TL;DR - Recommend, but be aware of the grind. Some pieces of the game are not explained well.
Alright, let's get right to the point with this review. Hopefully it helps if you're on the fence purchasing this game, especially since Graveyard Keeper 2 releases in a couple of weeks. Let's talk about the things I wasn't a fan of:
*Note* I played and completed this game with all DLC from the start. Some thoughts may be influenced by that. Also, minor spoilers
1. There is a grind in this game, for sure. Doubly so once you get some DLC. If you are okay grinding, then great. I don't mind it, but it was a little too much for my taste.
2. English language dialogue is sometimes not accurate, or hard to understand. There were some misspellings, grammar mistakes, and sometimes I would read character's names and it would be the only time I read it.
3. Quest reminders were sometimes vague. I would sometimes forget what I was supposed to do, and the quest reminder wasn't really a help.
4. Economy and alchemy could have been better explained. I had to resort to the wiki for alchemy recipes, nothing explains how to get tier levels up for different characters so you can buy more things.
5. Inability to check recipes while not at that location. Many times I would think I remember the recipe, go to gather ingredients, then come back only to find I was off by one or two on something. Then I had to double back. Little frustrating at time.
With that out of the way, here are are the things I enjoyed:
1. I really enjoyed the story and how the people intertwine with each other. Some twists I wasn't expecting. With the DLC you get to see just what happened to lead to the current state of the town.
2. Getting new technologies and generally choosing the order I want to get them in was fun. There were tense choices to be had because some technologies are fairly costly (cultist, anyone?) and would set you back a ways before you could get another tech.
3. I liked constructing, building, and eventually automating (with DLC) a lot of my efforts. The zombies were fun and I could help determine how efficient they were by making sure they had more of what they needed (avoiding gameplay spoilers).
4. The variety of characters. Communist donkey? Old crazy guy? Wily thief? Old fisherman? This game has all the character tropes, plus some.
5. Watching my progress. Every thing I did was a means to an end, and it was fun doing it. I liked watching myself being able to craft more complex things, get more rewards for things I did, or just generally be able to produce more.
6. Freedom. I was able to do things in pretty much any order I wanted save for the main questline. However, I could decide how I wanted my graveyard to look, what I wanted in it, and how much. There are multiple paths to complete some of the quests.
All in all, it was a grindy game at times, but it was a lot of fun. Looking forward to graveyard keeper 2 and checking out how they improved from this game.
