The Shell Part III: Paradiso on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
The coiling chains of obsession that began with The Shell now threaten to strangle Detective Reiji Tokisaka in the third and final entry in the trilogy. As old friends and foes rise up for one last confrontation, can anyone break the cycle—and can Reiji's heart ever be set free?
The Shell Part III: Paradiso is a historical, mystery and visual novel game
developed by Innocent Grey
and published by Shiravune.
Released on January 21st 2025 is available only on Windows
in 3 languages: English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.
It has received 310 reviews of which 305 were positive and 5 were negative resulting in a rating of 9.0 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified The Shell Part III: Paradiso into these genres:
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System requirements
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Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i series
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Sound Card: PCM (DirectSound support)
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Trouble in Paradise Beautiful, heartfelt, and underwritten: The Shell’s fantastic finale is also its most underwhelming mystery. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3438612278 Follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41449676/]Summit Reviews for more in-depth video game coverage, now on Steam and [url=https://summitreviews.biz/]beyond! As far as video game trilogies are concerned, it's a bit of an elusive format to get just right and one that I don't think has many—if any—greats among it. Blame it on whatever you’d like: the struggle of a cohesive story that spans three whole works not being derailed by particularities of game development, the expected evolution of both visuals and gameplay to keep pace with broadening narrative horizons, or the apparent impossibility of resisting the urge for lucrative prequels, spin-offs, and further sequels—for some reason, it’s an uphill battle compared to older forms of media. A proper trilogy is something more than just three games in a series. That there is an expectation of evolution is more than fair, but it needs to make sense, only reaching its apex after being taken through the three-act structure. There needs to be planning and there needs to be restraint. Finishing my playthrough of The Shell Part I: Inferno left me with some of those expectations, While the game wasn't without its faults, it still felt like the start of something greater—so much so that even when Part II: Purgatorio reinforced the first half of that sentiment rather heavily, I could still tell there was an apex to reach. And reach it Paradiso did. In most ways, it is a satisfying wrap-up to the games that came before. The problem is in a cast that’s woefully underwritten and a mystery that relies more on circumstance rather than calculated detective work. For those not in the know, The Shell is a trilogy of thriller hybrid visual novels, heavily inspired by film noir and Renaissance-era literature. For one final time, detective Reiji Tokisaka must comb the streets of post-World War II Tokyo for answers to mysteries both new and old in the wake of yet another strange case whose victims are maimed to resemble a newly discovered painting from a famous local artist. Having reviewed both of the previous games, this is the third time in a little over a year I’m writing out some variation of this synopsis, and I can’t help but feel that I'm somehow underselling the game behind it every time despite its faults. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3438757737 To build off the spiel from the start of this review, Paradiso certainly ticks many of the checkboxes you’d expect of a finale. The Shell is a series written in a way that frequently leaves nothing to the imagination, all the while swinging for some themes that require a delicate touch. Social commentary, love, obsession…all make for topics that the game earnestly tries to explore while drawing heavy parallels with, of all things, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy , so it was always a little bit strange that, regardless of how successful it was in doing so, it presented them alongside graphic violence carried out on characters that simply couldn’t shake off that air of moe ditziness that permeated the way they're drawn. You’ll find none of that here. Even when it sticks out a bit from the glossy backdrops that look as plain as they’d come out of any other VN, the character art in Paradiso is a dead-on fit for the noir story that stitches everything together. The sprites look sharp and textured in a way that puts some real grit behind them, almost as if these people are fraying at the edges from everything they’ve been through over the past two games. If I’ve again brought up the series’ aspirations to present a serious story with mature themes and lofty inspirations, then surely I would have lambasted it for undermining itself with tacked-on pornography by this point, just as I did in the previous two reviews. Thankfully, this at long last realized seriousness encompasses more than the character designs. While sex is still important in Paradiso , the writing is focused on the relationships that it’s a part of, rather than treating characters as sex mazes you have to navigate for some deadpan hentai on the other end. Here, it's limited to a handful of scenes that come about much more naturally, with a clearer sense of direction and artistry behind them. It wasn’t at all surprising to see the series realise its potential in this way. The first two games are otherwise full of great writing, so their lack of tact always felt like compromise rather than limitation. The writing in Paradiso is thus the best in the series when it hits its highs, but it's surprising just how uneven it is. While it succeeds in the difficult task of keeping returning characters compelling for a third time by finding new spins that all feel natural, not everyone gets that treatment. A lot of important motivations and events are hard to suspend disbelief for, the central mystery fairly predictable despite the curveballs it throws, and Reiji's assistant Masaki, billed as the game's secondary protagonist, mostly sidelined as comic relief, with even a dedicated ending being unable to salvage his arc that kind of just gets forgotten halfway through the game. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3439875297 Speaking of endings, Paradiso has a few. Most of these are game over states you’ll land on if you sufficiently mess up during one of the halfhearted deduction segments written as if they don’t want you to fail. Already toned down in Purgatorio , Paradiso does little to revive the tension these brought to the first game—where one negligent choice could lead to death or different outcome hours down the line. While that approach brought its own host of issues, neither sequel replicates that sharp sense of danger that persisted through Inferno . The good endings we get, however, are great. The lack of player involvement and more complex motivations robs them of that big murder mystery moment where all the puzzle pieces fall into place, but they remain emotionally resonant. Reaching them, however, is as inelegant as it possibly could be, as Paradiso needs to be read through a whole three times before you even get the option of unlocking the true ending. The first time you clear it barely concludes anything, and even as the next two playthroughs unlock new dialogue options and hours upon hours of additional scenes, neither makes for an exciting immediate replay. While new scenes are sprinkled throughout the story, most of them come at the end. A smart text skip function that automatically stops every time you come across unread text is much appreciated, but the lack of any kind of chapter selection obliterates any semblance of pacing as you blaze through huge parts of the story, experiencing new scenes at wildly different points in time in rapid succession. There is a certain vibe to it—a detective poring over the same evidence, over and over, looking for a breakthrough—but spending sometimes tens of minutes fast-forwarding through something you’ve already read never makes for a satisfying narrative experience. If the quality of The Shell is measured by how much its murder mystery tickles that analytical part of your brain, then there are much better titles out there. If it's measured by how successfully it realizes its artistic ambitions, then the result is rather mixed. If it's measured by how far and how consistently it carries its characters and themes, then that's where Paradiso's greatest strength is—in making it a worthwhile trilogy rather than a standalone experience. Through both the good and the bad; through the thorns and to the stars.
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2nd part is too ambitious that blows this one out off the water. peak characters writing still and gives an alright closure. -> high quality vn mystery section is meh compare to predecessors.
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This is a stunning masterpiece, where I would really have to try hard to come up with any ideas how to actually make it better. And maybe I would not come up with anything really. The way how it is, is perfect actually. Perfect for me of course, I can understand that some fans actually managed to create their own "obsession" as much as some of our beloved characters in this piece - about a perfect ending or closure for this series, and then they got a bit frustrated, that the actual result differ from their expectation. I gotta admit, even I did not expect this turn of events regarding the Toko's daughter, but the way it's been handled seemed natural in the end, and probably it was the best possible outcome for all parties concerned. The characters got long awaited closure, as so did we, the readers. When you finish the Last Episode (True ending or at least a Grand one), it's time to stay on the balcony during a nice chilly night and watch the stars in calm fashion for a while. That's how getting a closure in this trilogy feels - you will get some piece of mind and you will want to savor that moment for a bit. I will try to pinpoint main pros and cons as I do in most of my reviews, however I am not sure if I can even come up with any cons for real. Pros: I read the "Shell" version on steam, so I did not actually read the original Kara no Shojo 3, thus I cannot compare the level of polishness between the two, however the steam version is extremely well polished. In comparison to KnS 1, where some misclicking during investigation could get you to a bad end etc., this version felt extremely well made. Map serves only for some fun interaction's now mostly, it's not tied to any important story flags. However the investigation decisions and conclusions now feel finally more "detective-like" for the first time in kns series I actually felt like you are doing some detective work a bit at least. Like you actually needed to use your head now and then. It's like during making this last piece Innocent Grey really matured and unraveled their full potential in every way - art, narration, gameplay, welp even the sex scenes matured. Yes you heard me right. That's how a modern day vn should handle a sex scene. Just a bunch of CGs with a short text depicting smal details about the act, a bit of rugged breathing and possibly a small music emphasis to narrate the scene in either romantic direction or more erotic one. That's it, no stupid porn talk, no bullshit, no need to skip 30 minutes of degenerated nonsense. It's probably tied to the main visible aspect of this vn and that's the heavy emphasis on art. KnS trilogy was always leaning in this direction, by having an artistic background for many characters or even murders, it's CGs, characters sprites and menu visuals were always one of the best in the visual novel field, at least for my taste, as that's always a bit subjective. But it always portrayed the world in a certain artsy, yet adult and slighty grim looking way. In the Last Episode, that art touch flowered fully and absolutely peaked. Characters sprites, the CGs, the paintings - everything looks almost like from a fairy tale. It feels handmade, like when a master artist just make a few strokes and suddenly you are looking at a masterfully made CG background, or well portraited character. I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed going through this vn just within the visual aspects alone. It's overfowing with quality art, literally. From now on, all other visual novels will look like garbage, like a bunch of drunk high schoolers made them. Narration and voice acting is great as always. There is no one so distinctive like Toko anymore (maybe Chie? Stella is also still pretty lit), however all characters are extremely well portrayed. It felt to me that the story returned to it's roots within the KnS 1 a little bit. The vibe from the crime scenes felt more similar to it than in the second piece, intertwined neatly with the time jumps and different cases, just so all various branches can come together in the end to be closed. Some characters like Yaginuma got portraited in a more serious manner and the chemistry between all of them is pretty strong after the trilogy (basically tetralogy if you include Cartagra as well). I loved even the little jokes in the note here and there (about Uozumi's car for example). Music was also perfected to fit the atmosphere. It's made in a way, that you know the tune from the previous titles, yet again it feels more matured, more artsy and more elegant. To sum it up, I had almost no expectation from the third part, and was pleasantly surprised, how neatly it was made. I truly cannot find much to complain about. Also I liked how you uncovered always a bit of new information about the background of the crimes with each new playthrough up to third. I think you need 4 to 100% the game. Possible small cons: Some parts could get a bit stretched (when Masaki was reading that fairy tale for example) The final moments of the True end were a bit forced to my taste, to resemble the similarities with the KnS 1. But on the other hand I kinda get what they were after I can imagine that the biggest gripe readers can have is that from the second episode to the third one, the "Toko" branch from the first vn get's heavily sidelined. I made my piece with this already in the KnS 2 so it did not bothered me here much, but if someone is expecting a return of focus on this topic, he'll get probably dissapointed. Yes there is closure to this topic, however it takes a lot of time jumps and a bunch of other cases before it starts to bloom. Altough for me, it felt more "life-like", like that's probably how it would have played out in real life. No hollywood fanfares or huge action at the end, just a bunch of mature decisions made through difficult times. Enough of my rambling, this vn's tier is legendary and if you did not read it yet, just go and dive in. It's really great.
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Enjoying this so far but some of the localized dialogue is terrible edit at 8 hours: it's honestly worse than I thought. At one point a character was described as "all decked out" in a jacket rather than just saying they're "wearing a jacket". There is stuff like this every couple of minutes. Go to hell whoever did this. Still liking the game though. edit: Just finished. I think it was pretty good. I have noticed that the bad localization was mostly on a per-character basis and the characters with bad scripts received less focus as the game goes on. It's not a coincidence that I enjoyed the last half of the game much more than the first. Some things still made my eyes roll but it happened every 2 minutes in the first couple of acts so that's an upgrade. This was a good end to the trilogy but I look forward to a possible reread if a new translation comes out. If localization issues bother you, wait for a relocalization patch.
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Finally, the conclusion to an absolutely fantastic murder mystery! As with the previous two games, I highly recommend downloading the "optional" patch from Johren or Patch Moe, as it will uncensor any of the violent crime scenes and add routes that were cut due to adult content. I won't go into details about said content, but it will take a game that has "5+ hours of content" to approximately 50 - 60 hours if it's anything like The Shell II. My only complaint so far is that the demo wasn't translated. It serves as a bit of a prologue before the events of The Shell III, just after the events of The Shell II, though I've been told by a friend who has more Japanese knowledge than me that the events of the demo are recapped in the first chapter of your second playthrough of The Shell III, so all is not entirely lost. I've obviously only got a little less than an hour played at this point, so I can't comment on the full experience, but I'm just really glad that I get to see the conclusion to the trilogy in English by a fantastic translator. Thank you, Shiravune!
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Last Updates| Steam data | 04 April 2025 16:10 |
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| SteamSpy data | 31 March 2025 09:22 |
| Steam price | 04 April 2025 12:55 |
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