The first Visual Novel of the Shinza Bansho Series published by the company Light. It started as an experimental game that was lately added to the universe as one of the many Eras that would be created when a new Hegemony God ascended to the Throne. In this particular case, Magsarion.
In the timeline of the Shinza Bansho Series, this game is preceded by Avesta of Black and White.
Sodom is a city abandoned by God, a cursed Hell. It was once a big city, fabled for its prosperity, but along with the collapse of the ancient civilization, it became Paradise Lost, the Isolated City. Filled with miasma (the remains of the great war), its polluted grounds are dominated by lunatics and fiends, such as cyborgs who changed their flesh to machines or freaks who are the products of genetic engineering. Its realm and providence, The Strong Eats The Weak, has no room for compassion or love. This city can be described as a miniature garden of Asura, the closest place to Hell in the whole world.
And in the Isolated City, the capital of violence, there is a person feared by the nickname "Deathscythe": Lyle, the protagonist of this story. He had never questioned the city's ways, but one day he met a girl named Lilliel in the M section of the city, its bottommost layer... And while he spent time with her, he started to slowly change.
Together with Lilliel, Lyle goes on a travel outside of the city, to Zoar, and confronts powers of the "Outside World" that throw the city into chaos to fulfill the prophecy. Lost memories. One whom he does not want to lose. The heirs of the Original Sin of Adam are heading towards Eternal Zoar to reach Adam Kadmon. What will actually manifest in the sky of the demons' capital? Heaven's Gate? Hell's Cauldron?
Tropes associated with Paradise Lost:
- Crapsack World: The city of Sodom is... not a very nice place to live to put it lightly. Black rain, toxic air and a general strong-rule-the-weak philosophy rules the streets. Put another way, if you haven't killed someone before you turn 20 years old then you are most likely among those who died before reaching that age.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Due to being written before Masada had any idea of making it into a giant universal epic with the Shinza Bansho series, there are parts of the novels world building and rules that stand out compared to later entries most notably the lack of the Throne and the Gods associated with it and the series.
- Literary Allusion Title: The novel very deliberately shares it's name with John Milton's famous poem.
- Ominous Pipe Organ: Satanel's theme
is a menacing organ piece fitting of his Lucifer inspiration.
- Variable-Length Chain: The bizarre snake-headed chain Agito that Lyle uses changes it's length constantly as the need arises.
- World of Ham: As expected from one of the many works in Shinza Bansho, expect superpowers, latin chanting, demons, angels, and an assortment of colorful and eccentric characters.
