Xbox One Critic Reviews

No qualms about it: we are glad we played Paratopic. And while we might apologise in advance for recommending this horrifying little distraction, you should play it too.

Overall, the game does not have much to it. It tries its best to achieve the randomness of a David Lynch movie, but just like his movies, you either love it or hate it. With me, I do not like Paratopic very much, but I do see where a person might be interested in it and give it a few playthroughs. One playthrough was enough for me and I was done after that. There are a total of 20 achievements to gain and I only got 10 of them on my first playthrough. The game roughly last around 40 minutes to an hour. There is no way to save and the game warns you of this from the start. The game is an interesting try for the curious, but be forewarned that you’ll only play it a few times before shelving it most likely.

All in all though, I’m not sure really about whether I enjoyed Paratopic enough to recommend it. It’s fairly priced for what it is but at the same time, and much like Baltoro’s Fatum Betula, it seems to layer on the weird for the sake of it, hoping that there can be some more depth or meaning pulled out of it by the player. If you like a bizarre tale that won’t take long to be then check it out, but the average player is probably going to be put off before they even begin.

Unless you really enjoy half-finished stories, Paratopic never really builds on its great aesthetic to be a game worth playing. It may aspire to bring you back to the late ‘90s, but given how disjointed it all feels, it never achieves its goal.