It’s all too easy to get excited when starting up The 3rd Birthday for the first time. Watching the movie leading up to the title screen, featuring the classic theme from the original Parasite Eve, should be more than enough to get any fan’s nostalgia muscle to spasm uncontrollably. The official intro you’ll watch after starting a new game is also bound to get one’s hopes up. Seeing Manhattan come under siege from an army of hostile monsters, witnessing all of that destruction and carnage unfold in Square Enix’s signature high-style CGI that still manages to retain the series’ mature themes. It’s good stuff. Stuff that comes to a screeching halt at the end, when the army refers to the massive fungus-like towers that have sprung up from the ground (and killed thousands horrifically in the process) as “Babel.”
*facepalm*
Best to get this out of the way first: the story in The 3rd Birthday is awful. Mind-numbingly awful. We’re talking worse than just about any recent title they’ve released, including Dissidia. The basic idea seems fine on paper: mysterious creatures, dubbed “The Twisted,” have appeared out of nowhere, wreaking havoc and slaughtering millions across the world. Only a shockingly wussy Aya Brea and her CTI teammates can stop them with the use of the Overdive System, which allows Aya to transfer her consciousness into another person in the past. The idea is to use her ability to aid in the counter-offensive by changing the outcome of various failed ops. It works well as a gameplay mechanic, but the time traveling theme ends up mangling the story something fierce. What actually “happened” changes from mission to mission, making it all but essential to read the (almost hidden) files on the timeline, CTI operatives and so on stored in the main computer just so you can attempt to keep up.
Besides the incredibly nonsensical structure of the plot, there’s also Square Enix’s trademark horrible dialogue to deal with. As per usual they’ve heaped on the melodrama when it wasn’t needed in the first place, turning even the simplest of conversations into an awkward, head-shaking affair. Having random characters everyone seems to know appear with no explanation is bad enough, but when said characters start spouting off unnecessary soliloquies when a simple “I’m here to help” would suffice… Well, it becomes difficult to take the game seriously in any way. Although as horrid and disappointing as the story is, given the game’s pedigree, there’s still a good chance the gameplay will win you over.
While The 3rd Birthday lacks heavily in the story department, it’s still a hell of a lot of fun. The hybrid real-time/turn-based RPG gameplay of the originals has been replaced with relatively simple, but solid third-person shooter mechanics that allow you to lock-on to a target and start blasting or dodging as needed. There’s also a basic, but useful cover mechanic that will have Aya ducking down automatically when she stands behind and faces one of the many obvious chest-high walls. From there you can lob grenades, pop up and take aim or vault over your barrier to rush forward as you see fit.
What makes the game more than a typical third-person shooter is Aya’s Overdive ability. She can use Overdive to “jump” from one character to another by tapping the Triangle button at any point, assuming there are, in fact, other characters in the area. It can also be used to finish off weakened Twisted by diving into them and making them implode. This finishes them off with no exploding corpse to worry about and adds a little bit to your Liberation meter, which functions as your “temporarily invincible, last resort uber-attack.” What starts out as feeling like a pointless gimmick soon becomes essential to survival as you leap from point to point; drawing your enemies’ attention one way, then instantly transferring to a better position, raining bullets down on them while they’re distracted and finishing them off with a well-timed dive. The flip-side to this is it makes you feel like the world’s biggest asshole. When you’re in possession of another character, be they soldier, police officer or civilian, it’s their body you’re messing with. So sure, if you back yourself into a corner you can jump to someone else, but your last vessel is screwed. You just got an innocent person killed because you suck at dodging. Seriously; world’s biggest asshole.
The 3rd Birthday does manage to stay a little true to its origins (crappy storytelling aside) by including RPG-styled progression. It comes in a few varieties, actually: Aya gains experience each time she dispatches a Twisted, becoming generally tougher with each level gained. Weapon types, such as shotguns and sniper rifles, also gain experience with use, but rather than increasing stats they unlock new weapons and upgrades for purchase. Bonus Points (BP) have also returned, only now they’re used exclusively to buy and upgrade weapons or repair Aya’s clothing. Yeah, about that… As Aya gets knocked around, her clothes eventually start to fall apart. It not only reduces her overall defense, it also leads to her looking like the planet’s most abused fashion model. I can see where they were going with this, but really it just makes the folks over at Square Enix look kind of pervy. Especially with some of the bonus outfits you can unlock.
One final stat-tweaking element that’s also new to the series is the DNA Board. This 3×3 grid uses Over Energy chips you can find by finishing off Twisted with an Overdive, and gives Aya a chance to activate various abilities at random during combat. Increased overall defense or health regeneration during Liberation are only a couple of possibilities. By combining similar chips you can increase an ability’s level, which increases the chance of its activation. Conversely, you can also combine different kinds of chips to sometimes create mutations and unlock new abilities such as ammo refills after an Overdive or a shockwave that will damage all nearby Twisted. Just make sure you’re happy with the previewed results before you commit, as some mutations can have negative effects.
It was initially tough to decide whether or not to recommend The 3rd Birthday. The plot, characters, dialogue and cutscenes are just so lame that it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s still a damn fun game to play. As a fan of the originals it’s hard to ignore the decline in story quality and Aya’s wussification, even though there’s a semi-legitimate explanation for the change. The weird thing is, while it doesn’t feel much like Parasite Eve when you watch the cutscenes, it most certainly does while you play it. And play it you will, with multiple difficulties, a New Game+ option, the ability to replay any mission as many times as you want for experience and OE chips (FYI: beat the game and all missions can be replayed from the start) and plenty of unlockables that can only be earned through multiple playthroughs. At roughly 8 to 10 hours the first time through and presumably 5 or 6 each time after that, you get plenty of game for your money. Whether or not it’s the game you’re looking for is entirely up to you.
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Things We Liked: Overdive turned out to be a very enjoyable “gimmick.” The relatively short story mode gives plenty of incentive to play through it over and over again with lots of content to unlock after completion. Getting into a rhythm with diving, shooting, dodging and imploding has a distinct charm to it. It’s just plain fun to play.
Things We Disliked: The story is horribly put together, riddled with Square Enix’s trademark melodrama and full of dull characters. The dialogue is painful to listen to, especially whenever Maeda or “Boss” Owen talk. Things start to feel a little by-the-numbers in the last couple of chapters. I “get” it, but I still would’ve preferred the classic badass Aya.
Target Audience: Going out on a limb here and saying Parasite Eve fans. Maybe. Anyone looking for a good third-person shooter with RPG elements on their PSP, so long as story isn’t important. People looking to see just how bad a professional game script can get.
(The 3rd Birthday – Developer: Square Enix. Publisher: Square Enix. Available for PlayStation Portable. A copy of the game was provided by the publishers for review purposes. Unfamiliar with CFD!’s review system? Read our newly revised explanation here.)
