There has been a lot of news regarding The 3rd Birthday (AKA Parasite Eve 3) recently at one of our favorite game news sites, Silicon Era, which has lead to the creation of our latest comic. Apparently while playing the hero, Aya Brea, you “leap” between NPC team mates to take on their positioning, weaponry and possibly more which has yet to be announced. One of the features being covered by the news is that you can leap out of a body in critical situations to avoid a tragic death or to gain an upper hand. It is an interesting concept, but you have to wonder – what kind of hero would purposely jump out of harm’s way only to leave their partner at the mercy of the dire fate that they themselves narrowly avoided?

Another feature to be presented in the game is the active display of battle damage done to the poor Miss Brea. This is just a front though as it is actually clever fan service to give the male players (and some special female ones) a way to see Aya a little bit closer to her birthday suit. The preview shots that have been shown for the battle damage show her pretty close to what we depict in this week’s comic – so I suppose this is Squeenix’s way of making amends for the lack of a shower scene (Parasite Eve 2).

On to other news! I have lately been captivated by the amazing power of vegetables! And by that, I mean Plants vs. Zombies. I’ve heard of the game many times before, but only recently sat down to download and play it. My interest was piqued when I read news of WoW including an achievement in their upcoming Cataclysm expansion called Peaceblooms vs. Ghouls, which of course is Blizzards homage to the incredible successful Plants vs. Zombies. For whatever reason, I was drawn to the game out of nowhere and found it quite charming. Pie apparently is completely worn out on tower defense games from her brother playing them endlessly but even she found this one nice (though she had no intention of playing it).

I’ve been pondering plunking down the $20 to purchase the full game… it really is tempting. There are so many great downloadable games out and impending – independently developed and uniquely inspired – that it is hard to resist the modest price tag. I always feel great supporting these people because I feel so happy for them; that they sat down and made their vision come true. Knowing that it isn’t some large corporation and every purchase literally helps the creators make ends meet is very gratifying to me. It is also inspirational because somehow, with Pie, I want to forge our own path doing our comics and making our art studio dream a reality. Free from corporate control, idiotic managers and asshole co-workers that I, and so, SO many of us, deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Thank you all for the support and enjoy the comic!

Anyways, enjoy the comic all!

Parasite Eve was one of those games that I never owned or passed, but had played the first few hours plenty of times. I was really impressed when I first played it long ago when I was in high school. I remember how much I enjoyed the atmosphere and the battle system and how it reminded me of Secret of Mana. I also loved the idea that the setting was in a realistic modern day city yet your main character is able to use magic (still a very rare concept in video games today) and how the reasoning behind it wasn't something clichéd or corny. I was never able to purchase a copy of the game myself but my brother and I were sure to get Parasite Eve 2 when it came out. We were really disappointed by a lot of changes that had been made in the series systems. It seems the makers were very interested in trying to turn the game into a Resident Evil instead of making it like the original.

I had two major disappointments with Parasite Eve 2. The first was how the makers changed the magic system so that you spent points you receive after battle to level up and learn your magic spells. The problem about this though is that monsters in the game don't respawn meaning that when you spend points to upgrade and learn your spells, it can be a really tough decision making process on what will be more useful in the future if you're on your first or second play through.

My second complaint about the game was the complete change in controls. In the first game, pressing up basically means Aya will run up (or north) on the screen, pressing left will make her run left (west), etc. Parasite Eve 2 takes on the Resident Evil control scheme where up = run forward, left = rotate Aya to turn left (sloooowly @_@), etc. You also have to point her in the enemy's general direction while holding down the aim button for her to "auto target" before you can shoot it. '_' I know it sounds like a lot of laziness on my end but it's a really tough thing to do if you have two or more fast moving monsters after you and you just can't run, turn, and shoot fast enough. '_' It seems like Parasite Eve 2 was developed much more to be a "horror" game than an RPG, kind of a shame considering that there aren't really any horror RPG's like the first game.

The first game was so simple and easy to pick up. You have to wait for a bar to fill up before Aya could act, meanwhile you are free to run around and dodge enemies. When you decide to and can act, time freezes and you'll see a dome around you showing the attack range of the weapon or spell selected which then you can just toggle between enemies within your available range to attack.

I think it's kinda neat that Squeenix decided to revive the Parasite Eve franchise, but at the same time, I don't know if I really care. The third game in the series looks like it strays even farther than the second from the uniqueness I liked so much in the original. From what I've seen, it looks very much like a typical "shoot the big monsters with guns" game with the twist of being able to jump between squad members at a time's notice, meanwhile the character your controlling always looks like Aya from Parasite Eve. There're other features like being able to dodge roll and being able to switch between your weapons on-hand, but they don't really sound like things that stand out. '_' I think it's funny though that they decided to put in the "battle damage" system where Aya's defense drops and her clothes get more and more torn as she receives damage. XD I wonder if there'll be anything in the game that makes it "Parasite Eve" other than the title and the main character. '_'

Hey all! Well, the comic is running a bit late due to some mysterious head cold / headaches I was having earlier in the week. Because I did not get the script written in time, Pie could not start until late in the week, pushing our whole schedule back.

Do not fret - we will be posting this weeks comic by Saturday evening for sure; though Pie and I are aiming for Saturday morning. Please check back in the next day or so for your weekly fix of Aggro!

In the mean time, take comfort in our little interlude comic: Chicken Sous