Quarantine Control #38: Parasite’s Eve

The year 2020 has been a long one, longer than previous years described as “long.” But making it to Christmas Eve is proof that the end is in sight, with only a week remaining in the hellscape that’s been the last twelve months. It’s traditionally a good time to celebrate the holiday season with family, but everyone responsible is doing that through social distancing measures thanks to COVID-19 being more dangerous than ever. There are, of course, plenty of people who aren’t doing that and are travelling anyway, apparently willing to ensure that this could be the last Christmas their parents or grandparents celebrate. For everyone else, it should be a relaxing time, even if you’re the type who’s been consuming entertainment indoors all year.

 

Joseph Daniels

Re-reading last week’s column, I feel like I might need to clarify something.

“Please don’t spoil who the killer is, by the way.  Season two is out next month and I plan on sailing the high seas, if you catch my meaning.”

Yes, I do have a Netflix subscription or I wouldn’t be able to recommend so many things on the service.  Trouble is, season two of Beastars is only going to be available in Japan next month.  Anyone who wants it with English subtitles is pretty much going to need to find a tricorne hat to wear and put a parrot on their shoulder.  But that said, I am planning on watching the English version when it’s finally released since this is a show where both the Japanese and English voice cast are fantastic.  Some shows, like last week’s Alice in Borderland, are better in Japanese (so if you read last week’s Quarantine Control but haven’t watched Alice in Borderland yet, definitely watch it in its original Japanese with subtitles, I should’ve said this last week as well).  But then, live action shows do seem to be better viewed with the original language track.

With that out of the way, I hope everyone has a very good Christmas this year.  Instead of recommending a show or some kind of Christmas special or something like the Holiday Baking Championship (go ahead and watch it if that’s what you like; source: Food Network, episodes: 53), I’m planning on visiting New York City and dealing with a mitochondria problem.

Parasite Eve (1998)
Developed: Squaresoft
Published: Square Electronic Arts
Genre: Action RPG

The game begins on Christmas Eve in 1997, so I am going to play the entire first day today, then the second day tomorrow and so on until the game is finished.  I know this is pretty short notice for anyone reading this if they want to follow along in sort of a video game version of a book club, but hopefully you still have your PS1 copy or have a PS3 you can buy a digital copy of it on.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this game, it takes place in 1997, the same year that Final Fantasy VII came out, and follows the plot of one of the early drafts of Final Fantasy VII: the main character chases the game’s villain throughout New York City.  Presumably, it would’ve been more of a high fantasy in its original concept, but when the story was rewritten for Parasite Eve, it turned into more of a survival horror than high fantasy, and has gotten compared frequently to Resident Evil, even to this day.  While its gameplay is markedly different from Capcom’s popular survival horror series, Parasite Eve’s first sequel leaned into the comparison and basically became Resident Evil in all but name.

In this first game of the series, you play as Aya Brea, a police officer in New York City attending a concert with a random date you never see again, but something is wrong.  As soon as one of the performers starts singing, the entire audience immolates before anyone can think “Wow, this performance is lit!”  Aya is somehow immune and she pursues the singer to try to find out what’s going on.

Over the course of six days, Aya must try to stop the resulting villain from enacting her master plan while New York City basically disintegrates around her.  Figuratively disintegrates, I mean.  This isn’t Shin Megami Tensei.  All the while, Aya gradually discovers the nature of this new villain and how come she, and only she, is immune to whatever it is the villain’s been doing.

Like Die Hard, Parasite Eve counts as Christmas media solely because it takes place over the Christmas holiday.  Otherwise, there’s not much that ties it to the season.  Also, I’m fairly certain that most police officers, even the corrupt ones, don’t look at the calendar and think “Okay, it’s Christmas Eve.  I’d better get ready in case I have to defeat one of the biggest, meanest enemies I’ve ever had the misfortune to face.  Better make sure my gun is cleaned and ready.”

I’m looking forward to this, it’s going to be the first time in several years that I’ll be playing the game.  Not sure yet if I’m going to try to make another attempt at beating the sequel.  It was just too different.  Then the third one tried to replicate the success of the first by taking place during Christmas in New York City.  It’s like, after the first game, they didn’t know what to do with the series they wanted to make.  This is one game that probably should’ve stayed one game.

Merry Christmas, everyone, and good luck.

 

Geoffrey Barnes

The Mandalorian: Season 2 (2020)
Source: Disney+
Episodes: 8

The first season of The Mandalorian was a nice surprise, to the benefit of the Star Wars fanbase and both Disney and Lucasfilm. It showed there was a place for live-action Star Wars shows that explored stories only barely touched upon in the movies, and how comparatively unimportant tales in the universe can be just as, if not more, entertaining. It came at a good time, in being one of the first shows to air on Disney+ with the network’s launch, and concluded just after the disappointing The Rise of Skywalker, the final movie in the sequel trilogy, released in theaters. Its overall quality wasn’t surprising for anyone who’d seen the Clone Wars and Rebels animated shows, which the show’s producers previously worked on, but it was a good breakout hit.

The quality of the first season meant the second season had much to live up to, and early signs weren’t the most encouraging. Rumors suggested that this season would connect the series closer to the Star Wars universe at large and the ever-important lore, to reference characters from other movies and the animated shows. One key aspect that worked well with the first season is how it felt disassociated from preceding Star Wars works, which helped it establish its own identity. Now that I’ve watched the season, there was clearly nothing to worry about here despite those rumors turning out accurate. This season somehow turned out even better.

The second season continues the quest of the Mandalorian and the Child (aka “Baby Yoda”) in the quest to reunite the latter gifted with the force with the Jedi. But it also continues the story of their battle with the remnants of the Empire following Return of the Jedi, a prelude to the First Order that will form in time for The Force Awakens. The Empire is also continuing their pursuit of the Child for their own nefarious purposes. The season, fortunately, doesn’t spend (or waste) that much time on establishing lore for the Sequel Trilogy or fitting the show into the overall Star Wars saga, but instead focuses on keeping its own story while simultaneously moving it closer to the previously-established tales. It’s the most entertaining fanservice around.

When I reviewed the first episode of the season in a Quarantine Control entry early last month, I discussed how I felt key episodes from the first season were a little on the short side, shorter than even episodes from “normal” TV shows. This season is no exception, but it made me realize it was a fine alternative when the core content of each episode was enjoyable and paced well. Chapter 14, the sixth episode in the season, is one of the shortest in the series, clocking in at around 30 minutes. But there’s nothing wrong with this as long as the episodes don’t feel rushed, which wasn’t the case with this particular Chapter despite plenty happening. The episode lengths are done for the sake of the show’s pacing, and with there being no need to pad out runtimes to around 44 minutes when they don’t have to fit an hour. It works out for the better.

Even while I’m acknowledging how I was ultimately fine with the short length of some episodes (even though a small part of me still wished they were longer because of their quality), I’m sad the overall season was short. It was the same length as the first season at eight episodes, classified as Chapters. But with the show being an established success now, I was hoping this would be more of a full-length season simply because the quality level was so high. Note that I am well aware the quality was partly there because the season was so tightly knit, and making it longer could have resulted in padding. Not to mention the short length was a blessing in disguise because the crew wrapped up filming just before the COVID-19 pandemic halted every other production being filmed around the time.

I didn’t want to spoil any big twists that occur within the season, despite how difficult they’ve become to avoid now that even Disney/Lucasfilm are pretending they’re yesterday’s news. It’s true that one purpose of this season was to set up other new shows, of which there will be three over the next two years. But it did that while providing plenty of entertainment along the way, more than anything in Disney’s five Star Wars films thus far (with Rogue One coming the closest). This series has fully opened the floodgates for Disney to make Star Wars a parallel to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that will be fine if the quality of subsequent shows and films are good. The production crew should make sure not to repeat the mistakes of the new trilogy.

 

It’s going to be a lonely Christmas for some of us, perhaps the least festive holiday season in recent memory. Merely focusing on the holiday season this year has been difficult thanks to how terrible everything has been, but as mentioned above: It will ideally be a relaxing one for a year that never knew when to let up.