This week, DreadXP launched Sucker for Love: Date to Die For from solo developer Akabaka. That is the second sport within the Sucker for Love franchise and I used to be hyped as a result of I beloved the primary sport a lot. Sadly, not like the primary sport, Date to Die For is at present solely accessible on PC though I’m hopeful that possibly that’ll change sooner or later. The group was type sufficient to offer me with a replica of the sport for this evaluate, however all ideas beneath are my very own. You should buy it your self from Steam for $12.99.
Sucker For Love: Date to Die For is a sequel to the extremely fashionable cult-favorite Lovecraftian courting simulator, Sucker for Love: First Date, and introduces a brand new protagonist, new abominable love pursuits, new occult rituals, and an entire lot of heartache. The sport allows you to discover the 360-degree hand-drawn setting in a first-person journey sport navigation model and is a love letter to Lovecraftian horror that focuses on the customarily uncared for side of tales within the style: the madmen and monsters beneath the thrall of the gods, relatively than the eldritch gods themselves.
Sucker for Love: Date to Die For subverts the everyday visible novel courting tropes by placing the highlight on Stardust, an asexual lady who finds herself because the one pursued in a story of harmful escape. After investigating mysterious disappearances in her hometown of Sacramen-Cho, she finally ends up kidnapped and trapped deep within the creepy labyrinthian woods, geared up solely with a replica of the cultist’s spellbook. She notices the directions for summoning The Black Goat of the Woods, Rhok’zan, the casting of which units in movement the occasions of a special sort of courting novel.
I’m going to maintain this primary a part of the evaluate spoiler free and transient. First, the issues I didn’t like about Date to Die For. There was a piece of the sport early on that I couldn’t determine progress however since launch, I’ve not had this downside so possibly it was a bug mounted on day one or possibly I used to be simply silly. One other side that I discovered slightly annoying was the shortage of cloud saving. I’m not sure why this sport doesn’t assist cloud saves, however it doesn’t. Which means that if I need to go between my Steam Deck and PC, I can’t share a save file between them which is a bummer.
Talking of the Steam Deck, I really feel it is very important word that Date to Die For shouldn’t be rated as ‘Playable’ nor ‘Verified’ and I might run into an issue the place after taking part in for an prolonged time frame, the sport would begin to get uneven and ultimately simply freeze my Deck forcing me to carry out a tough restart. This was irritating and sadly I’m unsure why there have been issues for the reason that sport shouldn’t be very intensive and it runs nice till you begin hitting that time of decrease efficiency. The controls do work properly on the Deck as properly, however you would possibly want slightly time to get used to them.
Now we get to the good things. The positives. The whole lot about Sucker for Love: Date to Die For is phenomenal. I really like the ‘90s anime aesthetic. The writing is prime notch making a story that attracts you in and offers you characters to like. Each named character has a persona that comes via with unimaginable voice appearing. All through the sport I laughed, I stated ‘aww’, and I used to be terrified. It’s a improbable mix of romance and horror though in my view it leans extra into the horror side than Sucker for Love: First Date. It’s additionally value noting that the sport is brief (simply beneath 5 hours) which is one thing that I actually recognize in at present’s world of fifty+ hour video games being commonplace. With it being brief, the checkpoints are fairly shut collectively making it much less irritating when it’s a must to reload.
Earlier than putting my rating, I did need to share one tip that basically helped me as soon as I figured it out. Open doorways slowly. Additionally, when you don’t like soar scares, go into the Choices menu and there’s a checkbox that can pop up a cute warning earlier than a soar scare occurs.
I extremely advocate Date to Die For. It’s an unimaginable second entry within the Sucker for Love sequence and I actually hope that Akabaka offers us a 3rd sport sooner or later. I do want that the sport had cloud saves and will go for longer play periods on Steam Deck, however that feels very nitpicky. I might positively advocate taking part in First Date earlier than Date to Die For, however that sport was additionally wonderful in order that’s not an issue in my e book. Additionally, it’s lower than $15!
