Paradise Killer’s breezily cheerful trailer is only telling half the truth. It most certainly a colourful, sometimes goofy investigatory adventure in the vein of Phoenix Wright, but it’s also , a dizzyingly high-concept descent into the menace of the unknown, where balmy afternoons and beach-side cocktails co-exist with genuinely disquieting cosmic nightmares from beyond the stars.
Paradise Killer reviewDeveloper: Kaizen Game WorksPublisher: Fellow TravellerPlatform: Reviewed on PCAvailability: Out on September 4th on PC and Switch
Welcome, then, to Paradise, a breathlessly stylish, vaporwave wisp of a tropical island retreat, where palm trees forever sway in the afternoon breeze, where turquoise waters stretch from pristine beaches to an unblemished horizon, and where monstrous effigies of brutal gods spill out across every square inch, like entrails from a festering wound.
More specifically, welcome to Paradise 24, the latest attempt by the mysterious Syndicate to create a perfect living mechanism capable of sustaining the religious fervour required to resurrect the Old Gods it reveres. Like all 23 previous attempts, however, Paradise 24 is doomed, corrupted, and poised to be scrubbed from existence in order to begin the cycle anew.
Paradise Killer coming to PC and NINTENDO SWITCH September 4! Watch on YouTube
But this time, things are different; on the island’s last evening, as the brilliant sun makes its final descent below the horizon, the Syndicate’s ruling Council is horrifically butchered. Enter Lady Love Dies (Paradise Killer has a fine line in absurdist names, from Lunatic Pope to Leon Disaster), brought back from exile to resume her – and now your – investigatory duties; to figure out which of the nine remaining islanders are responsible for the Council’s slaughter, so that Paradise 24 may die and Perfect 25 may thrive.