personally, I refuse to accept this game as canon. No older characters act as they should, and it doesn't even do a good job of referencing the old games, instead we have to search for in-game files to read about Aya's previous adventures, where she was badass and had magic ****ing powers.

[Prpl_Mage]

Well, by the sound of things they seem to have done the series justice by calling this 3rd birthday instead of parasite eve 3.
Gonna hold on to my money a little bit more, it looks interesting. Although I kinda hate the amnesia plottwists.