Paradise Lost

If you're in the mood for a tense first-person narrative, turn the lights down and play Paradise Lost; it's a true atmospheric gem.

Paradise Lost is a grim alternate history lesson that asks tough philosophical questions about humanity and sacrifice. With a fascinating story and a genuinely engaging setting, it’s a game that’s easy to recommend to fans of the adventure genre. If you don’t mind the game’s lack of puzzles and plodding pacing, then be sure to make your way underground to uncover the bunker’s dark secrets. You won’t be disappointed.

Set in a macabre alternative universe, Paradise Lost creates a captivating world that begs to be explored and uncovered. Every moment of the game will keep players hooked to the screen, desperate to find out more. It goes to some dark places, but as long as you’ve got the stomach for it, this is a game that will stick with you long after you’ve seen the credits roll.

Paradise Lost doesn’t have any gameplay systems to keep players engaged and loses some of its potential because of it, but it does use its space well for its storytelling. It creates an otherworldly setting designed to simultaneously wow and disgust players as they make their way through gorgeous, yet heinous structures designed for evil. The stories within these structures are elegantly told for the most part as they reflect and strengthen each other along the way. Shooting Nazis in the face is almost always a blast, but Paradise Lost doesn’t resort to violence to make its point. Instead, it explores these horrors and wraps that inhumanity around the tragedy of a grief-stricken orphan, a rarity in the medium that demonstrates that how gaming can portray such evil needing to shoot at it first.

While there are some problems with pacing, mechanics, and glitches, Paradise Lost paints an interesting and immersive tale. Despite that the game’s objectives are simplistic, the short playtime is just right to produce a satisfying ending without dragging on.

While Paradise Lost has everything to be a great game, it ends up being just good. Its background story is strong and intriguing, but you can’t feel it that much in the game. Locations and objects are well crafted, but invisible walls keep you from feeling them as if they were real and alive. Everything is in his place, but by the end nothing leaves you wanting more. This four-hour adventure is worth playing, but it won’t change your life.

Paradise Lost is a story worth exploring once, the alternative ending targeting those who were roped in by the story and the character development of Szymon. Sadly, there won’t be too many, because despite the strong start, the magic fades and ultimately Paradise Lost proves to be a walking simulator that could have been very interesting in theory, but actually it is just conventional and flat.

Paradise Lost is a title with untapped potential. The imagery built by the team effectively envelops the player, who walks the path shaped by PolyAmorous Games with involvement. Once the story is over, however, the feeling of incompleteness remains strong. The suggestions painted by the artistic sector and the soundtrack compensate for a technical sector that is not always excellent and a decidedly essential interface, for a pleasant experience, but which unfortunately is not memorable. A shame, because the Paradise Lost bunker, full of dark secrets, could undoubtedly have offered a more intense playful adventure.

An ambitious though rough first effort from a fledgling Polish studio, and a poignant exploration of how history can still hit close to home. [Issue#1, p.93]

Although the setting is really attractive, the ups and downs on the story and gameplay fronts makes Paradise Lost an experience as enjoyable as forgettable.

Despite an intriguing alternate universe and a decent story, Paradise Lost fails to reach its potential due to poor voice acting and tedious gameplay.

The pace of the game is slow, there isn’t a whole lot of depth to be found anywhere in Paradise Lost, and it’s not without its frame rate drops and bugs either. Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly some diamonds to be found in the rough here, but they’re few and far between. What Paradise Lost does deliver on is a minimally interactive experience as more of a walking simulator than an alternate history first-player adventure game. And it does look and sound exactly as you’d expect if you were to find yourself as a 12-year-old boy, trapped in a desolate Nazi bunker. Overall there’s just a lot of potential left untapped and that’s really its biggest problem.

The game explores interesting concepts but never really felt like it achieved its true potential. Instead, you are left with awkward gameplay and an unsatisfying narrative.