Paradise Killer is, well, fucking weird, but also it’s a first-person detective game. I’d explain the setting… but it’s all gibberish to me, I didn’t understand the universe like at all. However, you play as a woman named Lady Love Dies, yes that’s her name, yes it’s weird, no she’s not unique, let me list a few other characters names Witness to the End, Akiko 14, One Last Kiss, Crimson Acid… like their names are super fucking weird, but anyways. She’s a detective, the only one for the island called Paradise, or islands as it is. Fuck let me see if I can get some semblance of an understanding of the universe, this is going to be super basic because the game is gibberish with all the information. Paradise is created by the syndicate who are people who talk to the world’s Gods… you are part of it but you’ve been put in isolation for over eight thousand years, because you accidentally helped a bad person because false information was planted. All of the syndicate members are effectively unable to age, but none of you are immortal because you can be killed. A new Paradise island is created anytime demons find their way onto the island, the old one is destroyed after everyone moves to the new island. The game is started at the end of Paradise 24. All the civilians, I assume they’re standard run of the mill humans, are killed and their souls are moved into the next island Paradise 25 which might finally be the perfect one. Well all that’s left is for certain syndicate members to move over the Paradise 25, not sure how they do it. Regardless, the council, the members that rule over the syndicate, die in a locked room which is why you are pulled out of isolation. There you go, that’s the most sense I can make of everything for you, again gibberish as hell.
During the game you can talk to the few people that are left and ask them about things. While talking to them you get choices which tend to be how you want to talk to them which, I assume, can lock you out of information providing you piss people off. You also go around the island finding other cases that correlate to the current murder case and looking for physical evidence. You’re kind of aided, ironically, by a demon named Shinji, holy shit one of the few characters with a normal name. He’s hidden blood crystals around the island which are used to buy things in-universe. When you fine them you can unlock fast travel points, get collectables, or even buy things like information. After you’ve gone around and obtained all the information you could find, you go to trials for the end-game. In the Trials you put forward evidence to make your point on each case, however, you can find information that was planted, you can choose the wrong person and have them put as the criminal. The game overall sounds like there’s not a lot to do, but getting information from people then exploring and finding things to get more information out of people takes a fairly substantial amount of time, hours and hours of time.
I like collecting things so I was good at part of this, however separating truth, fact, and fiction which are all completely separate things was… well let’s just say I’m not good at that apparently. The environment is fully 3D, you can jump off buildings and survive cause you’re like a demi-god, which is cool. The island and all the stuff on it is fairly pretty, it’s all bright and colorful with lots of greens, purples, pinks, blues, and tans. Characters in the environment are really weird though, and it threw me off and was really jarring for the longest time. They’re all 2D in this 3D world, they are straight up 2D. Like you can step to their side, and you can see they’re 2D, it’s so weird. When you talk to them it brings up character portraits for you and the character you’re talking to. The character portraits are really well done and very pretty plus the cast is made up of people from all over the place who all look really eccentric, from Sam Daybreak who’s a red skeleton wearing a jacket and pants if I’m remembering right, to Witness and One Last Kiss who both look like they’re celebrating the day of the dead, to Camellia who looks like a really bad fashion designer. Everyone is very unique looking. The voice acting is okay though, it’s good but the voice actors only did a handful of lines that are recycled constantly which is a shame.
I have to say, I really fought with my PC to get this to run, and it never did run well even though my specs were better than required, my driver is out of date or something and the GPU company was not helpful in the slightest, which doesn’t shock me. But I fought with it, BECAUSE the game was really enjoyable, even if I had to sit through a lot of parts three or more times. I can’t wait til I have a new PC, you have no idea. But that’s how much I enjoyed this game which honestly made next to no sense to me. So yeah, overall I totally think it’s worth playing this gibberish mess of a game. It’s really fun even if the game itself is super hard to explain or fully grasp. Like I’m an investigator, that makes sense, I’m looking for clues, that makes sense, nothing else does, the entire world of this game is nonsense to me but it was still so fucking cool. So if you like psychedelic weird shit, you’ll totally love this game. But there is one thing to keep in mind, this isn’t for kids, it’s fairly serious and people get angry and say some vulgar shit.
Paradise Killer was developed by Kaizen Game Works.
Point of Sale: Steam and Switch.
$20 for both
A review copy of the game was provided by the publisher, Fellow Traveller.
darkmikasonfire gives Paradise Killer the “What the Fuck?” award (I just made that up) and the Indie Gamer Team Seal of Approval.
Indie Gamer Team 