Paradise Lost Reviews
While the bunker in Paradise Lost is interesting to explore at first, it is not packed with enough narrative content to match its ostentatious surrounds. This brief walking adventure quickly becomes frustrating as you wait for the mostly unsatisfying story to reveal itself.
Paradise Lost is an engrossing adventure that will suck you right in and deliver just enough to keep you satisfied but leave you wanting more. The experience is hindered by an aggravatingly slow walk speed with no option to run. While you will get used to it, it only highlights the limitations the walking simulator genre has imposed on what is one of the most unique settings in a game based on this time period.
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 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.
Paradise Lost is a frustrating experience. While its hauntingly atmospheric environments are a joy to explore, its lacklustre narrative betrays its phenomenal premise. The lack of interactable elements means its already slow-paced gameplay is a slog to get through. Its all too cryptic narrative leaves much to be desired, taking away my care factor for the story's outcome. This is a stunning game with a lot of potential, but it ultimately fails to meet the heights it should.
Paradise Lost is sustained by a contemplative atmosphere and a deeply human narrative, as its generic, repetitive and challenge-free gameplay should keep a large part of the audience away. Loaded with nuances, the title is a moving historical tale about the horrors of war, as well as the faces of mourning and loneliness, suitable only for those who are not interested in pushing buttons excessively or breaking their heads to solve puzzles.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Paradise Lost feels like one of the average titles that will be forgotten quite soon after their release and playing it is a bit of a waste of time.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
A cerebrally enjoyable journey for those that fall in a specific history and story-loving niche, Paradise Lost is otherwise barebones in mechanics and gameplay.
Paradise Lost takes place in a compelling setting and has a lot of beautiful locations to explore. But sadly it never feels like more than a sightseeing tour at a painfully slow pace with a story you’ve probably seen before.
Paradise Lost is a slow-paced adventure where you have to watch and listen carefully most of the time instead of actually playing it. Whether that's good or bad depends on what you seek in a game.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Paradise Lost is a well-made adventure game with a well-thought-out world, where the theme of retro futurism is used to the last bit. The story suffers from a worse pace and optimization is not the best, but it is definitely a good and an interesting game.
Review in Czech | Read full review
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.
Paradise Lost offers a unique take on the after-effects of World War II, with its atmospheric journey proving intriguing throughout. I found it fascinating to explore the Nazi bunker and uncover its many secrets, whilst the moments of interactivity and choice-making made it easier to immerse myself in the walking simulator-style gameplay. It really looks the part too – who said derelict bunkers had to be ugly?! It does have a few misfires along the way thanks to the painfully slow walking speed, some frame rate drops, and the occasionally flat voice acting, but Paradise Lost’s gripping mystery ensure that it is certainly an adventure that’s worth embarking on.
Paradise Lost is a simple and short game, strengthened by a hauntingly beautiful environment, and weakened by its underdeveloped story. Despite the atrocious animation and movement speed, I enjoyed my time with the game. It would have benefited from a cleaner story, additional bug testing, and the trimming of some game mechanics, but it bodes well for the developers behind the game. Environmental design is crucial to walking simulators, and they clearly know how to create a fascinating environment. I look forward to playing their future games.
The main factor of Paradise Lost is walking. The term "walking simulator" is now an established term in the video game world. These are adventure games based on gradual exploration and observation with a minimum amount of action. Therefore, this aspect should work a treat. But the speed that little Szymon is able to develop is severely inadequate, and his only function is an incredible level of frustration. I've played many similarly styled games focused solely on wandering around the map, but the walking factor has never been this limited anywhere. It saddens me that such good potential is devastated by such a trivial yet important factor. Paradise Lost can be purchased on Steam for €12,49 - in my opinion the price is inadequate, the title is full of flaws and the only thing that can be highlighted is the graphic design with a well captured gloomy atmosphere.
Review in Czech | Read full review
Post-Apocalyptic settings are such a common backdrop in video games. Where it used to be a fresh and exciting aspect, it can often feel a bit overdone in the modern landscape. Paradise Lost, however, developed by PolyAmorous, attempts to set itself apart from those that came before it, with mixed results. This roughly 3-hour, story-driven adventure, has you exploring underground locales as you uncover mysteries of the past.
Paradise Lost is an adventure game following the life of a twelve-year-old boy experiencing the aftermath of World War II in Nazi Germany. Is this experience one worth going on? Find out in this Rapid Review.