Discover Top Posts Tagged with #eve brea

Part 7 If you look at all the video game franchises with three or more games, only 12 have women as the main characters. Aya Brea is the primary hero of the Parasite Eve franchise.

Her story Mitochondria were once a separate free-living organism, capable of highly efficient energy production. At some point, a primitive cell lacking that ability consumed a mitochondria, but did not digest it. A symbiotic relationship emerged – the cell protected the mitochondria and the mitochondria provided energy for the cell. The primitive cells evolved into multi-celled organisms – including humans – while the mitochondria retained their own DNA, passed through the egg and thus from a mother to her children.

In the cells of Maya Brea, mitochondria evolved into a malevolent dispersed intelligence plotting to take over the planet – a shift from a symbiotic relationship to a parasitic one. Maya and her mother both died in a car accident, however, and one of her kidneys was donated to a girl named Melissa Pearce, while one of her corneas went to her sister, Aya Brea. In the years after that, Melissa received Immunosuppressants to prevent her immune system from rejecting her new kidney. With Melissa’s immune system weakened, the mutant mitochondria thrived. In Aya, however, an invisible war waged. Aya’s mitochondria evolved to recognize Maya’s as a threat, and developed defenses. Aya became a New York police detective, Melissa became a singer, and the two finally met at a Christmas concert. The mitochondrial “Eve” entity within Melissa took control of her, and began a reign of terror, manipulating the mitochondria of everyone in her path to make them burst into flames or transform into horrifying creatures. Aya found herself immune, and as time went on she discovered she had strange powers (resulting from the years her mitochondria had spent fighting a small population of Maya’s mitochondria). Aya, still a rookie detective, found herself humanity’s only hope. She prevailed, destroying the Eve entity. Years later, Aya destroyed a secret facility that was creating monstrous creatures based on her own mitochondria, and in the process she saved a young clone of herself named Eve. Later still, Aya was assassinated by unknown individuals. Her consciousness was shattered by the attack, and the echoes of her psyche turned into monstrous creatures known as The Twisted, which threatened to destroy humanity. Eve (the clone) took over Aya’s body, having suddenly gained the power to transfer her mind into the bodies of others. The world was saved when Eve-in-Aya’s-body used a time machine to go back to the moment of Aya’s death and make sure her mind died too. Later, Eve was confused when she thought she saw Aya on the streets wishing her a happy birthday.

The real-world story

A detective in modern New York faces a monstrous “mother” entity, her terrifyingly powerful “son,” and a misanthropic mad scientist that helped create the mess. That’s the plot for Parasite Eve, but it was also Hironobu Sakaguchi‘s original plan for Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy VII. As other staffers became involved, the original vision (particularly his detective character, “Hot-Blooded Detective Joe”) fell by the wayside. Released in 1997, Final Fantasy VII was a smash hit, but Sakaguchi was still interested in a “detective” RPG.

1997 was also the year when Hideaki Sena's novel, Parasite Eve, was adapted into a made-for-TV movie. First published in 1995, the science-fiction horror book had received significant praise. As a pharmacologist, Sena was fascinated by recent discoveries hinting that mitochondria had originated as a separate life form. In particular, Sena was particularly enamored with the idea that it might not take much to shift a symbiotic relationship into a parasitic one. The peculiar book kept one foot in textbook-accurate explanations of macro and microbiology and the other in the fantastic - the “villain” in the book was a telepathic consciousness spread out across numerous mitochondria. Sena dubbed the entity “Mitochondrial Eve,” in a nod to the then-popular theory that all mitochondria could be traced back to a single female ancestor. The villain wanted to bring about the “emancipation” of mitochondria, and to create a new ultimate-life-form derived from mitochondrial DNA and able to rewrite its genetic code at will.

Some of the themes in the biological-horror book must have seemed familiar to staff at Squaresoft. Final Fantasy VII had pitted the heroes against Jenova and Sephiroth, a monstrous “mother” and her powerful “child”. The book was a perfect fit for the detective RPG Sakaguchi wanted, although Squaresoft didn’t want to adapt it. In essence Squaresoft wanted to use the villain and mythology from Sena’s novel without adapting the story itself, similar to how Konami wanted to use Dracula in Castlevania without adapting Bram Stoker’s novel.

Other parallels to Final Fantasy VII emerged during development. Aya’s gruff but big-hearted partner was an African American torn between his sense of duty and desire to be a good father, echoing FFVII’s Barret Wallace. Eve had a secret human ally in her quest to create an ultimate life form, the misanthropic Dr. Hans Klamp, just as Jenova’s quest had been aided by Professor Hojo. Hot-Blooded Detective Joe, however, received a bigger overhaul, transforming into Aya Brea. The maternal transmission of mitochondria made a female protagonist more thematically desirable. Hironobu Sakaguchi relayed the ideas he had for his revamped female "Detective Joe" to artist Tetsuya Nomura. Sakaguchi wanted a pretty long-haired character like Final Fantasy's Aerith, but Nomura was working on other projects at the time and accidentally gave Aya a more austere and businesslike haircut that he’d been intending to use on another character. The mix of beauty and professionalism clicked and helped solidify Aya as a competent but contemplative police officer. Notably, while some promotional art and advertising sexualized the character (depicting her as shirtless under her jacket, for instance), Aya’s in-game depiction stood in sharp contrast to how many prominent female heroes were depicted at the time. With the exception of a dress worn to a concert, the character remained in sensible work clothing for the duration of the game.

The game was released in 1998, and proved a solid success. Squaresoft had learned from mistakes with Final Fantasy, and had made certain localization was a priority. As an RPG with real-time action mechanics it drew favorable comparisons to Chrono Trigger and Vagrant Story, even as the horror aspect drew comparisons to Resident Evil.

A sequel was released in 2000, with greater similarities toResident Evil in both mechanics and plot. The original RPG dynamics were discardedin favor of the gameplay modeled on the Resident Evil series, and Aya foundherself assigned to the FBI’s M.I.S.T. (similar to Resident Evil’s S.T.A.R.S.), fighting enemies closer in appearance to those of Resident Evil games than the first Parasite Evil game. Mitochondrial Eve did not appear, although much of the plot involved a new character named “Eve” that was a clone of Aya. The game increased Aya’s sexualization in some ways, such as including a shower scene.

The third game in the series was simply titled The 3rd Birthday, dropping the “Parasite Eve” element. This may have been due in part to licensing concerns. Tetsuya Nomura, who had worked on all three games, indicated that he thought Squaresoft was dropping the name “Parasite Eve” because the series had reached a point where the name was no longer necessay, and it could be easier to attract new fans without it. Nomura redesigned Aya considerably to emphasize her sexuality and eliminate her original more thickset frame, stating that he had been unhappy with her original figure. The character’s sexuality was brought to the forefront in several ways. Another shower scene was included as an Easter Egg. “Battle damage” resulted in Aya’s clothing becoming more threadbare, revealing skin.

In addition, players were given the ability to dress the character up in various costumes, such as a french maid uniform and a playboy bunny suit. The different costumes affected gameplay, and each could also become "battle damaged” and more revealing.

Players were told they were controlling Aya Brea against new monstrous entities called “Twisted,” and were further informed that Aya had amnesia, had gained the power to jump into other people’s bodies (a vital gameplay mechanic, as the series shifted more completely to a shooter, with little indication of its RPG roots), and now had access to a time machine. The twist ending revealed that Aya was actually dead, that players had been controlling her young clone “Eve” who had possessed Aya’s body with never-before-mentioned body-leaping powers, and that the evil “Twisted” were actually the last remnants of the real Aya. To save the world Eve-Aya had to travel back in time and kill Aya more thoroughly than she was originally killed. Then later Eve-Aya was greeted by Aya’s spirit. Possibly.

Given the solid sales of the title, it’s likely the series will continue. What it’ll be called and who “Aya” will be in future installments is anyone’s guess though.

Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Carmen Sandiego Part 3: Metroid Part 4: Giana Sisters Part 5: Addressing Clock Tower Part 6: Tomb Raider Part 7: Parasite Eve Part 8: Perfect Dark Part 9: BloodRayne Part 10: Shantae Part 11: Carol Reed Mysteries Part 12: Diner Dash Part 13: Secret Files Part 14: Cooking Mama Part 15: Demographics & Marketing (a history of female-centered games) Links to the future installments of this female video game hero retrospective will be posted here

#eve brea

Trending Tags

Recently Viewed Tags

#eve brea