Players explore levels set in areas of New York while utilizing a pausable real-time combat system along with several role-playing elements.

Music for the title was composed by Yoko Shimomura who was widely acclaimed for her work to create an "inorganic" and "emotionless" soundtrack that saw two album releases.

Parasite Eve received positive reviews; critics praised the graphics and gameplay, but found the overall game too linear and with little replay potential.

The original title was followed by two video game sequels: Parasite Eve II in 1999 and The 3rd Birthday in 2010, and was re-released on the PlayStation Network in 2010.

[3] Contemporary reviews from GameSpot and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine described the game as a hybrid of Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil.

[4] When not in battle, the player has the option of altering the weapon and armor attributes and effects with tools and super-tools, which are limited in number.

[10] Weapons have many different properties, including special effects like "acid", which causes enemies to continuously take damage.

[17] However, the biggest difference from the normal game is the addition of the Chrysler Building, a new location with 77 floors (containing mostly randomized content), leading to a final boss battle with Aya's older sister, Maya.

[8] The player takes on the role of Aya Brea, an NYPD rookie,[19] attending an opera at Carnegie Hall with a blind date in New York City on December 24th, 1997.

During the opera, everyone in the building spontaneously combusts, except for Aya, her date, and an actress on stage named Melissa Pearce.

[20] The next day, on December 25th, Aya and her partner, Daniel Dollis, go to see a scientist at the Museum of Natural History named Dr. Hans Klamp.

While Manhattan is being evacuated, a Japanese scientist named Kunihiko Maeda manages to sneak into the city, witnessing a police officer combust into flames in the process.

The next day, Aya sees the orange mass of people from the park enter the city water supply.

Aya finds Eve in another part of the museum, where the orange mass has surrounded her, forming an impermeable shield to protect her while the Ultimate Being gestates within her.

The plan works, but Aya has to personally finish the fight on a now-wrecked Statue of Liberty, where Eve finally succumbs to necrosis due to her unstable cells.

Plot-wise, the video game serves as a sequel to the book, referencing various events therein while also stating that Mariko Anzai, the girl whom Eve had chosen to become her host in the novel, is Aya's biological mother.

[28] In contrast to previous Square titles, the development team for Parasite Eve consisted of both Japanese and American staff members, with a large part of the production taking place in the United States.

[30] Book author Hideaki Sena did not know the title's plot until it was completed, since the game was a collaboration between Square and his publisher.

[43] Yoko Shimomura would later become a well-established video game composer through her work on the Kingdom Hearts series.

[46] Despite her previous work as lead composer on Super Mario RPG, Parasite Eve became her breakout project and garnered her international fame.

[48] Until Parasite Eve, Shimomura had written music in a straightforward manner that reflected her then-current state of mind, but this time she restrained herself and took a more "emotionless" approach.

[45] "Somnia Memorias" was sung by Shani Rigsbee, while the vocals for the orchestrated versions of "Influence of Deep" and "Se il Mio Amore Sta Vincino" were provided by Judith Siirila.

The track "I Hear a Voice Asking Me to Awaken" was an arrangement of Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140 by Johann Sebastian Bach.

[51] Later, due to popular demand from fans, a reprint was issued through the Square Enix label on January 26, 2011 under the catalog number SQEX-10222/3.

Multiple DJs also contributed, including Tomo, QUADRA, Dan K, Tribal Masters, Kay Nakayama, and Dummy Run.

[55] Reviews of the album were mixed, with critics saying that it would not appeal to many and finding some of the remixes odd, repetitive or overly chaotic.

[56][57] According to Weekly Famitsu, 956,461 units of Parasite Eve were sold in Japan during the first half of 1998, which made it the country's third-best-selling game for the period.

[4] The lack of any voice acting or singing, however, hindered dramatic scenes such as the opera and subsequent mass combustion of the entire audience at the game's start.

[7][4] The game was sometimes compared to the Resident Evil series, though GamePro said that Parasite Eve had deeper gameplay with multiple weapon upgrades and hidden areas to discover.

[12][13] The combat was compared unfavorably to Final Fantasy VII by Game Revolution, which featured a dynamic camera instead of fixed one.