Review: Graveyard Keeper 2
Cemetery, zombies, and automation return in full force in the sequel to Graveyard Keeper.
THE GAME
Graveyard Keeper 2 is a medieval cemetery management game developed by Lazy Bear Games and published by tinyBuild. We return to medieval times after the events of the first Graveyard Keeper, but with new objectives. Eight years after the first gravedigger acted in these lands, a new individual is released from his shackles in a prison and discovers that this world is in danger. Knowing this, he is tasked with solving the problems for which he is somehow also to blame. Now, in addition to being a gravedigger, he is also the inquisitor. With this, he must take care of the cemetery and help the villagers, while trying to discover the reason for so many zombies appearing.
MY IMPRESSIONS
Graveyard Keeper 2 retains everything its predecessor did well, with some changes, some more successful than others. The core gameplay remains the same: manage the cemetery and the corpses, produce goods to trade with the village, help the villagers, and bring zombies to life to help automate tasks. Two of the major new features are the expanded possibility of automation with zombies and zombie battles. Starting with the first new feature, there's a huge underground space on your property designed to create a true automated factory, using zombies as machine operators. Although this will only work efficiently after playing for a while, it's extremely important for effectively creating items crucial for advancing the story and trading products with the village. The other new feature adds some action to the game, requiring the creation of a zombie army and the construction of barricades and towers, as well as equipment to aid in battles. With this, you can engage in battles to liberate areas overrun by zombies, essential for progressing in the game's story. Both new features add a new layer of challenge and variety to the game, although the automation is confusing and the battles aren't as exciting.
The day system still exists, with some activities only possible on a specific day of the week. Some changes have been made to basic mechanics, such as how to unlock character upgrades and abilities, which previously were part of the same skill tree along with unlocking new buildings. This time, to improve your character, you must perform varied activities, or rather, you will have to do a little bit of everything, by necessity. Personally, being forced to do activities you don't want to do isn't very appealing. It gets worse when doing these activities isn't the only requirement: you must spend faith points. For those who haven't played the first game, faith is a resource acquired by giving sermons in church. And now you'll understand something about Graveyard Keeper 2: all important resources are interdependent. To guarantee a good amount of faith, you need village approval points, which you get by selling certain types of items or completing story missions. Since missions are finite, you're reliant on selling goods to the village, which, to be efficient, needs to be done in a specific way, but I won't go into too much detail. And to do this efficiently, you need automation. I could continue the line of reasoning about what you need to automate and so on, but in short, that's what makes the game addictive to the point of becoming irritating. The first Graveyard Keeper already had a lot of pacing problems, with many people abandoning the game early on because it wasn't appealing in that sense, which was bad, because after the beginning, the game picks up very well. My point here is: some mechanics that are fun are complicated just to make it harder, not to make it interesting. Another example is the zombies, which at a certain point in the game, it's extremely difficult to progress without using them in large numbers. Creating zombies is no quick process, as it depends on a specific day and having corpses to create them. And then comes the bureaucratic part: the village doesn't like you using zombies, so if you have too many zombies, you produce less faith in your sermons. So what should you do to avoid this? Create an item that uses faith and only lasts for a limited time in weeks. Graveyard Keeper 2 becomes a resource juggling act that could be more fun to manage, but ends up just being frustrating.
A major problem with Graveyard Keeper 2 is the lack of better explanations about mechanics and items. Although there is an easily accessible tutorial, some simple information that could appear in item and building descriptions would be very helpful. The zombie mechanics, for example, are almost entirely trial and error. Graveyard Keeper 2 gives the player a lot of freedom, which is good in some cases, but some more practical tutorials showing how the mechanics work, especially the automation, would be great. And speaking of giving the player freedom, we should talk about the game's story. It was created to make sense within the story of the first game, although I find it a rather weak excuse, but this is not very bothersome. The good humor is still maintained, with its characteristic jokes. The game is in Brazilian Portuguese, which makes it easier to follow what is being said and what to do to progress in the story. As expected, to advance, you must help some characters, and that's where the player's freedom hinders the clarity of the game's path. Theoretically, you can advance through some character missions before others, until they all converge at a common point. So far, no problem, but this freedom often makes the player work harder than necessary, because if you followed a different mission sequence, some aspects of other missions would become clearer and more cohesive with the story's continuity. Again, this doesn't hinder the game too much, but you as a player might feel confused in some aspects. The game's art remains wonderful, although the story scenes are very different from the original art and cause a certain strangeness. The characters are now voiced, but for those who liked how it was in the first game, you can switch to the classic grunt-like babbling.
Even though the game seems to have many problems, don't be fooled: it's very fun, although much more bureaucratic than the first game. Of course, all the initial work you put in will be rewarded, but I feel that in Graveyard Keeper 2 you will spend much more time before reaching a point where everything flows satisfactorily. All these areas for improvement were only mentioned because the game's foundation is already incredibly good and flawless. It's a game well worth investing time in, and believe me, you'll spend that time without even realizing it.
ACHIEVEMENTS
The achievements in Graveyard Keeper 2 are quite simple and follow the game's premise: do a little bit of everything in the game. Cooking some dishes, creating some potions, fishing a certain number of fish, chopping down some trees—in short, practically every basic activity in the game will have an achievement that requires you to do it a certain number of times. And of course, there are achievements linked to the game's story, so to get them all, you just need to finish the game. I like the simplicity that Graveyard Keeper 2 brings to the achievements; even though many require repeating activities, they don't demand an absurd amount of repetition. It's a game that, if you're engaged, you'll easily get 100% of the achievements.
CONCLUSION
Despite many criticisms, Graveyard Keeper 2 is extremely fun and addictive. The bureaucracy created to keep you constantly moving in the game is understandable, but it's done in a not very fun way. I'm sure that by the end of the game, with everything practically automated, these bureaucracies will be trivial, but some players might quit before reaching that point. I encountered many bugs, mainly in the zombie mechanics, which get stuck or don't seem to be working as they should, but this should be fixed quickly. Graveyard Keeper 2 inherits the lack of rhythm and clarity of its predecessor, but also brings the fun of the first, leaving a more positive than negative impression for those who invest time in it.
Comments