First-thing’s first, Paradise Killer’s vibes are IMPECCABLE. The setting is this fantastic blend of vaporwave and eldritch horror, taking place in a pocket dimension where immortals called “The Syndicate” farm peoples’ spiritual energy to reawaken their dormant gods. It’s all very grim, but at the same time the architecture of place, Island 24, is all concrete, neon, and advertisements for soft drinks (juxtaposed with obsidian obelisks, weird purple sculptures, and one giant golden ziggurat). It’s full of weird allusions to bronze-age religion and modern occultism, filtered through a fever-dream of 1980s Japan. The Syndicate members themselves have some of the craziest character design I’ve ever seen, with names like “Doctor Doom Jazz”, “Crimson Acid”, and “The Witness To The End”.
Another big selling point for this game is the soundtrack, made up of WONDERFUL city pop tunes that you collect as you explore the island.
All this is to say that simply running around the game world in Paradise Killer is a total blast. If you have Game Pass and this is still on there when you read this I recommend you check it out just to run around a bit cause it’s pretty neat. I guess I should also mention the plot, which is that it’s a murder mystery where you play as a disgraced member of the Cthulhu cult investigating who killed its leaders. So that’s a cool premise I enjoyed.
HOWEVER, (and this is where I’m going to get into spoiler territory…)
I really wish Paradise Killer had like, something to say? I feel like this sort of grimdark, Lovecraftian setting ought be ripe for really emotional storytelling. Like, it would make sense to me that Lady Love Dies’ (the protagonist) three million days of exile or whatever would make her maybe reconsider The Syndicate’s goals and her place in that power structure when she has to face down the fact that they’re abducting/enslaving/sacrificing people en masse? Sure, there are plenty of dialogue choices you can make to be like “this is all fucked and has to end” but there’s nothing you can do gameplay-wise to act on that sentiment. This is especially jarring when it comes to prime murder-mystery suspect Henry Division, because while you can find out that he is completely innocent of all wrongdoing, no matter what decisions you make he will die because he’s a citizen and citizens have to die when the pocket dimension is destroyed after the murder trial. This is even if you promise him personally, to his face, that you are going to get The Syndicate to stop abducting and torturing people. I feel like this was all an easy layup for the kind of moral quandary you run into in Disco Elysium, for example, where you can have Harry make all sorts of political proclamations, but in the end he’s a cop serving a particular power structure and the game invites you to reflect on that. But Paradise Killer doesn’t even make you go “hmm…”, it just sort of presents everything to you as if to be like “well wasn’t that fucked up?”.
The other thing I thought was weird story-wise is that, while there’s this idea that Lady Love Dies has to “make her own justice”, that at the end of the day, the truth is whatever she decides it is, you aren’t really presented with the consequences of your actions. Like, if you 100% the trial you can get almost every remaining Syndicate member executed - surely that’s going to have a huge impact right? What is the next island going to do without it’s Architect? The leader of the marshals? How do you even get to the next island without Lydia to drive the car? How does Lady Love Dies feel about her old friends’ betrayal? To again compare this to a better game, this is something Pentiment executed on perfectly. There, you have to make these hard decisions with incomplete information and face whether you’re comfortable with the outcome. Paradise Killer doesn’t really make you feel the gravity of the accusations you end up making in court. To me, the question of “who killed the council” felt hollow when all of these characters ought to be tried at The Hague for their normal, “legal” behavior on this hell-island. But maybe that’s a bit on purpose. She is Lady Love Dies after all. Perhaps to her, her own behavior and emotions are immaterial, all that matters is Law and Truth: “When love dies, all that remains is the truth”.
Anyway, the fact that I have this much to say about Paradise Killer is a testament to how much I enjoyed it, it just didn’t clear the final hurdle for me. Like, it’s so close to being an all-timer, but it falls short. Even so, I think I’m going to be thinking about it for a long time. I really hope the devs do more with this setting in the future.
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