Tetsuya Nomura on Aya Brea's Birth

Aya is not the only character who returns from Parasite Eve. Shown here, Kyle.

In a recent interview with Famitsu, Aya Brea creator Tetsuya Nomura shared some secrets about how The 3rd Birthday lead came to be.

Aya, of course, originates from a PlayStation adventure game called Parasite Eve. The 3rd Birthday is a rebirth of the Parasite Eve series.

Recalls Nomura, PE1's character design was originally being handled by a different staff member, but the illustration that was produced was apparently different from the image Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi had in mind. Sakaguchi spoke to Nomura and requested a character with long hair like Final Fantasy VII's Aerith. At the time, Nomura was also in talks about a separate character's design, this one featuring a short cut. Nomura got confused and ended up combining the two character designs, resulting in Aya's current hair length.

Nomura later heard that Sakaguchi was actually interested in Aya having ponytails.

For Parasite Eve II, a separate staffer began heading up work, using the Aya from Parasite Eve 1 as a base. However, this staffer quit midway through development, and Nomura was once again asked to take over. They'd already made in-game models, so Nomura made sure to preserve that image while adding his own taste.

It's pretty clear that Nomura has some strong ties to Aya Brea and the Parasite Eve series, so it shouldn't be a surprise that Nomura is the one who got the 3rd Birthday project started. There were multiple ideas floating around at Square Enix for a Parasite Eve 3 from people other than Nomura, but because he took part in the first two games as a "pinch hitter," he viewed these from a removed stance. None of these ideas made it all the way through, and at a certain point people stopped talking about an Aya Brea revival. That's when Nomura offered the idea of a new series featuring Aya.

A few of The 3rd Birthday's costumes. Nomura did not design the costumes.

This Famitsu interview is the same one where Tetsuya Nomura discussed a direction he'd like to take in the event of a sequel. For details on that, read this story.