I was looking forward to this release, but unfortunately I feel it has lost some of what made the first one so enjoyable for me. Hunniepop's girls had a lot of personality and getting to know them was worthwhile, both for its impacts on the puzzle solving side of the game, but also because they were interesting characters in-and-of themselves. In the sequel, however, there's a lot less of this kind of development on offer. "Completing" a chain of dates takes only two successful games of match-three; one to get the girls interested in each other, a second to unlock the sticky bits. Once this is done, there's no reason to take the pair on further dates. You're actually discouraged from doing so, since every date (whether successful or not) increases the difficulty of the subsequent date. In the original, it took four dates to complete a chain, each of which was followed by a unique interaction with the girl; it didn't rush to the finish, you actually got to know them. They had more depth. In Double Date, you're even penalized for engaging the girls in dialogue; doing so unlocks Baggage, serious debuffs on how the girls behave during dates. In the original, getting to know them earned you buffs. I appreciate this game's attempts at making the puzzle solving more complex, but for me, it was the interesting characters that were the main draw.
I really wanted to like this game. Titles like Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, and the Run Factory series are some of my favourites. I love the melding of slice-of-life sim with relationship building, and I thought Graveyard Keeper's focus on crafting would be a fun new spin. Unfortunately, the fun to be have in Graveyard Keeper is hidden behind an endless grind. Every item you construct needs certain resources. In turn, acquiring or creating these resources require you to have crafted other buildings or unlocked parts of the tech tree. Unsure where to find a particular resource? Better Alt+Tab out to check the wiki, because the game doesn't have anything like mousover tooltips to tell you how to create different ingredients and components. Want to complete a job for one of the villagers? Keep that wiki handy, because it's likely that completing one job requires you to complete a different job in order to unlock a quest item. Some reviews warned me this game was wiki-reliant, but I thought that meant I'd be tabbing out as often as I do in Stardew. In Graveyard Keeper, the wiki may as well be built into the game itself, because it's critical to figuring out what to do or where to go next. It's a shame, because there are a lot of pieces I enjoy. I like the art style and the dialogue is well-written. The characters drop a lot of breadcrumbs hinting at how the world works and why you've wound up looking after a graveyard outside a village, but making progress in the story is just such a grind that I'm not interested in hearing it. If all this doesn't put you off, give it a go, but I went in unprepared for the tedium baked-in to the design of Graveyard Keeper. I liken it to a mobile game, where progress is gated by timers that can only be bypassed if you swipe your credit card. In Graveyard Keeper, you don't even have that option.
Much praise has already been heaped upon this game, so I will be brief; PS: T is one of the games in GoG's catalogue that everyone should own. The writing is so well-developed that the characters will live on in your memory long after you complete the narrative. You will weep for the losses they endure and rage against the forces they struggle with. I cannot think of a game which has made me believe in its story as much as PS: T did. Everyone, especially people interested in pursuing a career in video game development, should play PS: T for the textbook case it represents on how to turn a familiar narrative framework into a living story. If you want to fully enjoy the experience, you had better check GoG's forums for the complete list of community-supplied mods and tweaks. The game was shipped in an incomplete and broken form, and the volunteer development community deserves a great deal of praise for making PS:T easily accessible.
