open world detective visual novel that somehow pulls that genre combination off for the most part, has really unique aesthetics and some of the wildest worldbuilding in any detective game. The ending feels a little hollow but I believe that was the point
I'm of two minds about this game. I love what it's going for and I think on many levels it succeeds. The art, music and writing are all. well. killer. The investigation culminates in a satisfying courtroom sequence where the puzzle isn't just a matter of presenting all the evidence you've found, but about playing the characters off each other to cajole them into further confessions, which I do think works really well and ends the game on a mostly high note.
Unfortunately, the game design leading up to this finale drew out some of my worst instincts as a player. I started out in a random direction and ended up missing the two key movement upgrades for several hours, instead finding the upgrade that lets you track the location of every single collectible on the island. This activated my completionist lizard brain, turning what I assume was intended as an endgame quality of life feature for grabbing anything you missed into the engine for hours of really terrible first-person platforming (because I'd missed the movement upgrades). Even after finding those with the help of a guide, though, the collectibles packed densely onto the sides of the apartment buildings were absolutely miserable to collect, because of how easy it is to just bounce off the side of the building and be forced clumsily up the concrete staircases again.
"You could have just ignored the collectibles," you're saying. Well no I couldn't have, due to the lizard brain reasons outlined above, but also because, fundamentally, this game is actually a collectathon. The gameplay loop consists mostly of collecting currency to spend on fast travel points and information, sending you in circles to present different pieces of evidence to different characters and increasing your relationship with each one as you go. The relationship mechanic is completely linear, which is a source of humour as you can have conversations with people who are rude to you and dislike you, but each time you talk to them your relationship will increase. Eventually you'll get an achievement for maxing out the relationship and say "huh! yeah I guess going from outright rude to civilly cool IS the maximum relationship i can have with this person" which I just think is fun. There are also characters who like/trust you to a certain extent, with a couple culminating in more traditional S-ranks (or F-ranks if you know what I mean).
Actually, an aside. This game wants to be horny but it isn't. The character art shows lots of skin, but any sexiness is perfunctory. You do get to fuck two characters but there's no eros in the writing and the sex happens offscreen. This is fine, as the characters are in a stressful situation and just need to let off some steam, but don't go in expecting an erotic experience. Also, despite the kind of... I don't know. Bisexual vibes? Of the game? Every other pairing portrayed or mentioned between characters is straight. Anyway I'm glad LDD got some. Was kind of disappointed there was nothing with the happy couple, I think they could have had a good time.
What was I talking about? The writing in this game is pretty solid. It's fun to explore a world where the characters are transhuman immortals and have an incomprehensibly cruel sense of morality but still suck in normal human ways. My roommate mentioned there was discourse about this game which doesn't surprise me as it is about living and working in an unspeakably evil system, and doesn't offer an option to reject that system outright, besides turning the game off. It was also really interesting how the vapourwave aesthetic had hints of traditional orientalism in peppering Japanese into the dialogue, but was actually far more interested in plundering Babylonian imagery, which has clearly been an underexploited resource in the genre.
Overall I'm glad I played this game, but wish I hadn't felt coerced by the game design into spending twice as long as necessary achieving a platinum trophy. I didn't realize I was in for a small open world map to clear of icons, and wish it had advertised itself as such, or made traversal itself much more satisfying. That being said, I played a library copy on PS4 and may very well buy a steam copy on sale at some point to support the developers, and clear it all over again knowing what I'm in for. I'm just a slut for podcast games.
Unfortunately, the game design leading up to this finale drew out some of my worst instincts as a player. I started out in a random direction and ended up missing the two key movement upgrades for several hours, instead finding the upgrade that lets you track the location of every single collectible on the island. This activated my completionist lizard brain, turning what I assume was intended as an endgame quality of life feature for grabbing anything you missed into the engine for hours of really terrible first-person platforming (because I'd missed the movement upgrades). Even after finding those with the help of a guide, though, the collectibles packed densely onto the sides of the apartment buildings were absolutely miserable to collect, because of how easy it is to just bounce off the side of the building and be forced clumsily up the concrete staircases again.
"You could have just ignored the collectibles," you're saying. Well no I couldn't have, due to the lizard brain reasons outlined above, but also because, fundamentally, this game is actually a collectathon. The gameplay loop consists mostly of collecting currency to spend on fast travel points and information, sending you in circles to present different pieces of evidence to different characters and increasing your relationship with each one as you go. The relationship mechanic is completely linear, which is a source of humour as you can have conversations with people who are rude to you and dislike you, but each time you talk to them your relationship will increase. Eventually you'll get an achievement for maxing out the relationship and say "huh! yeah I guess going from outright rude to civilly cool IS the maximum relationship i can have with this person" which I just think is fun. There are also characters who like/trust you to a certain extent, with a couple culminating in more traditional S-ranks (or F-ranks if you know what I mean).
Actually, an aside. This game wants to be horny but it isn't. The character art shows lots of skin, but any sexiness is perfunctory. You do get to fuck two characters but there's no eros in the writing and the sex happens offscreen. This is fine, as the characters are in a stressful situation and just need to let off some steam, but don't go in expecting an erotic experience. Also, despite the kind of... I don't know. Bisexual vibes? Of the game? Every other pairing portrayed or mentioned between characters is straight. Anyway I'm glad LDD got some. Was kind of disappointed there was nothing with the happy couple, I think they could have had a good time.
What was I talking about? The writing in this game is pretty solid. It's fun to explore a world where the characters are transhuman immortals and have an incomprehensibly cruel sense of morality but still suck in normal human ways. My roommate mentioned there was discourse about this game which doesn't surprise me as it is about living and working in an unspeakably evil system, and doesn't offer an option to reject that system outright, besides turning the game off. It was also really interesting how the vapourwave aesthetic had hints of traditional orientalism in peppering Japanese into the dialogue, but was actually far more interested in plundering Babylonian imagery, which has clearly been an underexploited resource in the genre.
Overall I'm glad I played this game, but wish I hadn't felt coerced by the game design into spending twice as long as necessary achieving a platinum trophy. I didn't realize I was in for a small open world map to clear of icons, and wish it had advertised itself as such, or made traversal itself much more satisfying. That being said, I played a library copy on PS4 and may very well buy a steam copy on sale at some point to support the developers, and clear it all over again knowing what I'm in for. I'm just a slut for podcast games.
It's a real shame to say but I think this game is too well made for me to enjoy it properly 😔
That may sound off, but my score is personal to my experience and my enjoyment, which unfortunately both grew more strained the longer I played for. To be clear off the bat, this game being a fully explorable map was not something I expected at all, especially not anything so big and complete, it's wild really. That aside though, the investigating areas and interrogating characters is exactly what I wanted, and there's a lot of that which was perfect... Until there was a little too much of it.
It feels strange to say, but without spoiling anything there is so, so much more to this mystery than it first appears. I was 9 hours in and suddenly meeting new characters for the first time uncovering huge new parts of the story that I hadn't even considered to that point. To preface, this is largely because of how *I* played, and I'm sure most people would've found this much earlier than I did, but therein lies most of where this game feel short for me to be honest.
Paradise Killer is so unbelievably open that you're quite literally just sent out onto the island. The nature of investigating means you're constantly finding new clues, hearing testimonies from people and then checking out their stories to see if they hold up. Which in a single game mechanic, translates to backtracking. You will speak to the same people so many times throughout the game that just travelling across the map to get to them becomes a chore. You'll retrace the same paths so many times it may take you 9 hours to realise that there's a whole other area you've never been to because you were planning on exploring it after you'd expended all the clues to be found in this location first 😅
To further this issue, at least for someone as directionally challenged as myself, the map simply isn't very helpful. Some locations require specific routes to be reached and even by the end of the game there were places I'd been to a dozen times and could still only access by climbing up somewhere nearby and jumping down to it from above. And to make this problem sting just that bit more, the fast travel system costs in-game currency (crystals you find around the map) to both unlock each travel station and then costs again every single time you use it. So lazily skipping to that one guy who's miles away from everyone else and then doing it again to come back costs 2 crystals. Which are also used for other things on the island, and are in finite supply, so by the end i'd run out and was forced to run the entire length of the island multiple times bouncing between suspects and key locations 😭
Anyway I've rambled more than I wanted to already, I don't mean to knock this game per se but a couple of frustrating design choices paired with too much freedom for my personal liking made for an almost too realistic Investigative experience. I'm a big fan of a lot of what the game has and does, but the case files grew too great for me to keep up with and constantly running back and forth and getting lost just made it feel like a chore to get through by the end, sadly.
If the idea of investigating this way appeals to you by all means please go play and love it, just know in advance that you have total agency over the order you do things which can very easily bite you when you decide to speak to A before B only to learn that B gives you a new question for A :p
Didn't expect this to be my next review but just wanted to share those thoughts I s'pose. Two things I can't criticise at all for this game are the art style and the music, my god is the island a vibe to be on when you first start😌
That'll do it, thanks for reading y'all. I'm working through Elden Ring at the minute (it's great, I suck! :D) so my next completions will likely be smaller games I've picked up on steam recently. Getting pretty eager for Apollo Justice though so anticipate a potential review for that maybe.
Take it easy🙏
Some quick micro-reviews for anyone interested in stuff I haven't talked about--
- FF13 was fantastic, really loved the setting, story and characters. Combat was fun but the level design could've been more interesting.
- Knowledge or Know Lady was dumb as hell, had a lot of fun with that.
- Max Payne 3 is unquestionably a Rockstar game pretending to be Max Payne but the gunplay is unreal so its hard to care. Also I started listening to Health so that's neat.
- The World Ends With You was great too, really enjoyed the narrative and characters in that, looking forward to trying NEO and hopeful that the controls will be less awkward.
That may sound off, but my score is personal to my experience and my enjoyment, which unfortunately both grew more strained the longer I played for. To be clear off the bat, this game being a fully explorable map was not something I expected at all, especially not anything so big and complete, it's wild really. That aside though, the investigating areas and interrogating characters is exactly what I wanted, and there's a lot of that which was perfect... Until there was a little too much of it.
It feels strange to say, but without spoiling anything there is so, so much more to this mystery than it first appears. I was 9 hours in and suddenly meeting new characters for the first time uncovering huge new parts of the story that I hadn't even considered to that point. To preface, this is largely because of how *I* played, and I'm sure most people would've found this much earlier than I did, but therein lies most of where this game feel short for me to be honest.
Paradise Killer is so unbelievably open that you're quite literally just sent out onto the island. The nature of investigating means you're constantly finding new clues, hearing testimonies from people and then checking out their stories to see if they hold up. Which in a single game mechanic, translates to backtracking. You will speak to the same people so many times throughout the game that just travelling across the map to get to them becomes a chore. You'll retrace the same paths so many times it may take you 9 hours to realise that there's a whole other area you've never been to because you were planning on exploring it after you'd expended all the clues to be found in this location first 😅
To further this issue, at least for someone as directionally challenged as myself, the map simply isn't very helpful. Some locations require specific routes to be reached and even by the end of the game there were places I'd been to a dozen times and could still only access by climbing up somewhere nearby and jumping down to it from above. And to make this problem sting just that bit more, the fast travel system costs in-game currency (crystals you find around the map) to both unlock each travel station and then costs again every single time you use it. So lazily skipping to that one guy who's miles away from everyone else and then doing it again to come back costs 2 crystals. Which are also used for other things on the island, and are in finite supply, so by the end i'd run out and was forced to run the entire length of the island multiple times bouncing between suspects and key locations 😭
Anyway I've rambled more than I wanted to already, I don't mean to knock this game per se but a couple of frustrating design choices paired with too much freedom for my personal liking made for an almost too realistic Investigative experience. I'm a big fan of a lot of what the game has and does, but the case files grew too great for me to keep up with and constantly running back and forth and getting lost just made it feel like a chore to get through by the end, sadly.
If the idea of investigating this way appeals to you by all means please go play and love it, just know in advance that you have total agency over the order you do things which can very easily bite you when you decide to speak to A before B only to learn that B gives you a new question for A :p
Didn't expect this to be my next review but just wanted to share those thoughts I s'pose. Two things I can't criticise at all for this game are the art style and the music, my god is the island a vibe to be on when you first start😌
That'll do it, thanks for reading y'all. I'm working through Elden Ring at the minute (it's great, I suck! :D) so my next completions will likely be smaller games I've picked up on steam recently. Getting pretty eager for Apollo Justice though so anticipate a potential review for that maybe.
Take it easy🙏
Some quick micro-reviews for anyone interested in stuff I haven't talked about--
- FF13 was fantastic, really loved the setting, story and characters. Combat was fun but the level design could've been more interesting.
- Knowledge or Know Lady was dumb as hell, had a lot of fun with that.
- Max Payne 3 is unquestionably a Rockstar game pretending to be Max Payne but the gunplay is unreal so its hard to care. Also I started listening to Health so that's neat.
- The World Ends With You was great too, really enjoyed the narrative and characters in that, looking forward to trying NEO and hopeful that the controls will be less awkward.
As someone who loves synthwave and city pop, this is pretty much perfect. Imaginative premise and relaxing gameplay too.
One of the best-realised detective fantasies ever made, gorgeously presented with a very good cast of characters and an excellently conceived central mystery. It's not a perfect game, but these things aren't flaws! They're, uh, idiosyncrasies. It is almost aggressively quirky in a way that works for me about as often as it doesn't, and I think quite a few members of the cast are one-note, but it's a pleasant note so it works. Soundtrack also bangs, and the main theme is particularly wonderful.