Paradise Killer released on PC and Switch, has been met with rave reviews, as well as critical applause that rarely comes to hybrid video games with elements of murder-mystery visual novels and walking simulators.
Paradise Killer appeared out of thin air to many players, as do many indie developed games with smaller marketing budgets. Yet Paradise Killer has been turning heads with it's absolutely ludicrously bonkers murder-mystery, involving demons, gods, immortal cults, ritual sacrifice and scandalous adultery. (Reviewed on PC)
LIGHT SPOILERS of opening story follows:
The game is set on an idyllic paradise island on which 'The Syndicate', a human kidnapping immortal cult, attempt to create the perfect island to enable their cosmic gods to reside in pyramids on the outskirts of the island. This is so the syndicate residents and their human abductees, can live safely protected from the mysterious demons which plague cosmic deep space and have caused chaos on every island so far. Not disappointing on the promise of an absolutely bonkers premise so far...... right?
As the end of 'Island 24's' life cycle is but a day away, all the human abductees have been sacrificed per the mandate for the end of each Island's life cycle.
The 24th Island experiences a shock, as the leaders of the Syndicate are murdered and every remaining soul on the island is a suspect. These 11 remaining souls are the last of the Syndicate members that have not yet gone to the new island... plus one remaining human citizen.
The player controls Lady Love Dies, the Syndicate investigator, who had been cast into exile over 8000 years before. Many island cycles have passed since she was left in a luxurious prison looking out and observing each island cycle.
She is called back into service to investigate the murder of the Syndicate's council.
The Syndicate Judge and Lady Love Dies, are the only two souls on the island that couldn't have had any hand in the gruesome murders.
END OF SPOILERS
Lady Love Dies is assisted by her trusty Starlight OS laptop to keep track of clues, leads and suspects, as well as keeping her up to date while interrogating suspects.
Throughout the game the player can explore the entirety of Island 24, apart from some locked areas behind hack-able terminals. The moment the game starts its up to the player to uncover the whole mystery.
At any point, the player can begin the trials. Of course starting the trial the second the game starts, things aren't going to go well with zero evidence.
The average play time is about 20 hours to uncover the whole mystery, but this depends on how out 'of the box' you think when it comes to looking for clues.
Many crucial clues I stumbled upon came from multiple poorly timed jumps, having me fall in unexpected locations. These falls lead to many a hidden clues, in places you would never normally look.
As with many other games, there are collectibles to discover and currency that can help in a variety of ways. Currency can be for buying secrets from a broker or using foot baths to acquire crucial abilities.
Acquiring new abilities is something I did not realise until three quarters of the way through the game, as nothing is told to the player, nor does it ever hold your hand. This total lack of hand-holding really makes the investigation all the more tempting.
All though the story, characters and the overall mystery are fascinating, yet Paradise Killer's charm lies in its visuals and soundtrack which really do a LOT of the heavy lifting.
The map is brilliantly designed and has zero annoying invisible walls. Even climbing visually un-climable cliffs, is necessary to discover clues.
The visuals have a 'vaporwave' LSD-trip-type inspiration and the whole island is an absolute treat to the eyes. The artwork, from characters to the incredibly well rendered ocean, washing up onto a palm tree golden beach, makes looking for annoyingly off the beaten path hidden clues not too painful to search for.
The characters while flashy and interesting, all suffer from the same problem. The problem being that they are totally one dimensional and no, I don't mean the cardboard cut outs that you select to interact with the characters.
After a first conversation with any of the characters, you instantly get a good idea of what kind of person they are. The fault lies in how much they stick to one character trope throughout, which makes solving the mystery (while not having the evidence) quite simple through judge of character.
Characters are all so vastly different in design and just from visual presentation alone, give a good indication of their personality.
Of course judge of character doesn't hold in up in a court of law, yet within the first hour those with a minimally investigative mind will have little trouble guessing which one of the characters definitely had something to do with the crime. In fact, more and more circumstantial evidence stacked up, as my suspicions were confirmed at multiple points in the game. This left me very unsatisfied, since gathering the evidence to prove the case, felt more like a grind than an investigation.
The main negative issue is that; when you gather damning evidence against a suspect and you show it to them, one would expect a reaction, or a new piece of crucial evidence, but no, you are merely greeted by a short sentence along the lines of "F**k off LD" or "I'll kill you". That is a pretty damning response to give to an investigator with evidence shoved in your face.
Luckily this problem is resolved in the trial, as all that juicy evidence gathered by running back and forth, over and over finally paid off and boy does it do it well. All the doubt I had about the game and whether I was actually enjoying it, or just playing to see the outcome melted away, as the whole spider web came together, like the perfect harmony of an orchestra.
The trials can be started at any point even right at the beginning with no evidence, but doing the time to collect the evidence provides such a performance that any less is not worth it.
The trial is the tour-de-force of the whole game. All the exploration, constant running back and forth as well as obvious personal judgement of characters finally pays off. To speak about it further would spoil the fun of the entire game.
Paradise Killer is an absolutely exceptional game and an even more exceptional story that feels like an extremely slow burn. This slow burn turns into a raging fire, which delivers on every ridiculous accusation and piece of evidence the game present's to you.
The game blows expectations out the water in the last 30 minutes from a roughly 11-hour play through. Paradise Killer is one game I won't easily forget for many, many years. Not only due to the game itself, but the absolutely bombastic package, the music, the environment and most importantly, the totally larger than life characters.
This game is a must play for any player looking for a game a little out of the norm to take a bet on.
Paradise Killer is available now on PC and Switch