Post-Game: Paradise Killer
If there’s one genre I’ve not given a fair shake over the years, it’s the visual novel. It’s always felt that, broadly speaking, the term itself carries a pejorative tone: “you’re just reading, there’s no real gameplay there, boo hoo hoo.” It’s never been my opinion, but I’ve also never really found many VNs that appeal to me aesthetically. Whether it’s close-mindedness or just a lack of settings that really speak to me, I’ve stayed away from the biggest names in that space.
As the funk-drenched island of Paradise Killer has shown me over the last week and a half, I’ve been missing out.
“PARADISE KILLER
(PC [Steam], Nintendo Switch)”
The vibe of Paradise Killer’s world is immediately established in an opening text crawl: a group of demigod-like figures known as the Syndicate have managed to create a pocket dimension - aptly labeled Paradise Island - to worship and hopefully resurrect a dead pantheon. When demonic corruption seeps in to infect Paradise, its citizens are ritualistically slaughtered. “The islands always fail. The islands die and a new Paradise Island is born. The cycle repeats.” In the twilight hours of the 24th island, however, tragedy strikes, and the entirety of the Council overseeing these islands is murdered. “The crime to end all crimes,” they call it.
That’s where you come in, as previously-exiled “investigation freak” Lady Love Dies. From atop a palatial estate just outside the boundaries of the islands themselves, she’s sat and stewed for thousands of years only to be called back into service, keeping in the fashion of the game’s stakes with a late title card to end all late title cards. The island’s Judge gives Love Dies the lowdown and sets her loose to uncover the truth, in an investigation that took me roughly fifteen hours to finally wrap up.
The mission itself is straightforward in concept, but the twists and turns it takes give the story weight, relatability, and a terrific amount of depth. Armed with your trusty laptop, Starlight, you’ll canvass the island, talking to members of the Syndicate with one-of-a-kind names - Carmelina Silence, Witness to the End, and Doctor Doom Jazz to name precious few - and navigating around the labyrinthine bridges and tunnels that comprise Paradise Island 24.
Island 24 feels expansive both in its breadth and its depth. It doesn’t feel like there are any underutilized locations, and it has a cohesiveness that makes the island feel lived in. The Syndicate Ziggurat and the Council buildings loom high over everything else, their opulence a constant shadow against the rapid movements of the sun and moon. The beach would be calming, if not for the massive obelisks crowding it alongside the massive concrete ziggurat known only as the Dead Zone. You’ll become extremely familiar with these locations, and even with the game’s extremely generous fast travel system, I found myself still navigating the streets and alleyways of Paradise by foot. It’s a good way to accrue tons of the island’s currency - blood crystals, obviously - and have run-ins with each and every one of your suspects.
It would, of course, be a hollow destination without its inhabitants. Paradise Killer’s cast is diverse, well-written, and chock-full of the right kind of backstabbing, smile-through-their-teeth personalities that comprise an inviting mystery. With no traditional “action” to speak of beyond some acceptable platforming across the island, a majority of your investigation comes down to conversing with the Syndicate, inquiring about their motives, their alibis, and their general livelihood in the time since Love Dies was exiled. The writing is evocative of their distinct personalities. Doctor Doom Jazz is a constant flirt, while Witness to the End slaves over the idea of lost devotion to the dead gods. There are a handful of unfortunate copy-editing mishaps in the text itself, but none of them are pervasive or consistent enough to detract from how much character is present.
In addition to Paradise Killer’s core narrative thrust, you’ll solve some fairly minor puzzles that involve matching images to their component parts, interact with a weakened trickster demon named Shinji, and pick up a handful of side quests for displaced ghosts that almost all boil down to “find item, return item, solve quest.” A few environmental puzzles round out the experience alongside some ability upgrades that are not mentioned at all until you come across them. When all three of these ability upgrades are incredibly useful for navigating the island, it’s a minor inconvenience that the game doesn’t nudge you in their direction in the slightest, but that’s realistically my biggest complaint with the game.
I’ve managed to make it this far without mention of a categorically bombastic soundtrack. Bridging funk, calypso, and vaporwave, the soundscape of Paradise Island 24 is almost as intoxicating as the central investigation itself. There’s a confident range being showcased, from the exuberant saxophone of “Paradise (Stay Forever)” and the soothing waves of “Welcome,” to the moody synths of “Headlights on the Shore.” It all feels of a type, in the best possible way: these songs work with each other and flow together so well. Cassettes litter the island, each one fleshing out your in-game playlist, and the ways the central themes and leitmotifs are worked into the songs make it one of the best soundtracks of the year, by a country mile.
I started out my journey in Paradise Killer only somewhat apprehensive of what I was getting into, with very little understanding of what made visual novels tick, why people are inclined to invest time into the genre. While it may not be the most traditional representation of the genre, by blending those core tenets with a broadly approachable open world design, it manages to tell an exciting, engaging story and got me interested in checking out other, more traditional visual novels in this vein.
Paradise Killer stands on its own with an incredibly confident, genuinely unique setting, and left me curious and excited about its universe. If nothing else about it sticks with me, its soundtrack will be in my rotation for years to come.
Paradise Killer: “Highly Recommended”
Paradise Killer is available on Steam and the Nintendo Switch.
Reviewed with a copy purchased via Steam.
Played to completion over roughly fifteen hours.
