The 3rd Birthday (PSP)

Frequently frustrating combat and an annoying central character prevent The 3rd Birthday from making the most of its unusual mechanics.

Release Date: Mar 29, 2011

The 3rd Birthday is a follow-up to the Parasite Eve games of the late 1990s and early 2000s, but the choice not to call it Parasite Eve III is a telling one. This third-person action adventure represents something of a fresh start for the striking heroine Aya Brea. Unfortunately, Aya's characterization here is a troubling one, and while some cool concepts contribute to occasionally exhilarating gameplay, stiff controls and some infuriating battles make this struggle to save humanity as frequently frustrating as it is fun.

The 3^rd Birthday, the latest edition in the previously-on-pause Parasite Eve series, is typical of my PSP confusion – it plays like it wants to be a home console game, and makes no concession at all to playing ‘on the go’.

It’s complex, it takes quite a bit of practise to master, the small screen feels cluttered by the text-heavy HUD, the lack of second analogue stick makes for frustrating camera control, save points are too sparse and audio plays a big part in creating the game’s aesthetic tone (meaning that, on noisy public transport, headphones are essential rather than optional).

If The 3^rd Birthday had been made for the PS3 it would make perfect sense. And yet, despite its stubborn refusal to adapt itself to the confines of a handheld system, it’s still an enormously enjoyable game when you’ve got enough time to sink into it.

That enjoyment is largely the result of a robust, deep and (generally) satisfying set of core gameplay mechanics. Rather than have a permanent body of her own, protagonist Aya Brea ‘overdives’ between person to person, adopting their position on the battlefield, their health and their weapons.

The idea is that you stay one step ahead of your enemies (the distinctly alien looking and sounding ‘Twisted’) by strategically moving each of the available soldiers into positions that allow you to attack from multiple angles; thus preventing the enemy from being able to hurt the whole group with a single attack and enabling you to fire upon them from multiple directions. Position in a guy poorly and they’ll likely end up dead, giving you less options when overdiving and giving the enemy less to worry about.

Environments have clearly been designed around the system and will often feature elements that make success rather easy to achieve – getting a guy up on a raised platform while the rest provide a distraction at ground level, for example, makes short work of the slow, meandering ‘normal’ Twisted.

However, overdiving really comes into its own during many of the frequent boss battles. This usually involves taking on an enormous monstrosity much too tough to comfortably defeat via regular overdive-and-shoot tactics (although it is possible). Bosses usually come packaged with an Achilles heel of some sort that, by seeking it out, can make your life a lot easier.

One memorable example comes early on (about two hours in) whereby a giant boss has a weak point on the top of his back which is invisible from your lowly position on the ground in front of it. In order to get a shot at the weak point, you need to position a couple of guys in front of the beast as a distraction while you sneak around with another to a stairwell leading to a rooftop from which you can attack and destroy the big guy with comparative ease.

When The 3^rd Birthday moves away from this system it tends to struggle. Some boss fights take place in wide open spaces with no cover or strategic locations to take advantage of, meaning you’re continually running around, dodging attacks and overdiving between allies in a frantic attempt to avoid being hit. These moments only serve to highlight the PSP’s inadequacies when it comes to hosting a game of this ilk.

Camera control is assigned to the d-pad which makes it almost impossible to move Aya around while positioning the camera to keep an eye on your enemy’s position or attacks, which can lead to frustration when you find yourself wiped out at the hands of an unseen blade swipe or fireball-esque thing.

Areas tend to require you to dispatch all of the enemies and the pods that spawn them before allowing you to continue and repeat the process until you either reach the end of the mission or encounter a boss. Checkpointing is extremely generous (dying resulting in minor backtracking) but there are not enough hard save points. As a result, I found myself not wanting to load the game up if my battery wasn’t at a decent level of charge in fear of it dying on me, my progress being lost and having to redo the same section over again.

However, if you do happen to lose your progress there’s always a chance it’ll plonk you back at a location that means you get to sit through one of the gorgeous cut scenes again. These movie-moments are Square Enix at their practised best – beautifully rendered, competently acted and generous in length – providing a very tasty carrot-on-a-stick moment at the end of each mission (even though, like most Square Enix stories, I largely had no idea what was going on… something about monsters attacking Manhattan and going back in time to stop them and then blah blah blah).

If Dissidia 012 [duodecim] Final Fantasy is a fighter-RPG, then The 3^rd Birthday is surely a shooter-RPG. There’s a wealth of upgrades and levelling up to be done to Aya and her arsenal of firearms, ranging from health upgrades, to increased ammo capacity and improved attack strength. Combine that with the tactical edge to the combat and you’ve got one of gaming’s rarest treats – a third-person shooter with brains and one that refuses to limit itself to merely aiming and shooting.

The 3^rd Birthday has its problems due to that refusal to treat itself like a handheld title but, if you can put up with the small screen, it’s a wonderful game to play at home, with the PSP plugged in and your headphones on full blast.