Imagine if Agatha Christie wrote a crossover of Warhammer 40k and Stargate, used the characters from Danganronpa, and set the whole thing in the Miami of Miami Vice.

Because that's basically what Paradise Killer is. It's also an incredibly ambitious who-done-it where there's few clear answers and the truth is left up for you to shape based on the facts that you find. And it's set in an absolutely vivid world.

The island itself, both in design and story, is the game's strongest aspect. It's an absolutely insane mish-mash of vaporwave visuals and music and colors over a "paradise" fueled by slave labor for corporate entities and bloody mass slaughter in Sumerian temples to satiate the appetites of horrors from beyond the stars. It's massive Brutalist buildings lording over cramped Japanese shantytowns, with colorful corporate mascots and posters advertising idol contests next to blood soaked altars and the ever present fear of demonic corruption. You're given no backstory or understanding of the mythology before you're dropped into the world and left to piece it together through conversation and finding relics and doodads. As every worldbuilding brick dropped into place and I saw just how horrendous and colorful the world I was in, the more engrossed I was in the island and its history and people.

Gameplay wise, it doesn't deviate too much from detective visual novel standards, but with a heavier emphasis on exploration and hunting for secrets. You talk to people, find info or hear something that contradicts their statements, talk again, etc etc. There's a bit of a relationship system to the game, akin to visual novels, but it's light and doesn't consist of much more than clicking the special dialog option when it's available. It doesn't seem to lead to any special routes or anything. You can max out your relationship with every character, learn a little about them, and get a special flavor item that tells you more about them or the island.

The mystery plot and trial aspect will draw a lot of comparisons to Danganronpa (such as the one that I did) and while it definitely does take some inspiration from there, the truth is much more malleable in this game. As characters remind you constantly, "facts" and "truth" are not the same thing and it is up to the investigator to stitch together a narrative out of the facts presented and I think this is the game's second strongest aspect: by developing your relationships to characters, you are actually allowed to (attempt) to present your case in a way that lets a guilty party you're fond of go free or pin one or more crimes on a character you don't like that much. Instead of a strict linear story, much of the evidence discovered in the game points to more than one suspect and you can choose to ignore (or build a case on) weaker, tenuous, or circumstantial pieces of evidence to push the story in the way that you want. That absolutely fascinated me and felt like my character was an active participant in the politicking, the conspiracies, and the backstabbing that was prevalent in the rest of the cast.

(That said, as a caveat, if you're the sort that needs a concrete, developer-created "good" or "right" or "true" ending, this game might disappoint you as there isn't one. There seems to be a series of immutable facts about the events that led to the crimes, but the exact perpetrators and their level of involvement is up to your discretion and if you feel that might leave you unsatisfied in the story, this might not be the game for you. I personally find player-shaped narratives and stories told through the player-character's biases to be a huge reason why I become so engrossed in games like this and is part of the reason I recommend this game so highly, so this is definitely a Your Mileage May Vary sort of game.)

The game's two strengths are a bit weighed down by a few weaknesses: the island is huge and largely very colorful with lots to explore, but the map is not useful at all except as a general guide to where major landmarks are. A fast travel system exists, but it costs some of the game's (admittedly plentiful) currency to use, and some areas of the world feel underdeveloped and under utilized compared to others.

The ambitious goal of letting you shape your own narrative of events leaves a few characters underdeveloped compared to others and one or two pieces of evidence that don't seem to fit into any of the possible explanations for the crimes. The trials themselves lack the excitement of Danganronpa's mini-games and in one occasion, I presented a piece of evidence that led to the conviction of a character I wanted to spare because the option to pick it was vaguely described.

There were also a few minor issues here and there, like UI elements not disappearing when they should or misspelled words, but none of these issues - major or minor - detract from the overall depth and enjoyment to be had with this game. It's easily one of my favorite game worlds already and totally worth a play if you're at all interested in mystery games, colorful and strange worlds, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up narratives.