"Sucker For Love: Crush Landing" is the 3rd (or 4th, if you count "Sucker For Love: Prelude" as a game, since it's sort of a demo for the first game, but isn't listed as such) game in the Sucker For Love series by AkaBaka. It's a series I've enjoyed quite a bit for it's take on weeby Lovecraftian stories, that tend to be more lighthearted than scary. The first title was about smooching Eldritch beings, the second game was about assisting one in getting rid of a cult surrounding them, and this one is... feeding a rock? Okay, this will take a bit of explaining.
"Crush Landing" is, unlike previous games in the series, not about dating Cosmic Beings beyond our mortal ken, but instead, it's loosely based on "The Color Out of Space," though there are aspects of it that seem to be loosely derived from a pair of Clark Ashton Smith stories "The City of Singing Flame" and "Beyond the Singing Flame." Given that Smith was a close friend of Lovecraft, and contributed to the Mythos in his own way (and not to mention he is a massively under-rated writer from that time period), I think this actually enhances the experience if you're a fan of Weird Tales in-general.
The story itself sees our protagonist, simply given the name "Dude," a host that, on one faithful night, has a meteorite crash into his 15th floor apartment. Upon rushing home, eager for the money and fame that will come from being the one who legally owns the meteorite, quickly learns two things:
1. The Meteorite is [i]ALIVE[/i], which he then names Hheily (pronounced Halley, like the comet, which is the source of the name).
2. Hheily's colorful glow (some of the colors are alien in nature), draw people to her upon seeing them only for it to consume them upon contact. (this is where the C.A. Smith stuff comes into effect)
From here, Dude needs to keep Hheily's glow from burning out by feeding her objects, sort of like feeding a flame. However, you must also feed her colored objects, one for each of the primary and secondary colors (so Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple). Upon doing so, a few things happen. First, you will fill one of the colored stars on the HUD, or turn it into an "X" (more on that in a minute), and second, all items that are immediately accessibly of that color will become "oversaturated," meaning they turn white and basically become ashen or dead. This applies to living things too. Dude just happens to be safe from this for some reason, but we'll roll with it. If you feed Hheily's glow with a living thing (one of your two pets, for instance), she will be upset by it, and you'll get an "X" instead of a star for that color. Your end goal is to fill the 6 colored stars to complete a round, earning you a Heart. If you have 3 or more X's, you get a Broken Heart instead.
To keep things interesting, there's a time limit for each round, with 3 total rounds. The first 2 are 15 minutes long, and the last one is 10 minutes. For the first two rounds, you need to keep Hheily's glow intact, but the third round is just feeding the colors and answering some questions. Additionally, between each feeding of the glow, you can have a random event happen. You'll either get a knock on the door, or a phone call. Properly answering these will eat a minute or so of time at minimum. You can ignore them if you want, but that really only serves the purposes of a couple of achievements. Some events are important for achievements, so you need to do them in a certain way if you want said achievements. Others are for the sake of just being a good person, and some will make you feel a little bad if you engage with them. Keep in mind: the majority of the people involved want to see Hheily, but if they do, they will be consumed by her, and that counts as a "living thing," so... yeah. You can also slam the door in the faces of these people, which is neat.
There are also 15 endings of varying levels of good. There's even a funny ending you can get pretty early on. I won't say what it is, but it's very on brand for this kind of game. The game is nice enough to give you hints on how to get them in the "Ending List" submenu on the main menu, if you need a help figuring out what you need to do.
Also, new to this game, at least when compared to the previous titles: you can properly SAVE and LOAD! This was something that wasn't entirely necessary in First Date, but was something that "A Date to Die For" [b][i]SORELY NEEDED[/i][/b] given certain mechanics in that title being frustrating. Here, it's a life saver, as the structure is very different. Thank you. AkaBaka, for sparing everyone the frustration of limited checkpoints! The game still autosaves in places, but it's better to just save manually.
The roster of characters is bigger, even if most of them beyond Hheily are pretty minor. There's even one voiced by Haakos Baelz of Hololive! Neato! Hheily is voiced by Brianna Knickerbocker, who does a great job in conveying Hheily's innocence, despite the horrors of her color's influence on living things. It's certainly an interesting blend of the stories I mentioned earlier. "The Color Out of Space" is one of my favorite Lovecraft tales, and I didn't think I'd be so happy with it becoming a "hot babe," let alone an innocent, caring one, but here we are! The other actors all do a great job with the small roles they have, of course. The music, including the anime style ending them, is really good. I think the overall sound design is better than ever.
The visuals have a sort of "modernized 1990s anime" look. That is to say, an aesthetic that is intended to capture the spirit of the 90s (given the game takes place in the early 90s), right down to an everpresent CRT filter. It's very good at making things mostly feel like they belong in some 90s anime, but there are aspects that feel more like a modern throwback to that time period, rather than being 100% faithful. It nevertheless looks good though. It's probably the best these titles have ever looked.
Compared to past titles, there are no rituals, which is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I think the rituals are part of the charm of the previous titles. The lack of them is felt as a fan of the previous titles, even considering how much some of the things you needed to do for them in "A Date to Die For" frustrated me. There is a good reason for that, but that's a major spoiler. Also, as a result of no rituals, the challenge basically comes from finding colored objects to feed Hheily at the right times, without losing access to others... but this is somewhat circumvented by the pile of Love Letters on Dude's dining table, which, more often than not, produce a colored flower. It's not bottomless, but there's a lot of them. As such though, there's no "final gauntlet" type challenge, which is a good and bad thing. Good because some of the rituals for those were frustrating given the limitations of the mechanics, but bad because the core loop of the game never really gets changed much.
At the end of the day, I'm actually pretty satisfied with "Crush Landing." I like it more than "A Date To Die For," just because it's less mechanically janky... but I don't know, I still think "First Date" is the best title. Probably because I like that game's simplicity in story and gameplay a bit more. It doesn't help that this game lacks smooches for the reason that smooching Hheily would be legit fatal, but the lack of smooches is sorely felt. I do think the pseudo-twist at the end of the True End, and the post-credits scene (which asks if you've seen the ending of "A Date To Die For" by the by, so you should play that first) recontextualizes the whole series. I won't say how, but it's super cool for a nerd like me.
8/10
