Death's Door

The best thing about this game is that you are a bird. The overall audio/visual presentation is great. The story is strongly themed and well told, albeit the character dialogue is all throwaway, and the controls are smooth. I could give this 3-4 stars based on that, but it would be unfair, because as a game it's barely engaging enough to keep me interested. I got 91% completion at 10 hours, and I feel unsatisfied with the experience. The first couple hours of this game are an absolute snoozefest. It does get a little more interesting at the very end, which led to a feeling of time being wasted. If you don't like it after 2 hours, save your time and quit. The environments are lifeless. You could say they're supposed to be, because you're in the underworld/afterlife, but they're still lifeless. They have the aesthetic of a toy set where most of the pieces are missing. It feels like a beta version of a game. It reminds me of Zelda, but with modern (read: Souls) style "attack-attack-dodge" combat. The problem is there are no puzzles in this game. So it presents a strange feeling of being more childish than Zelda in every way (story, world, puzzles, upgrades) except a few minibosses which veer more towards punishing Souls-style combat. What difficulty there is comes from the fact you can only take 4 hits (6 with upgrades). Nonetheless, the combat is braindead 98% of the time. The weapons are boring: Sword, hammer, daggers, big sword, and a gag weapon (umbrella, aka the best). The upgrades are boring: Damage, atk. speed, dodge, magic damage. Exploration is probably the least boring aspect, but it's still unrewarding because of the boring upgrades and collectibles. There is some secret stuff to do after you beat the last boss. That's where I am now, but if you don't like the earlier parts of the game...just don't bother, it's not worth it for the slog. Everything about this game is bland. On the plus side, you play as a bird. It may also be an effective sleep aid.

Great atmosphere, music, art-style and gameplay full of action and exploring. Reminds me a bit of 'Castle of Illusions' sometimes. This is a game that you rarely see on PC, but is more common on Nintendo consoles i guess. So grab it. And preferably use a gamepad to play.

Death's Door is a game that I find hard to recommend as I have mixed feelings about it (I did 100% the game). Game has very high production value. Beautiful graphics, OK music and good audio, lots of stuff to find. There is a lot to like. However there are several things that ruined the experience for me. Death's Door is a Zelda-like game with soulslike fighting mechanics. Bosses and some bigger enemies are quite hard and take your health if you are careless. This results in backtracking as the only save point is the area entrance door in most cases. There isn't enough health ever (no health potions in this game), maybe only in the very late game, and you are punished for dying - you have to traverse the levels (there are shortcuts to open) again and again - and it gets really grindy. You can't even jump (only roll), yet there are many battle rooms with moats and water, and of course you can fall into those which will take a health block. Levels are vast, some with maze-like structure and have occasional hidden items to discover (some vital to survival), yet those are very few and spread around. There is also post-game stuff to do, which is nice. Sadly post game tasks require a lot of (did you guess?) walking. At this point I caved in and read the guides. Blood-effects can be disabled. I wonder why those are in the game to begin with. Devs didn't really think about accessibility. Now late game will not be experienced by those who can't get through tougher, fast paced and relatively grindy battles. It shouldn't be too hard to add easy mode (or an option to skip battles after certain amount of tries) to a game like this.

Death's Door feels like most Zelda games, but in isometric view and without a map. There are around twenty-five differents monsters with unique patterns, two mini-bosses, and eight bosses. Bosses and mini-bosses patterns are interesting and easy to learn. Controls are perfect as they feel really really nice and I did not experience any frustration with them. The story is nice but could be better written. The world is easy to navigate around, and the end-game helps you achieve 100% completion. The lack of a map might hinder some player's progression. The world is cut in "rooms" with seamless transition. We can sometimes see the "trick" (the non-current rooms are "paused", when leaving a room projectiles stay alive and we can see them through the rooms "mat"), but it is still very well done. The graphics are perfect: Action on screen is always readable, camera movement is smart (well, not that hard in isometric angle and orthographic projection), the character appear through walls when hidden behind obstacles. There is a lot of graphic details in levels (wind, leaves, lights, rain, fire) that make the world feel alive. I have a very good sense of direction, but I felt lost in some levels at times (especially in the Overgrown Ruins (which is entangled with the Mushroom Dungeon)). Overall a great game, very well done, but might lack difficulty, and might be unnecessary hard to navigate around. --- Oh, and I was quite surprised to discover this is a sequel to Acid Nerve's previous game, Titan Souls. This is revealed at some point in the game, but this feels a bit "forced" into Death's Door's world. I realised something only after learning that Death's Door happens after events in Titan Souls: For those who played Titan Souls, pay attention to the first boss you encounter ;)

...its name would be Death's Door. The game is sweet, beautiful and fun. Also - easy and short and for me it's the best feature ever. Every criticism is fair - gameplay loop may be repetitive, and lack of map means you sometimes stroll clueless through the world for minutes (which is tiresome especially after ending, when you try to 100% it). But game never outstays its welcome, and fights are challenging enough, to keep you invested, and easy enough, to not keep you stuck for too long. Puzzles and secrets require mostly keen eye not sharp mind but looking for clues and interactive thingies was always fun for me. Music is beautiful, so is graphics or more broadly - artstyle. Plot is there, and does good enough job in sheparding you through 10 to 15 hours of playthrough. Characters are memorable and sweet, even if few of them is really fleshed out. Wonderful game if bought on promotion.