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The first Parasite Eve featured enemies that were, believe it or not, killer mitochondria. Parasite Eve II takes this completely ridiculous premise to new heights and surprisingly, it makes sense.
Aya Brea, the superheroine of this popular series, has decided to leave her New York Police Department job to go to Los Angeles and become an FBI agent. Once again, however, those pesky microscopic mitochondria have decided to ruin her fun and have mutated into bloodthirsty undead beasts to kill Aya for no reason whatsoever.
Rather than following the original Parasite Eve's dark and scary plot, PE2 has decided to go towards a "psychopathical thriller" motif, and it pays off. The question of trust is brought up a lot, as characters who were once your friends are actually bloodthirsty undead mitochondria devoted to ending your life simply because they can.
The tension in the game is heightened at every turn as the player's adrenaline pumps and the action never stops. Ambient music will scare the crap out of you as it gets progressively louder and creepier when an enemy's footsteps are heard nearby. The lack of humanity in the game furthers the tension even more when you run around in a dark mansion alone with only the protection of your trusty gun.
Speaking of guns, the fighting system in PE2 has improved greatly on its predecessor. In the original Parasite Eve, Aya could only fire her gun after her "action meter" filled up, but the sequel allows Aya to fire at will while still keeping the original game's thought-inducing strategy intact. The strategic battles of PE2 are smoother than a bowel movement, and the action never stops for a pause.
However, the new Resident Evil-style controls are nothing less than frustrating, and one begins to wonder why Square would bastardize the control scheme when it was originally fine to begin with in the original game. Gamers who have experienced the "car control" setup of the Resident Evil and Tomb Raider games will understand the extreme annoyance in having to stop your character, hold the left or right direction to turn, and then press up to move forward. This frustratingly irritating scheme becomes even more tiresome during battles, which require fast-action to move Aya around in her surroundings. Due to the control scheme, however, it's nearly impossible to move Aya around in time before the enemies get a piece of her, thereby turning battles into an "I'm standing still and shooting at everything I see" affair. The finger of shame is pointed at Square for making controls harder than they were in the previous game. What was so wrong with the original controls anyway?
Despite Parasite Eve II's noticable design change to a more "Resident Evil-type" game, there is still enough originality and brilliance in this game to kill off any criticism about its derivitive nature. Besides, there's a nude shower scene, and any game that features one of those is guaranteed to soooo totally reek of awesomeness.