“Do y’know where we are?” NYPD officer Aya Brea asks the mutant blob pursuing her through the bowels of a freighter on the Hudson River, right after she overloads the ship’s boiler to blow the monstrosity to smithereens. “We’re in Hell’s Kitchen!”
I love a good one-liner, and this one, from the climax of 1998’s Parasite Eve, has always stuck with me. Aya’s another Square Enix no-show in the popular PS5 platformer, and it’s a shame, not only because she’s a great character—steely and determined—but because Parasite Eve deserves to be remembered as one of the most distinctive games on the PS1. Certainly, I’ll never forget being enveloped by the simultaneously cozy and unsettling vibes of this NYC Christmastime horror odyssey as I played through it on that unassuming little gray console, all those winters ago. – Carolyn Petit
