YMMV / Parasite Eve 2

• Adorkable: Pierce is somewhat shy and awkward, and always unflinchingly friendly and helpful.
• Complete Monster: Number 9 is a psychopathic, sapient Golem designed by Neo Ark to keep AMNC subjects under control. Originally a human who personally requested to become a Golem, he paid the scientists to retain his human intelligence and memories after the transformation. Becoming a "Hunter" for Neo Ark, he leads an attack at the Arkopolis Tower that kills many people, sending in AMNC mimics to kill the SWAT team. He later attacks Aya Brea's partner, Rupert Broderick, in a church, escaping when Aya sees him. Attacking Aya on top of the tower, he sets off a series of explosions that destroy the tower and the people inside. Ordered to use the Pupa's powers to unleash a virus that would cause every human on Earth to turn into AMNCs, he sends Agent Kyle Madigan to lure Aya to the underground Neo Ark labs, where she frees the young Eve. Afterwards, he kidnaps Eve, threatening to kill her if Aya tries to stop him. Planning to use Eve's powers to awaken the Pupa from its cocoon and make it stronger, he orders Kyle to kill Aya.
• Contested Sequel: Being a massive departure from the original in almost every way means that quite a lot of people really hate this game. There's still debates between fans (both those who think it's better than the first, and those who just regard it as a pretty good sequel) and detractors that you can find. (though they tend to call a truce to rag on The 3rd Birthday sometimes). Most of the contention point stems from the poor camera angles and more ridiculously obscure puzzles.
• Demonic Spiders: The Golems due to their speed, hard hitting attacks, and high HP. Some of them can even cause Poison or Paralysis on you to boot and in certain areas, you fight more than one Golem at once. Nightmare Mode makes every encounter demonic spiders due to Aya's massively decreased HP and defense... many of those encounters having been switched out with more Golems.
• Fridge Brilliance: If you examine Bowman's bed several times, Aya will note that there are clumps of hair on the pillow and foul-smelling stains on the sheets. Hair loss and altered body odor are both common side effects of chemotherapy, which goes a long way towards explaining why Bowman was eager to volunteer for the experiment.
• Game-Breaker: Naturally, several of the weapons you get as rewards for New Game Plus qualify.
  • The Javelin underbarrel attachment ^note You can actually get this one in your first playthrough, but very late in the game. for the M4 assault rifle is a weapons-grade laser. It has good damage output, has a damage type that enemies have no resistance for, and holds an impressive 60 charges. And like all equipment running on batteries, you can charge it up for free at points where you can buy items.
  • The Hypervelocity gun shares all of the above advantages with the Javelin in a standalone weapon, along with being even more damaging and holding a whopping 100 charges.
  • The Gunblade is a shotgun with a huge blade attached to it. Shotguns already tend to be useful in the game, with the biggest downsides for ones you can get early being low ammo capacity and low rate of fire due to them being pump-action. The Gunblade avoids both, and striking enemies with the blade itself, while slow, has a decent range, high damage and also deals a damage type no enemy is resistant to. Finally, you can time firing the shotgun at the same moment the blade connects, which causes enormous damage in a single strike!
• Genius Bonus: If you actually know what "Neoteny" means, a bit more of what the cult is trying to do makes sense. Well, as much sense as the intentions of a cult usually make. Neoteny is a term referring to an "adult" lifeform, showing traits from a younger form (the classic example being the axolotl; a species of salamander which retains the fins and gills which most other species of salamander lose after growing out of their larval stage). So basically, the cult is trying to "revert" humanity into more primitive forms in order to "reboot" humanity's evolutionary process (somewhat ironic, given some researchers argue that a lot of the traits that set humans apart from other primates are neotenous).
• Good Bad Bugs: If you fire the Javelin and then immediately pause the game the damage formula for whatever ammo you have equipped is used instead of the normal Javelin formula. As it happens riffle rounds are the only ammo you can have equipped without hacking which is fine because the riffle rounds damage combined with the Javelin attack speed is enough to one shot anything that isn't a boss. Just make sure you don't run out of bullets or your attack will drop to 0.
• Minimalist Run: What you'll be doing to get the lowest rank possible for the unique Monk Robe armor for New Game Plus. Scavenge Mode also encourages this due to most of the good items either being harder to find or too expensive to buy.
• Narm:
  • A lot of the ANMCs have really goofy looking faces for such hideous monsters, possibly because they look somewhat human from the transformation.
  • The fat ANMCs and the aquatic ones make a silly "Ohh" noise when they are attacked or attack, respectively.
  • Many people also seem to agree that the horse-like sound the creature the young woman at the Akropolis café transforms into effectively ruins the scariness of the scene.
• Narm Charm: No. 9 has several lines which sound bizarrely out of place, but that ends up making him a more impressive and intimidating villain, as well as giving him a feeling of mental instability.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • The Stalkers are chameleon-like monsters with an Invisibility Cloak. Unlike other monsters in the game, they can't be seen if they are in a room. You will only know if they are there if you suddenly enter the battle screen to a very loud, unnatural screeching noise.
  • Knight and Bishop Golems are even worse. You don't detect them until they attack you, and they always land the first hit.
  • In-universe, the Stranger AMNCs can shift from their monstrous forms to a human form, which not only catches Aya completely by surprise but caught an unwary S.W.A.T team with their pants down, leading to their demise. Sadly, in-game this ability is rather under-utilized as any encounter in a particular screen would lock the player into a battle mode until the enemies are defeated.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Items can only be used in battle if you attached them to your armor slots. You can be screwed if you use up all your healing items on your attachments, despite having more in your item list. Likewise, the ability to swap guns or ammo types also requires you to have them slotted in your armor slots and that also leaves you less room to carry other items in battle.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: The nature of several New Game Plus modes. You don't get access to any of the unlocked weapons goodies, enemies are tougher, and resources are often limited.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Due to several major gameplay changes^note  tank controls with changing camera angles ala Resident Evil, no traditional JRPG elements like stats and leveling up, a much lower base HP stat, and no revival mechanic. , the game is considerably harder than the first game and it's very easy to die if you don't adapt to the controls and learn how to dodge attacks.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Squaresoft seems to have taken quite a bit more inspiration from Resident Evil for this one, resulting in Aya investigating a seemingly abandoned area where an outbreak of man-made monsters is occurring, eventually leading her to a secret underground base run by a powerful group with a lot of money and No OSHA Compliance. Also, Solve the Soup Cans puzzles and tank controls.
  • Once you get into the lategame, certain plot points are oddly similar to Neon Genesis Evangelion of all things, particularly the hibernating but massively powerful ANMC that will evolve humanity on a global scale when awoken. It's also Powered by a Forsaken Child who has to wear a special suit and is explicitly referred to as its pilot.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In the eyes of many fans, Squaresoft tried to make it like Resident Evil a little too much, ditching too many of the RPG elements to make a game that was a derivative clone of Capcom's survival horror flagship.
• Tear Jerker: If you take too long in the fight against the Burner boss, Mr. Douglas' dog Flint dies. It was your fault, because you took too long killing that thing.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Most of the ANMCs in the game are animals with vaguely human-like characteristics. 'Strangers' are Ostrich/Dinosaur-like things that can mimic corpses and 'Chasers' are basically camels with horrifying, polygonal human faces. Their subspecies 'Mad Chasers' fall on their backs and start laughing when Aya attacks them.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The sheer amount of attention to detail found throughout each level design of the game is stunning, and just like the previous game, the beautiful graphics still hold up today.