The Shell Part III: Paradiso
JAST USA
Innocent Grey / Shiravune
2020 2022
Well this bastard took a long time to wrap up. Both the game (weeks) and the series (years). Yeah, The Shell Part III: Paradiso is the third game in the Kara no Shoujo series. Sort of, all three of them are preceded by a VN called Cartagra (a necessary read) so what we really have here is the fourth title in a tetralogy. To make matters more confusing, two of the Kara no Shoujo installments (I & II) each have two different localized versions, both still appearing on digital storefronts! Anyway, it's impossible to play/read this without first experiencing the predecessors. And I can't review it without dropping BIG CHUNGUS SPOILERS, due to the game's "final chapter" status and, really, the nature of the story itself. Alright.
The second installment ends on a cliffhanger, with some major loose ends lingering. This story picks right back up, as hard-boiled chain-smoking detective Reiji takes center stage in a bleak 1950s snow-covered Tokyo. Reiji's brief love affair with the mysterious high school student Toko ended in something of a disaster, with Toko's death and their baby kidnapped by a crazed killer. Reiji's ostensibly searching for the child, though leads are scarce and he's as defeated and worn-out as the wintry backdrop. Of course, death and devastation seem to follow this man wherever he goes, and a new spree of killings begins. This one appears to be linked to Reiji's cases of old, and delves into the underground art trading (and forgery) scene. There are some additional goings-on as well, vignettes resurrected from part two. And a whole bunch of characters, new and old. I mean, a TON of characters. It's tough to keep track of them. The series utilizes realistic artwork, and since Japan is an ethnically homogenous country (based) every single person has dark eyes and dark hair, save the striking Italian girl. No Rayearth style ladies here. There's a chart to keep track of everyone, informing the player who is alive, who's dead, who's boning, etc. Hilariously convoluted.
The pacing is bizarre. The game is paradoxically too long while moving too quickly. The narrative weaves in and out of a bunch of micro-stories attached to the main one, and it rarely has time to breathe. And most of the side stories are terrible. Reiji's assistant starts visiting a female therapist, there are many sessions of this, and then the game goes full chud as NOTHING happens. No revelations, no interesting moments, eventually the plot demands the therapy is just done. There's a "will they or won't they" romance between a cop and coffee shop proprietor that takes forever to resolve and, again, isn't that eventful. The little girl in the hospital? The doctor? The nursery? Nothing, all these little anecdotes just kinda fizzle eventually. As far as the main mystery goes, it's viscerally terrifying stuff. Women are being murdered around Tokyo, their arms are severed and strange "angel wings" are attached to their backs. The investigation skills of Reiji (and the player) are thus put to the test: there are many false leads, unreliable witnesses, dubious suspects, and a ton of physical evidence to contend with, all catalogued in Reiji's notebook. The killings are additionally linked to the events of prior games, as the murders seem to depict a scene shown in a recently unearthed painting, one possibly crafted by a killer of old. There's much drama and betrayal, and the case is cracked a little more than halfway through. The resolution is, in part, completely absurd. It's revealed BIG SPOILER that the first victim actually wasn't murdered. She committed suicide and had a birth defect causing her to have no arms and wing-like shoulders. This first death inspired the future killings, which were imitations of sort (insert AVGN voice: what the fuck were they [the writers] thinking?).
Note I said "halfway through" -- when the game feels like it could be wrapping up there's a massive time skip to the 1960s. This feels like it was done largely for plot convenience, as Reiji is now searching for a missing child instead of a baby. The second arc of The Shell Part III takes Reiji and pals to rural Japan where some young girls have gone missing, and "angel" murders have begun anew. Simultaneously there's a sort of Hannibal Lecter cat and mouse relationship playing out between Reiji and an escaped serial killer who is something of the "mastermind" behind everything. The second mystery is as compelling as the first, and even creepier as so much is told through the perspective of one of the girls. This mystery's eventual resolution reveals much about the first one as well, as well as the events of games prior.
On to the mechanics. This is a branching, somewhat nonlinear visual novel. There's quite a bit of player interaction. In addition to "branching path" choices made by the omniscient player, Reiji also has introspective moments where he must "think things through" properly to move on. Occasionally the notebook is used to (hopefully) identify the correct suspect, event, or item. Investigation scenes are back, and they're once again structured like those from the second Kara no Shoujo: it's impossible to proceed until every blood-soaked scene is examined top to bottom. Oddly enough, I don't think navigational choices do anything at all. I would simply visit Ueno Station every time I could, as the takoyaki vendor was pretty funny. There's a whole heaping of endings. Four actually roll credits, while the others are "you died" style Game Overs. Note that it's downright impossible to achieve the best ending on the first playthrough. Reaching the "normal" end allows the game to be restarted, this time with "behind the scenes" content added. The additional perspectives are enjoyable, but they come at the price of redundancy (and plenty of fast-forwarding). I would advise using a walkthrough from the get-go to see all endings -- I suspect it's impossible to reach certain bad endings once the true ending is unlocked. As for the true ending... it's super sappy and sentimental... and awesome! This is how visual novels are supposed to end. That's just how it is. I don't make the rules (Jun Maeda did).
Mess of a story aside, the actual line-by-line writing was compelling enough to keep me coming back to this. These are mysteries that needed solving, absurdities be damned. The translation is mostly good, though there are clearly some Westernized lines. While largely told via Reiji's perspective, there are plenty of third-person segments highlighting various victims, killers, friends. These sections are both necessary and integrated well (and characters still "think" during the third-person moments). As per tradition, there's also a lovely (yet harrowing) "storybook" sequence near the tale's end. The character art is phenomenal, soft and wispy and more in line with Flowers than with the Kara no Shoujo predecessors. Music is old, new, and all over the place. The ambient pieces are great while the jazz is a mixed bag. The pieces that play in the coffee shop contain vocals and are grating and TERRIBLE. Not just compositionally, but because the song vocals clash with the voice acting. When it comes to the voice acting itself... well, the women sound just fine but these male voice actors are phenomenal. Perfect fits for each role: every detective sounds appropriately jaded or disgusted or enraged. And yes, there's a voiced MC. I guess I'll mention the adult content. It's here and present, but not what I expected. There's enough violence and nudity to warrant the usual Steamcel censorship, but the sex is really toned down here overall. Plenty of bewbs but no genitals and blessedly no DESCRIPTIONS of sex either (Cartagra featured the word "glans" like five times in the script I shit you not). Feels like most VN developers are drifting away from the ultra-graphic stuff.
Even accounting for the completely disordered narrative, I still like this well enough. There are some serious lows (and straight up chaotic nonsense), but select wintry atmospheric horror portions are absolutely perfect. Basically a 7/10 game but a 10/10 must-play series.
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewed: 9/23/25