Sucker for Love: Date to Die For review

For those of us who enjoy more than a healthy dollop of story with our video games, visual novels are the perfect genre to play and read. Visual novels come in all shapes and sizes too, so whether you’re into tales of romance or crime there’s bound to be something that tickles your fancy. I enjoy horror visual novels the most, and find that the story heavy genre really lends itself to telling spooky stories with maybe even a jump scare or two thrown in for good measure. Because of this Sucker for Love: Date to Die For was immediately a game I wanted to play, and with a cheeky bit of romance sprinkled in, it might have a slightly broader appeal.

Our protagonist Stardust grew up in a mysterious rural village, where a huge amount of people would end up vanishing without a trace. This was such a problem that despite having nine siblings Stardust was the only one who didn’t go missing living there, and now, slightly older, she wants to find out what happened to her beloved family members. When heading to the road known by locals as Missing Persons Lane, she meets a girl from her childhood who seems to be possessed by some sort of demonic force. Scared for her life Stardust runs away as fast as possible and ends up at her childhood home, where apparently all the spooky problems stem from.

Stardust’s home is pretty run down since everyone left or was taken away, but plenty of relics from her past still litter the halls. It turns out the house is no longer empty, though, as when exploring her old bedroom our protagonist has an encounter with a demon. Apparently this heart of darkness is here because of The Black Goat of the Woods Rhok’Zan, but not everything about this spooky character is as it seems.

Instead of being some sort of monster hellbent on taking lives, Rhok’Zan is actually a demon who feels awful about the current situation. She didn’t want to corrupt thousands of people and turn them into scary cultists, and now would like nothing more than to break the curse on the house and be banished from the world. Happy to help with this, Stardust agrees to perform a whole bunch of rituals to expel Rhok’Zan from her house, but along the way something surprising happens: the two fall in love.

It doesn’t take long to realise that this specific goat monster is particularly horny (pun very much intended) and she almost immediately starts throwing herself at our helpful hero. Romance is on the cards in Sucker for Love: Date to Die For, so I hope you’re into goat demons with massive boobs because that’s what you’re going to get here. It might be a bit raunchy for some, but the interactions between Stardust and Rhok’Zan are actually very endearing and funny, and even this asexual writer enjoyed watching them awkwardly flirt.

You’ll never get your happily ever after together if you don’t start performing rituals though, which means reading through your Lovecraftian book of dark spells and doing what it says. Usually this will mean finding items around the house in one of the 360 degree explorable rooms that make it up, then returning to your bedroom and chanting some knock-off Latin with a specific colour of candle lit in the background. It’s an interesting way to break up the story, but you’ll rarely be safe while gathering what you need for the rituals.

Your childhood home isn’t just home to The Black Goat of the Woods, it’s also full of cultists who want to stop you from ruining their fun. You’ll need to dodge these skull wearing baddies by carefully peeking through doors then shutting them quickly if you see a cultist lurking in the next room. If you don’t notice one of them as you’re moving from room to room or aren’t quick enough at shutting them out you’ll get a nasty jump scare and be brutally murdered, so caution is the name of the game.

That’s pretty much all there is to Sucker for Love: Date to Die, but in each of the game’s four chapters there’s a little something different you’ll have to deal with. There are also multiple branching narrative paths to discover which usually involve you having to explore more, but with so much danger lurking in every room I never really wanted to wander far from the obvious objective.

I found myself more than anything just wishing for a bit more from Sucker for Love. The short runtime and focus on wandering around means there’s not really much time for the stories or characters to develop, and as cool as some of the rituals are to perform, the threat of being sent back to the last checkpoint made it hard to enjoy completing the objectives.

Sucker for Love: Date to Die For is a great concept for a video game, but I wish it spent just a little longer telling its story and a little less time flashing goat boobs in my face. The exploration and ritual performing is great for the most part, but with danger lurking around every corner the tension of losing progress is just a little too much. Still, I loved getting to see the odd couple of Stardust and Rhok’Zan interact, and if you’re looking to play something slightly spooky on a dark night then Sucker for Love is at the very least an interesting choice.