I remember playing the Squaresoft RPG Parasite Eve and enjoying it despite how silly the mitochondria-oriented premise seemed. It would be amusing if it turns out that mitochondria are indeed hugely powerful in determining human outcomes.
the 97 movie version of the novel 'Parasite Eve' had tons of fire, too. Pyrokinesis was a major thing in the movie (and in the game); maybe the game wanted to portray a similar visual continuity to the movie?
The New York setting of the game was a lot more interesting than the back-woods Japan 'BioLab' style setting of the movie.