Walk through a corridor, pick up an object, put it down, repeat. There are no puzzles, no enemies, and no real reason to actually play this. The scenery is amazing at times but that's ALL there is to this walking simulator. After 20 minutes I was *hoping* something would jump out and attack me just to make it more interesting but no, I walked through a corridor, picked up an object, and put it down, repeated.
So... let's start with the Good.
1. Atmosphere. The opening act in particular made me really feel like I was in the shoes of a young boy-- he's skinny, short, terrified of the dark even though he pretends not to be... and there are places the interface comes unsettlingly close to making you feel like you're really struggling to pull a rusty old lever. I was immediately invested in the protagonist.
2. Visuals. What you see in the trailers aren't special setpieces; the graphics really are that evocative and unique throughout the story.
3. Audio. Emotional voice acting, music that smoothly slides into scenes without ever being distracted... it's like watching a movie.
The bad:
1. STORY. I won't spoil it, but any player above the age of 10 will know 90% of it by the time the first act finishes. The other acts will desperately try to appear mysterious and create a sense of slowly dawning realization by spreading the confirmations of the story out across several hours of corridors and cavernous rooms, but... no real revelations or "wow" moments of discovery.
2. INTERFACE. The game takes itself FAR too seriously. You're locked into a snail's pace that no twelve-year-old would be caught dead using. It's either blatant padding of the playtime or the maker couldn't imagine anyone NOT wanting to slowly stroll past the fifth backlit broken eagle in silent reverence.
Third, those two things I just mentioned are 97% of the game. There's no puzzle solving (other than "how do I move this child's hand one inch further to the left"). There's no skill required at any point. This is a visual novel done in stunningly beautiful 3D, so it lives or dies entirely by its plot.
In the end, though, the plot feels like a bland contrivance to explain why you're walking through a few hours of gorgeous but static movie sets. I wish the writer had a tenth of the obvious skill that the rest of the production team did.
First let's start with the good. Good world building. And a solid shrouding of what is going on. Also the sens of level direction is good. Objects and areas are lit or expressive enough that you know where to look and go.
Unfortunatly the slow walking speed and auto save feature combined with the bugs make this a pain to play.
It takes ages to go somewhere. If there would have been an option to change the walking speed this game would have already received an extra star from me. But as it stands it's just way to slow. Also there is no chapter feature (or manual save) in the game. So if you want to replay a part in order to make a different decision it takes an incirdibly long time. Now add in bugs like falling through a level and it just becomes a chore. Simple actions like opening a door or cabinat take 3 different inputs instead of just one button. Making it all needlessly long.
In all honesty it feels like the developers put in the auto save, slow walking speed, slow interaction etc to lengthen the game time. Because even with this the game is very short.
The game is also poorly optimized. It looks good at times but holding a decent frame rate is a struggle. And the graphics are by no means amazing so where this performance loss comes from I have no clue.
Now gameplay. It's a walking simulator. Which I don't mind. I can enjoy this genre of game. But walking simulators have only story and environmental excellence to drive the experience forward. No fights no management mechanics. It's all story and exposition. Unfortunatly paradise lost falls short here. Little moments take you out of the experience such as bugs or the character behaving in a unnatural fashion. A character climbing on metal in a freezomg room with no hand gloves for example. Simple things that break immersion. In other games you'd hardly notice but here immersion and story is all the game has.
So unfortunatly I cannot recommend this game.
It's a good game, something to get away from those FPS or fast paced games to stay more calm and relaxed but sometimes the game feels very slow... if you could walk faster/run it will make it better.
I had to give it a second try just because it felt super slow but the story it was very good and it's must to play it.
To begin with, this is hardly a game - you are just walking really slowly, listening to stories and there are maybe three really easy puzzles in the whole game.
Maybe i would really still recomend it, as a visual novel (it's simply not a game) if it was on 50% of the prise (without discounts) - otherwise just skip it
