I recently finished a playthrough of Paradise Killer and I'm seriously floored at how good it was.
The game is presented as a single explorable island with a handful of 2D characters to interrogate and a bunch of clues laying around to find. Gameplay-wise it's honestly pretty barebones -- just walk, chat, collect, repeat. The story and music do some seriously heavy lifting, though.
You play as Lady Love Dies, an investigator who has been exiled for the last million years for being tricked by a god from outer space. You need to return to the sequence of failing islands housing immortals to solve a crime involving demons and gods and magical cars.
The way the world has been constructed in Paradise Killer is fascinating in that the creators ensured that everything to do with the core mystery was easy to understand and logical. A lot of matching up timelines, cross-checking alibis, determining motives. Everything -else- is borderline nonsense. Everyone is named ridiculously, there's a person who makes islands out of psychic powers, talking skeletons, demonic possessions, and backstory that makes little to no actual sense but is really fun to read.
I thoroughly enjoyed the very basic gameplay loop, wandering the empty vaporwave-aesthetics island, jumping awkwardly up cliffs to pick up collectables that tell you about the completely irrelevant and wild pantheon and crazy backstories, all while slowly puzzling together the intricate pieces of the investigation.
The mystery was presented wonderfully! There were many times I thought I had everything cracked only to find one more clue that threw everything out the window. I was seeing plans everywhere, and suspecting everyone.
The final jury sequence was also very fun and had me questioning myself at times as I reviewed and presented all the evidence I had collected.
It took me 2 or 3 attempts to get into the game, but I'm glad I took another shot at it. It was a super memorable experience and reminded me how much can be done with so little, and filled my head with ideas.