This week, DreadXP launched Sucker for Love: Date to Die For from solo developer Akabaka. This is the second game in the Sucker for Love franchise and I was hyped because I loved the first game so much. Sadly, unlike the first game, Date to Die For is currently only available on PC although I’m hopeful that maybe that’ll change in the future. The team was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the game for this review, but all thoughts below are my own. You can purchase it yourself from Steam for $12.99.
Sucker For Love: Date to Die For is a sequel to the highly popular cult-favorite Lovecraftian dating simulator, Sucker for Love: First Date, and introduces a new protagonist, new abominable love interests, new occult rituals, and a whole lot of heartache. The game lets you explore the 360-degree hand-drawn environment in a first-person adventure game navigation style and is a love letter to Lovecraftian horror that focuses on the often neglected aspect of stories in the genre: the madmen and monsters under the thrall of the gods, rather than the eldritch gods themselves.
Sucker for Love: Date to Die For subverts the typical visual novel dating tropes by putting the spotlight on Stardust, an asexual woman who finds herself as the one pursued in a tale of dangerous escape. After investigating mysterious disappearances in her hometown of Sacramen-Cho, she ends up kidnapped and trapped deep in the creepy labyrinthian woods, equipped only with a copy of the cultist’s spellbook. She notices the instructions for summoning The Black Goat of the Woods, Rhok’zan, the casting of which sets in motion the events of a different kind of dating novel.
I’m going to keep this first part of the review spoiler free and brief. First, the things I didn’t like about Date to Die For. There was a section of the game early on that I could not figure out how to progress but since launch, I have not had this problem so maybe it was a bug fixed on day one or maybe I was just stupid. Another aspect that I found a little annoying was the lack of cloud saving. I’m unsure why this game does not support cloud saves, but it doesn’t. This means that if I want to go between my Steam Deck and PC, I can’t share a save file between them which is a bummer.
Speaking of the Steam Deck, I feel it is important to note that Date to Die For is not rated as ‘Playable’ nor ‘Verified’ and I would run into a problem where after playing for an extended period of time, the game would start to get choppy and eventually just freeze my Deck forcing me to perform a hard restart. This was frustrating and sadly I’m not sure why there were problems since the game is not very intensive and it runs great until you start hitting that point of lower performance. The controls do work well on the Deck as well, but you might need a little time to get used to them.
Now we get to the good stuff. The positives. Everything about Sucker for Love: Date to Die For is phenomenal. I love the ‘90s anime aesthetic. The writing is top notch creating a story that draws you in and gives you characters to love. Every named character has a personality that comes through with incredible voice acting. Throughout the game I laughed, I said ‘aww’, and I was terrified. It is a fantastic blend of romance and horror although in my opinion it leans more into the horror aspect than Sucker for Love: First Date. It’s also worth noting that the game is short (easily under 5 hours) which is something that I really appreciate in today’s world of 50+ hour games being commonplace. With it being short, the checkpoints are pretty close together making it less frustrating when you have to reload.
Before placing my score, I did want to share one tip that really helped me once I figured it out. Open doors slowly. Also, if you don’t like jump scares, go into the Options menu and there’s a checkbox that will pop up a cute warning before a jump scare happens.
I highly recommend Date to Die For. It’s an incredible second entry in the Sucker for Love series and I really hope that Akabaka gives us a third game in the future. I do wish that the game had cloud saves and could go for longer play sessions on Steam Deck, but that feels very nitpicky. I would definitely recommend playing First Date before Date to Die For, but that game was also amazing so that’s not a problem in my book. Also, it’s less than $15!
Now it is time for more spoiler-y content. Rhok’zan is so fun. At first, I was a little bummed that we only get one Outer God to try to woo this time, but after finishing it, I’m so glad that it was written this way. I felt like I got to know Rhok’zan better than most of the characters from First Date (Ln’eta is still my #1 though). The game features a bit of a time loop as each chapter is another loop of you going to the same place and helping Rhok’zan but the villain of each chapter is different because you save them each time.
Another aspect that was fun was the change in protagonists. In First Date, Darling is a horny guy who just wants a smooch from a cute Outer God. In Date to Die For, Stardust is a woman who is just trying to figure out the mystery of Sacramen-Cho disappearances and survive her escape. This leads to a very different approach to the romance as Stardust is asexual and so the relationship happens slower and most advances are more from Rhok’zan but they’re not necessarily unwanted. It’s also funny because during certain moments you can spray her (or other certain characters) with water for slightly different reactions/dialogue (never important dialogue).
As I mentioned earlier, I feel like Date to Die For feels a little more horror than First Date. This has to do with the majority of the gameplay being based on you running around a house gathering items while avoiding evil cultists. Except in specific instances, you have no defense and so if you’re caught, you have to start from a checkpoint.
One thing I really want to mention is that due to some moments at the very end of the game, I’m led to believe that Date to Die For is not a sequel to First Date, but rather a prequel. We get to see little kid versions of Ln’eta and Ester which are adorable. I just wanted to mention that. No notes.