Introduction

Let's play ~~parasite eve 3~~ The 3rd birthday.

On December 24, 2012, New York was torn apart by a strange organic structure that emerged from underground, which was later dubbed as "The Babel". Two years before, man-eating creatures called "The Twisted" had been sighted, but they mostly stayed underground and out-of-site until the Babel raised to the surface. After the Babel had raisen, masses of Twisted had started to attack and kill many people in the city.

What in the world is this!? this doesn't sound like a Parasite eve game!
The third birthday is a action tittle spinoff of the Parasite eve series of sorts for the PSP by Hexa Drive and SquareEnix. The game has had a mixed reception and a mixed set of reviews that came along with it's release, I suspect this is due to that people were not expecting it not to be a spinoff and combined with the things the director of the game has stated in interviews. Instead of getting a horror survival game with an RPG like system in we got a action based, third person shoot em up game with RPG elements in. As far as a spinoff tittle goes, I feel that it does well for itself as far as music and gameplay goes, the plot and characterization being utterly atrocious. The game only follows parasite eve 1-2 as little as possible, when it comes to how much they follow parasite eve 1-2 it will be in references, familiar faces and names.

Oh god! what did they do to Aya's character!
Well that was explained rather quickly if one browses the character BIOS and other information out there before the game was released. Aya seems to be suffering from memory loss due to a traumatic experience, having lost all of her memory and her old personality as response to this experience. Admittedly I've never familiarized myself with the characters too much, as I've only briefly watched a lets play of parasite eve 1 and 2, though I do still notice some rather major changes here and there, such as Aya being more submissive, and so fourth. While it is a rather messy way of doing it story wise, it will all be explained in the end in a horribly sloppy way I assure you.

Alright, but how often will you update and will there by any interactivity from the forums?
The game is a rather short one, because of this I'm doing a easy mode run, where I show off how to get all of the feats while having cheats activated to break the games proverbial back in half. I will also be doing an Insane mode run of the game with no cheats, trying not to abuse the best weapons and restock too much to keep things interesting, while keeping in deaths, as long as I don't die 50 times in one spot of course. But to stop dodging the question, I will be updating at a rather swift pace. As for interactivity, once the LP starts, I'll allow forum goers to vote on what weapons I upgrade and use for the upcoming mission, as well as allow them to tailor my DNA boards for the main run of the game.

You mentioned in the lets play you were seeking a co-host to do commentary with?
I did mention this and the slot is filled by our gracious forum goer, Kaboom Dragoon.

No spoilers please.
While this game is short, I'd like to avoid spoilers if possible, thank you for your cooperation ahead of time.

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New game run:

WATCH FIRST

The 3rd birthday 49. Lets fight the reaper one last time while we talk.

The 3rd birthday 50. Lets finish our bad synopsis.

Episode 6:

The 3rd birthday 51. Lets say our final words.

Easy/feat run:

Episode 1:

The 3rd birthday 11. Lets get feats 1

Episode 2:

The 3rd birthday 21. Lets get more feats.

Episode 3:

The 3rd birthday 29. Lets feast on feats.

Episode 4:

The 3rd birthday 37. Lets grab some moar feets! I mean feats!

Episode 5:

The 3rd birthday 44. Lets finish off the last feats and play with super grenade launchers.

Episode 6:

The 3rd birthday 45. Lets break the fight in half.

Bonus videos:

The 3rd birthday Bonus 1. Lets talk about insane mode.
The 3rd birthday bonus 2. Lets see what is wrong with Aya.
The 3rd birthday bonus 3. Lets dig through peoples emails.
The 3rd birthday Bonus 4. Lets check out costumes and bonus cutscenes.

The 3rd birthday Bonus 5. Lets test run the last special weapons.

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Characters:
I'll give a brief summary of the characters we have met so far that is in the CTI files as well as a few personal notes.

Note: Personal notes may contain spoilers, as I will be updating them with the events of the game as it progresses.

Aya Brea:

Half Japanese, with blond hair and blue eyes. Her unique genetic makeup has given her physique of a woman in her 20's On Christmas eve 2010, she was found outside St. Thomas Cathedral in Manhattan, suffering from amnesia. Judging from her bloodstained wedding gown, she had been found just before or after her own wedding ceremony, although that hasn't been confirmed. She remembers nothing of herself apart from her own name.

Personal notes:
What is there to say that hasn't already been said? there isn't much to say other than her character is fairly messed up, she has amnesia, submissive, makes awkward/suggestive sounds, and way too much fan service. All in all the story will explain it all, but is it justified? We shall see.

Sadly she doesn't have many lines being the main character and all the lines she does has is grunts.

Ding dong the witch is dead. Thats right, the director just assassinated Aya in the game the moment we saw the real Aya so the director could put in place his own version of Aya by using Eve who was his perfect little blank slate... I don't know what else to say really, nothing funny, just annoyance seeing as the director gets the character but decides to assassinate her and cock tease us in the end that she is possibly not dead, trying to set it up for a sequel.

Hyde Bohr:

Born in Denmark. His father was also physicist, and he grew up surrounded by famous names in the field. He emigrated to America after graduation and devoted himself to research in the field of quantum mechanics. In 1999, he was invited to become a project manager for the Defense Sciences Office at DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), a unit of the US Department of Defense that was researching and developing technologies for the nation's military.

Personal notes:
I shall continue to mock Hyde til the day my life ends, his name is quite silly but makes sense, who in the world gives their child a name such as Hyde in denmark!(If you didn't know I'm from denmark)

But to talk about him, he seems to be the stern but kind moral support, a lot like a mentor of sorts for Aya as he was the one the found her at the Christmas eve she lost her memory.

OH GOD! the plot! the plot!!! it seems Hyde Bhors master plan was to get everyone killed with Overdiving and

Unfortunately this backfired as The real Aya ressurected herself in a nick of time and proceeded to blast Bhor away

before he could prefer creepy interspecies breeding with Eve.

Why does everyone in the game want to jump Eves bones!

First Maeda, now Hyde Bhor and the twisted as well!

Dr. Blank:

Real name unknown. Born in Jangseon, south Korea. Blank is the chief engineer of the CTI's Overdive Unit; he provides investigative support to CTI as an associate researcher.

Personal notes:
Not much can be said at all that isn't in the CTI files, he doesn't talk much about himself. Aside from operating the overdive system, he also acts as intelligence gathering and support during missions while he monitors what is going on in the past through Aya.

It seems now that he has caught a case of the death, poor guy, and he was probably one of the most likable characters, least he died doing what he loved the most... Trolling on 4chan. Oh come on, all his talk about doing research is just a cover and you know it!

Thelonious Cray:

Born in Gettysburg,Pennsylvania. His parents divorced when he was five; he was sent to his mother's house, where he was forced to live in extreme poverty.

Before coming to work at the CTI, he had been part of the elite Delta Force unit of the US Army, specializing in counter terrorism. He was enlisted in counter terrorism. He was enlisted in Captain Russo's squad, one that took on only the trickiest and most dangerous missions.

Personal notes:
Is the combat specialist of the group, he seems to have been the one in charge of training, though he doesn't help too much while on missions aside from coming with combat advice if he has any.

Welp!.... Cray is dead again... This time he did it to himself what with sacrificing himself to the twisted and all, I don't quite think we can fix things this time guys, what with no overdive device.

Gabrielle Monsigny:

Born in Baltimore, Maryland. Her grandfather had immigrated from Belgium; her father was a police officer, and her mother died when Gabrielle was an infant

She is a special agent in the CTI's Overdive Investigative Unit.

Personal notes:
Well that is a unfortunate twist, the strongest female character in the game died.

On the plus side, it seems that Aya has grown some balls, although very small ones. (Not good enough!) On the plus side, at the very least she made an interesting boss, unfortunately she has been erased from time, what with being turned into time corroding inter dimensional eldritch horror and all. O Gabrielle, we knew ye for only a short amount of time, you will not be forgotten!.... Who was she again?

Hunter "Boss" Owen:

Born in Juliet, Illionis, he joined the FBI after graduating from Vale. He was "discovered" by the director, distinguished himself as an agent, and was promoted to deputy director in 2008

In the same month that the CTI was created as a counter-Twisted investigatory agency, the president appointed him it's chief.

Personal notes:
Owen is now officially the biggest jerk ever and idiot ever! Not only did he use nerve-gas on the entire overdive team, he also still doesn't believe that we can change that past, even after Gabrielle was erased from time in front of him, not that he would remember. Also might I point out that using nerve-gas is rather sloppy?

I'd think it would go a little like this.

Government: I see, so you say everyone magically died.
Owen: Yup, can I have my old job back for a couple of years before we are all doomed now?
Government: I see, can you explain why everyone in the building died of nerve-gas?
Owen: Uh, the twisted attacked, someone must have thrown the can to kill them!
Government: Since when did twisted breathe, do they even have mouthes since they are just big slimy tentacles?
Owen: Uhm uh... Cheese it!

But it isn't all bad, Owen has gone back to being dead again! huzzah!

Emily Jefferson:

Born in London, England, Emily's family moved to New York City when she was two.

She became a twisted right before Aya's eyes during the Sacrifice Incident and was killed after suffering a vicious onslaught.

Emily exhibited unique behavior in that the Twisted didn't simply take over her physical body, but instead hatched out of it.

Personal notes:
This creepy psychotic girl was also our first boss too! Well darn, there isn't much to say about her other than it's an annoyingly random boss fight, unfortunately we couldn't squeeze out a little more information out of her before she disappeared into thin air.

Eve Brea:

A girl Aya claims is her younger sister.

However, no one has been able to independently verify her existence. No record of her has been found.

Personal notes:
That was the twist folks! we were playing as Eve this entire time... I would have gone with other plot twists personally... But this is made even more creepy by the fact that adult men and monsters want to jump her bones, even thoug they know she is just a kid. Not to mention Kyles creepy wedding scene and in the end revealing he knew it was Eve the entire time... Then then leaving us with hints that Aya might not be dead and of a sequel that I'd buy if just to see how much more the director can trash the story.

Kyle Madigan:

The man Aya claims to have encountered during the Spanish Harlem incident. He was wearing the same ring as Aya and told her Eve was dead.

Although he gave his name as Kyle Madigan, there's no record of anyone by that name in the agency database.

Personal notes:
Oh god the shot Kyle again! and this time no explenation, unless you've played parasite Eve 2 you will have no idea as to possibly why SWAT just gunned him down for no reason. But to make matters worse, Aya... I mean Eve gave wedding vows, married... But He was dead before, then everything was alright... And the priest... and Oh god it doesn't make sense!

Kunihiko Maeda:

Friedrich Gehrmann's disciples immediately scattered once the Twisted appeared, devoting themselves to various research topics.

This was a planned procedure meant to help satisfy Gehrmann's longing to save humanity with science.

Personal notes:

Oh god!!! What did they do to you Maeda!?... WHY... WHY!!!.... This is by far the worst characterization of the game in my opinion, Aya coming in second though that doesn't make it any better either.... What is there to say, they turned a socially awkward scientist that had a thing into Aya, into a a creepy perverted pedophile that drools over pictures of Eve on his laptop and Aya overdiving... Thank god Aya is refusing all of his creepy advances...

Note how the episodes keep going on, how he just keeps getting creepier and creepier.

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The Twisted:

Slacker:

An incomplete. Robbed of its consciousness, its body somehow blighted during metamorphosis, it was unable to complete its transformation. Its attacks are simple and consist only of charging forward. However, they often appear in swarms, and it's dangerous to underestimate the power they hold in numbers.

Personal notes:
These guys are the weakest of the twisted, seriously, these guys are a joke and don't do what I do and slack around them, otherwise they will smack you around. A quick dodge takes care of their attack, though usually you can take em out before they even get close.

Grenades tend to be particularly effective on them.

Wad:

A twisted that expands and contracts as it attacks its physical changes indicating its battle stance. While contracted it becomes sharp as a blade and fast as a whip. While expanded, it floats along like a balloon, firing projectiles.

Personal notes:
These buggers are a main staple of enemies throughout the entire game, grenades almost never are able to get em and almost all shots will miss if you attack them while they are contracted. It's a game of wait til one expands and then shoot, duck and cover when it shoot.

Reaper:

Possesses a rigid shell that nullifies any and all attacks. Its offensive power, agility, and endurance are sky high, making it a far tougher foe than any other twisted. It quickly dives into close-range battles, slashing at intruders with its razor-sharp blade. This is one murderous, uncontrollable monster.

Personal notes:
Oh hells bells, this guy is going to be a pain, better get used to it and his escape sections. :suicide: Reapers are immune to all forms of damage, they can be staggered though. Reapers will berserk, they gain speed and strength, not that this matters since most of his attacks one shot you if you are playing at the proper difficulty for your level. You can tell he is in berserk mode when his scythe like claw starts to drip with blood, you can bring him out of berserk if you manage to stagger him and overdive kill into him. One of these days mister reaper.... One of these days.

Helix:

A Twisted of terrifying stature and tremendous power that lies in wait at the Club Sacrifice, It uses many different kinds of ballistic attacks to destroy it's target. it's sturdy head can easily take out any obstacle, conveniently trapping it's prey right within firing range.

Personal notes:
This guy is our first miniboss and doubles as our first mid boss, welcome to The 3rd birthday gentlemen, they don't exactly coddle you in the beginning. Not that this guy is hard though, he dies like a chump.

Roller:

Attempts to enter close range combat as soon as it appears. It narrows any wider gaps by twisting its body and using the recoil to propel itself forward like a spring. Its attack-surging forward while rotating-is frighteningly fierce. It moves with extreme speed and seems engineered for pouncing on enemies.

Personal notes:
These bad boys aren't as bad as people make em out to be, they quickly become common though, but have a really easy AI to exploit as long as you can overdive between targets and stager it quickly to deal massive amounts of damage. Once it hit's 50% health, it gains a massive health regeneration, so you have to keep attacking it once you reach that point as not to have your efforts wasted. Optimally, if you can stagger it just as it hit's 50% health, then overdive kill it would be best.

Stinker

A Twisted that attacks its enemy in swarms surrounding a so called head stinker. This "queen bee" serves as the brains and heart of the swarm, both issuing commands and sustaining the life of its stinker drones.
When the head stinker is attacked, it uses its stealth capabilities to camouflage itself, disappearing into its surroundings

Personal notes:
Honestly, there isn't much to be said about these little guys, they aren't even annoying, you shoot them and they die, it's as simple as that. Their attacks are the weakest in the game, they have a slow fire rate and even in a small group, they hardly do a thing. These are episode specific monsters only though, so we won't be seeing more of them.

Rover:

Works with and controls a type of Twisted known as detectors, which floats along looking for enemies and summon a rover as one is sighted.

It uses a laser searchlight to trap and fire at enemies. If caught in this beam, your body will be frozen to the spot, rendering you temporarily incapacitated.

Personal notes:
These guys are so tough, they get their own theme music it would seem, I'd even consider them optional bosses considering how tough they are. The trick to killing them is to avoid getting hit at all costs by anything, also if you ever want a chance at defeating them, bring the best sniper you can get and shoot the ball over their head with the sniper. I suggest you ignore the glowing weak point on the leg, it's a red herring and the ball is easier to hit, and will trigger a stagger as well as remove the ball from the fight for a while, which is what shoots the paralyzing lasers off.

Beanbag:

Uses a high-intensity bombardment bombardment attack. If approached head on, be prepared to face an unavoidable assault of concentrated firepower. Make use of obstacles to secure a possible line of defense, then go straight for the jugular.

Personal notes:
Yeah... These guys. One of the most annoying enemies in the game, they hves 2 phases, a defense phase and an attack phase. In their defense phase, they will stay in his protective shell of sorts, if they can teleport or regenerate health they will do so. The only way to hurt them in this phase is through the shotgun, sniping it's weak point or explosives, liberation also works. His attack phase consists of 4 kinds of attacks, his marble like shotgun spray that can destroy barriers, his short-range mortar barrage, his mid-range rapid firing and his long-range bouncing/ricocheting homing shots. There is no really great way of dealing with them, the best you can do is try to be flexible with your weapon choices and adjust all depending on what you have with you at the time, and what the bean bags are doing. A tip though, the bean bags are slow to adjust their fire at you, so get it's attention with one soldier, then immediately start wailing on the bean bags while they are distracted tends to work well.(I wish I would follow my own advice sometimes.)

Queen:

The Babel's core was thought to contain the Big Orb. Instead, Aya found herself face to face with the queen.

The Babel's interior is a world where the future mingles freely with the present. Living within his indeterminate time-space, the Queen uses descent attacks on humans, turning them into Twisted to obtain the nutrition necessary for the Babel to thrive.

Since Aya is an uncertain being herself, she has no choice but to fight the queen as a floating embodiment of consciousness.

If aya can dodge the queen's descent attack, consisting of psychic waves and countless twisted entities, and manage to successfully overdive into a human who's already been engulfed, she'll be able to fire at the Babel's core: the Queen.

Personal notes:
The description makes me think they had more planed for this mid-boss fight than they actually gave us, like being able to swim manually over from body to body, while avoiding attacks, then when in body form you could attack it. Oh well. Aside from the trippy music and scenery, this is a rather relaxed boss fight, the calm before the storm. This boss in my opinion mostly counts mostly as a level check, as 90% of your damage will come from overdive kills and staggering. There is some skill involved if you have the right weapons and enough ammo, aside from that, the boss isn't all that hard and there isn't too much to say about it.

Snatcher:

Dangles from the cealin and searches for intruders. Upon finding one, it drops down and begins its pursuit.

It's an extremely keen hunter and fighter both, launching its first attacks immediately after sensing a foe and relentlessly continuing its barrage until it captures its prey.

Personal notes:

I shout SNATCHER, you shout JUNKER! I'm just kidding, but these guys can be quite annoying at first, they will start to become a regular enemy after episode 3, so you will see em throughout the rest of the game. They are quite slow at adjusting their aim, so if you can switch to another soldier and shoot from that angle for a while, you should be able to get some clean shots at it. hiding behind a barrier is effective too, as they can't break or get past them, duck when homing shots are about to hit otherwise just stay still and pop out between homing shots until it dies. In the case there is no barriers you will want to back off when it shoots it's orbs in front of you, while if you stay still they won't be able to hit you, it's homing shots it alternates between will hit you, if you back up and sidestep or dodge, the homing shots relatively weak homing wont be able to catch up if you time it right.

When damaged enough it will attempt to run off to heal and dangle from the ceiling, making it harder to hit and damage it, but if you deal enough damage you can either kill it or knock it on the ground. Knocking it on the ground will give you an instant stagger, this is usually done though through hitting it's impossible to hit weak point but spray weapons have at least a tendency to occasionally it at the very least. the main feature of the snatcher though is it's ability to drop down and grab a person, then drag it back into a red portal, if there is only one soldier left and he is grabbed then you are pretty much screwed. Having a liberation ready for such a situation can come in handy, as a barrier activating or liberation activation will free you, you can also free other soldier they grab by shooting it enough or diving into them and using liberation.

Worm:

Small worms are known as runts, while large worms are known as spawn. Runts move slowly before molting, but their armor like exoskeleton makes them impervious to attacks. Fire at their mouths to kick-start the molting process. They move that much more quickly afterward, so stay on top of them; don't give them any room to fight back before wiping them out.

Note that their weak spot becomes their strong spot after molting. Attacking the mouth will restore their damage, not increase it.

Personal notes:

These guys are jerks, plain and simple, lucky for us you only have to fight 3 of them toe to toe in the entire game, I easily consider them mini bosses on their own due to their rapid regeneration, high health and tough defenses. Good luck beating them if you don't bring a sniper with you, I feel these enemies are a large reason why people give up around episode 4, the fact that the game gives you odds you can barely win if you don't bring the right weapon or run out of ammo for the right weapon, combined with the horrible story is enough to drive most players away. Unfortunately for us, we are going to see the end to this story anyway.

The trick is to shoot them in the mouth with the sniper, their weak point pretty easy to hit once you get used to the sniper and have a decently stable one through upgrades, once you hurt the worm enough it molts its armor. Once it's armor is molted the fight gets harder as the worm moves faster and is move aggressive coupled with it's high health regeneration, always focus on one worm at a time, kill it and move to the next, otherwise you are just wasting limited supplies of ammo. I can highly recommend you don't stop moving and dodging once a worm has shot fireballs as they have a sort of bouncing homing and are very powerful.

Mudflap:

Uses psychokinesis to pick up enemies hiding behind obstacles and bring them in for the kill. Its powers can likewise affect the surrounding air currents, whipping up tornadoes to further control the intruder.

Personal notes:
Tornadoes? LIES! Tornadoes my ass, it would have been interesting to see though, but I think they forgot to remove that last little bit of text when they released the game. In general, these guys are jerks, Mudflaps are powerful enemies, you only see 3 of them the entire game, but they will pick you up and drag it close to them if you are too far away or behind a barrier, though normally they just charge in and area of effect one shot multiple barriers and kill a bunch of guys in a hit or two. Their AI also sometimes breaks and they spam nothing but their attack that turns soldiers into slackers, if they spam it enough it will leave you with no overdive targets and you will die being turned into a twisted. They will occasionally produce a small shield the teleports around to block off shots, it moves very slowly so if you can flank a mudflap then it won't be able to keep up as the shield turns around slowly to face you and can only block if the shield is in front of you. The shield however can be broken, but it's a waste of ammo.

Once you kill it, it will revive itself once, if you kill it with an overdive kill, then it won't get back up, so stagger weapons are your friend, it can be a bit tricky to time it's stagger when it has almost not health though. If it does die normally, then you can still prevent it from reviving, if you can get it's ghost to chase you around and you kite it for 10-20 seconds. If it manages to grab you, just dodge roll out and you will be fine for some reason without dying while it revives itself to half health. (glitch perhaps?) If it goes for a regular soldier, then the soldier dies and acts as the host for it's new weakened body. Once revived they have a tendency to start turning 2-3 soldiers into twisted before resuming regular attacks, this can potentially make you die over and over again, it's always a good idea to save liberation mode if you can to save yourself from that move if need be.

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Over energy:

A good weapons and over energy guide is here, I've removed my own personal notes section on them all as I couldn't fit it in one post, should have made it into two posts, an oversight on my part mostly.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/psp/951987-...hday/faqs/62067

The Let's Play Archive

The Third Birthday

by Wethamster

Introduction

Table of Contents