Paradise Killer

I have mixed feelings, but after giving it some thought, I’ve decided to leave a positive review.
In my opinion, based on my personal preferences in games, Paradise Killer’s most interesting features are:
1. The Vaporwave Aesthetic: it effortlessly delivers on its vaporwave vibes, with bright colors, ’80s tunes, and retro-inspired mechanics that create an unmistakable atmosphere from the start.
2. Worldbuilding: visually, the island is packed with detail; from the gods and inhabitants to the lore you uncover as you explore. It’s a stunning setting, and I hope we’ll see more of it in future games (sequels, perhaps?).
3. The Plot: Convoluted, yes, but captivating. Unraveling who was lying, who wasn’t, and why everyone seemed guilty yet didn't... It was gripping enough that I kept playing for hours on end, moving costantly to the same places to unconver the intrigue.
Which brings us to the negatives…
Personally, I’m not a fan of open worlds. And despite all its style, details and secrets, the physical world of Paradise Killer can feel... sparse in some places. ...
And of course, these sparse areas are precisely where you’ll find yourself running again and again and again, from point A to point B, to reach who you are looking for.
Not the best design choice, especially with side quests being almost nonexistent.
Also, when you unlock a new line of dialogue from a character a question mark appears over their head, so you reach them to find out... that the dialogue is literally 'I don't know'... :,)
That said, I really enjoyed it and would love to see our Lady Love Dies return! (All those names dropped in the gamehave to be more than just passing lore)
Rating: 8-/10

I'm giving it a thumbs up but psa to everyone who gets motion sick easily,, this game will test you. I sadly cannot physically finish it

Dense, well written, and just straight up weird. For the first hour I had no clue what was going on setting wise. By the end of the game I decided that it's one of the most interesting worlds I've ever played in. My advice: look everywhere, interact with everything, collect as much as you can, push every conversation as far as possible. You'll be surprised by how much a dying world can have in it, how many stories you're told, and how absolutely deranged some of these clues' hiding places are.
The lite platforming can be frustrating sometimes. The map is complicated and hard to navigate. Talking to some of these people feels like being put in a saw trap. If you can learn to enjoy the friction, take it as intentional, everything starts making sense. Looking forward to more from this team in whatever form it takes.

I rarely post reviews, but I thought I would make an exception for this game because I truly believe that it is something special. It has one of the most distinctive atmospheres I have ever seen in a game. The way the bright visuals blend with the incredible soundtrack and bizarre lore and characters gives a feeling all its own. I really enjoyed the story. It has a pleasing number of twists and it was very fun to piece together. I really like how the mythology and culture of the world intertwines with the mystery. The game doesn’t give you much in the way of exposition initially and expects you to piece things together about its world by way of dialogue and exploration. I personally find this very rewarding in a game.
The gameplay is nothing particularly special. It’s basically a collectithon mixed with an ace attorney style investigation. The platforming controls are not the best and some puzzles are repetitive, but I honestly felt like these imperfections added to the charm. It really feels like a game a small team dumped their heart and soul into. I don’t think this game is for everyone, but I would strongly recommend it if you are the kind of person who really enjoys strong atmosphere or a good mystery and don’t mind some rough edges

Heeeesitant recommend. If you go for it, do so on sale.
Psychedelic vaporwave walking simulator with good tunes, vibing and collectibles first, investigation second. I completed almost everything, didn't bother getting every collectible. Reason why I got most of them, is explained in negatives.
+ Pretty uniquely themed
+ Looks good
+ Rather good music (saves the game)
+ Funny, at times
+ Lore building, while in a nonsensical setting, is consistent
* The only minigame is passable, nothing crazy bad/good
* Investigation struck me as amateurish/nonsensical, which partly makes sense considering the theming, but in the end it did not deliver for me personally
- More or less entire game is combo of fetch quest or walking around collecting items, with occasional dialogue
- Movement upgrades exist, but are hidden in the world and there's no tell where, I missed one of them untill I looked it up after beating the game. On the plus side, you don't need them to achieve an ending at least. They also trivialize certain things like locked gates in some places, since you can skip the "puzzle" of finding the button to press to open it
- Permanently missable items (though I THINK they don't mess with the endings)
- Weird design choices at times, where player's time gets wasted for the sake of being "artsy", example being...
- ...fast travel costs non-renewable resource, if you spend too much you might not be able to get stuff you care about. At least it's unlikely this will happen, I believe you can fast travel about 50-ish times total before getting punished. Not that you'd have a way of knowing that
- Very unclear, I believe deliberately, what gives clues/progress, it could be certain dialogue, it could be collecting things untill you have X, could be fetch quest 6... you never know, which is why I ended up collecting almost everything
- Lite puzzles in the game world while walking are kinda bad, but at least they don't take a lot of time
I didn't really feel like I was investigating as much as I was collecting random items everywhere, though once I was mostly done with that, I was able to focus a bit more on trying to follow the plot accurately. Although I'm pretty sure you could wait untill the final trial and then just go from there with a couple of save scums at worst, even if you didn't pay much attention.
Overall I occasionally enjoyed it, enough to finish it, but that was thanks to the good tunes. I wouldn't suggest going for it unless on sale and you have a clear idea of the type of game that it is... which is "art first, game second".

Conceptually, Paradise Killer is relatively simple - it's an open-world detective/mystery game, where you're set loose on an island to solve a mass murder. There's several gimmicks involved, perhaps most notably that you can start the trial whenever you see fit (there's even a speedrun achievement for completing the game in under 10 minutes, if you want to just make wild claims about who did it with literally zero evidence). In terms of the open world aspects playing into the mystery itself, I eventually came around by the end, but only relatively late as I made a discovery that would actually have been reasonably easy to overlook that completely recontextualized the murders and blew the case open. Most of the time it feels vaguely superfluous to have this open space since a majority of the investigation is talking to people and finding some items that often are effectively signposted to you, but if you're putting in the legwork it starts to become easier to appreciate on that level.

That said, the open world was excellent for setting up the game's biggest strength, which is a combination of immaculate vibes and incredible weirdness. Paradise Killer is set in a universe where cosmic gods and demons are real, have directly intervened in humanity's affairs, and the island you're on is actually one of a series of islands created outside of reality by the members of an immortal cult worshiping to try to bring their chosen gods back to power. There's weird cult statues all over, the islands end with a mass ritual slaughter of all of the non-cult slave class, one of the suspects is crippled by debilitating trauma from being able to hear people's psychic death screams, and there's even notes of a plan to try to destroy the moon with a railgun before the god slumbering on the far side can absorb enough lunar power to scorch the Earth clean. All this is under the surface of this clean, peppy vaporwave aesthetic and soundtrack and it's just kind of trip to run around finding collectibles to learn more about this setting before you solve the relatively-simple-if-you're-thorough murder conspiracy.

Paradise Killer ends up being worth it because the settings and vibes are just so unique and weird, so if you can get onboard with those, it's a worthwhile experience.

Great game. I was initially disappointed when I found out that all characters are just 2D sprites without animation, but brilliant writing lifts up the experience. Even though the trials at the end of the game do not fully deliver the payoff, I really liked the fact that you cannot be 100% sure of who did it. I was really surprised to find out you need to solve ALL crimes, not just the murder of the council. The part that is disappointing is that you don't really have to deduce anything in the end, you just present your evidence and it's only a question of whether you found the evidence or not. I still enjoyed it, a lot.
The only negative I can say is that the collectables are completely useless and unrewarding. The Blood bar drinks don't seem to give any subtext or contribute anything to the plot, as far as I can see, and the rest are literal trash.
I just wish the plot went a little deeper. I can easily think of ways to fully reverse everything I learned during the investigation. I hope they make a sequel, one day.