We have received a ton of surprises this past year. So many surprises for gaming that it’s difficult to count them all together. Metroid Dread brought the series back in the most epic way possible and showed that Samus Aran is still the badass bounty hunter she is. Outer Wilds received an expansion called Echoes of The Eye and offered enough interesting content to make us re-enjoy one of the few masterpieces of the last decade. Marvel’s Guardians of The Galaxy did not suck and turned out to be the best Guardians of The Galaxy story ever made. The Forgotten City, which was originally a mod to Skyrim, was developed into its own game and deemed one of the most innovative games of 2021. Psychonauts 2 finally came out and lived up to the high expectations the cult following formed. Halo Infinite marked the return of the shooter king and so much more. To be honest it wasn't an incredible year for gaming, because some of the Triple A releases that came out didn’t live up to expectations and all the interesting games to actually get hyped for got pushed to 2022. However, I thought it was a damn good year, and it was especially a great year for independent games and developers. We got Inscryption, Ender Lilies, Wildermyth, Grime, Everhood, Eastward Axiom Verge 2, Unsighted, Sable, Solar Ash, etc. I haven’t played half of these indies, although I do plan to, but one independent game that certainly catch me by surprise was Death’s Door. Developed by Aicd Nerve, the studio behind Titan Souls.
Titan Souls came out back in 2014 and served as a love letter to some of the greatest games ever made. It took influence from The Legend of Zelda, Shadow of The Colossus, and a huge heaping spoonful of Dark Souls. It was a Zelda styled adventure game where you slay colossal beasts and get pummeled into the ground due to Dark Souls levels of difficulty. It was unforgiving to the right degree. Unfortunately Titans Souls wasn’t praised that well by mainstream critics due to it’s crushing gameplay and it was quite short for an indie game. If you knew exactly what you were doing then you could beat this game within a few hours. Titan Souls was doubted at release, but it did gain a cult following. Those who loved the simplistic nature and how rewarding it was to beat it’s puzzle-esque bosses. Acid Nerve took note of this cult following and decided to begin working on a game that would expand upon the potential Titan Souls had. A more traditional styled adventure game with a deeper message and fascinating world.
They strayed away from making a Shadow of The Colossus influenced game, and decided to center their influence more on Dark Souls and The Legend of Zelda. They also took inspiration from Studio Ghibli as they wanted their new game to have a unique polished artstyle. A couple years pass and the covid-19 pandemic hits the world. The developers are sent home during this crisis to work on the game remotely which drags out the development process further, but they were determined to make a fantastic game even with limitations. One year later they reveal their new game Death’s Door and it catches the eyes of a couple of people. They jumped from making a pixelated boss rush game towards a 3D animated carefully crafted world. There were clear signs of potential, but would Death’s Door live up to expectations. The answer was yes. Upon release Death’s Door was met with critical acclaim. Receiving high review scores and being nominated for a couple end of the year awards. Death’s Door was so brilliant and showed what could be achieved with hard work, planning, and dedication.
Death’s Door is truly magical and I’m so glad I finally took the time to play it. Decided to pick the game up during the holiday sales and played it over the last few days. Not only did it exceed my expectations, but it may have become one of the best games I played during 2021. Not my favorite indie of 2021, but certainly one you shouldn't skip. Today I want to talk to you all about why I loved Death’s Door and why it deserves your attention. So ready thine blade and journey to the world of godly lords.
Story
We follow a little crow hired by the Reaping Commission Headquarters. This sinister company was created to send highly skilled crows out into the real world and hunt down the souls of those destined to die. Beings who have lived for a long period of time and built up enough energy from Lord Souls, and these souls specifically have to be collected to fuel the paranormal plain these crows live in. The business hasn’t been booming recently as there has been a reduction in deaths and something is preventing individuals from dying. However, this won’t stop your role as the reaper as your employer has assigned you to retrieve the soul of a demonic being lying in a graveyard. He opens a door for you to the living world, but he gives you a fair warning. If your assigned Lord Soul were to be lost before you could bring it back to headquarters then the door you took will remain open. If your door is open then you will remain mortal. Possibly dying from battle or from age since you no longer have your immortality.
The little crow we play as carries a red glowing sword on his back, and can conjure arrows using magic. Hopefully the job shouldn’t be that difficult. The crow locates the demonic being, slays it, and retrieves the Lord Soul, but before he can grab a hold of it a gateway opens up behind him and a mysterious being attacks. The crow wakes up to find the gateway still open, and ventures through it hoping to retrieve his stolen assignment. He battles through a world filled with mad creatures and the undead until he finds the being who took his Lord Soul. An old crow is passing the Lord Soul towards a giant sealed door in the sky and once it goes through you no longer have the chance to obtain it. The old crow states that his assignment went through the door years ago, and that ever since then he had aged and waited for someone to retrieve more Lord Souls. The old crow believes that the door can be opened if enough Lord Souls were to be obtained and behind the door lies someone who can help them retrieve their lost assignments and give them back their immortality. The little crow agrees to help the old crow and journeys to three parts of the land. The old estate of a witch, a forest full of beasts and savages, and a snowy clifftop where beings from before lay to rest. The task will be difficult, but our little crow will manage it. Learning more of the world around him and how the inhabitants of the world deal with death.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Death’s Door is really simplistic when you actually play it, but what it strides at is providing intriguing challenges despite the limitations. You explore the world solving puzzles, fighting enemies, figuring out where to go, and opening up shortcuts to make backtracking less tedious. Special metal doors can be opened throughout the world and they serve as checkpoints, so when you die you are respawned back at these doors. However, unlike Dark Souls there isn’t much to lose upon death, but you do die in four hits and you don't carry around healing items. You either recover health from entering and exiting doors, or you plant a Life Seed in a pot which is scattered around the world. That justifies the fact Acid Nerve didn’t want to make this game more annoying than it should be, because it is easy to get lost.
The combat is straightforward as you have enough tools to work with, but not too much that you scramble through a menu to find what you need. You have your basic attacks, a strong attack which can be charged up, a magic attack which consumes mana, and to evade enemy attacks you have a dodge roll. Dodge rolls offer a lot of invincibility frames, so times your rolls right and you should be able to avoid a majority of attacks. There are five different weapons to use in this game and they each offer different playstyles. You have your starting sword which is the most well rounded weapon. The poison laced daggers which attack in rapid succession. The lightning hammer which hits hard and has the chance to slow enemies down. The greatsword which is the highest damaging weapon, and finally the umbrella which is a joke weapon. Different spells can be unlocked by progressioning through dungeons, and all of them are needed to explore further. Your bow and arrow can attack from afar, and your fireballs can light up certain surfaces along with foes. The bombs deal tons of damage and can blow up certain walls, and the hookshot can be used to pull yourself towards enemies and zip to areas you normally couldn’t reach. When using a spell you spend some mana, but to refill on mana you just have to strike enemies and breakable objects. Much like how ammo worked in Hyper Light Drifter. It means you can spam magic attacks but only for a while, so it encourages you to switch between attacks.
The world separates into three paths and from there you explore one of the three major regions. You must make your way through a dungeon only to encounter a difficult boss at the end. These dungeons will possess challenges and encounters to test the player’s skills, but the goal is to free four crow spirits and open a door to obtain the tool/spell needed to progress. Once you do so you will face off against the region’s boss. They are tough and won’t stop at nothing until you are dead. They get harder as you get deeper into a fight, and some of their attacks are hard to avoid. You just have to get good and bring them down towards the ground. There are also upgrades and collectibles to pick up across the world. Those weapons are a good example and there are relics which can be collected and placed atop your office desk. One major upgrade I do want to bring up are the crystal shards which function like the heart containers from Zelda. There are shards for magic and shards for health, and you need four shards to obtain an extra point in either category. I recommend getting these as soon as possible, because they help make the last few bosses of the game easier. There also aren’t that many to collect with a total of sixteen being hidden in the game.
The final thing I want to bring up are Souls which are collected from defeated enemies. They can be brought back to your boss who can use these Souls to upgrade your stats and capabilities. Your strength to deal more damage and have a farther attack range. The speed of your attack combos and how fast your strong attacks charge. Your dodge roll speed and how quickly you can perform another dodge roll. Finally the power and efficiency of your spells. Although secret trials can be found that improve the capabilities of your spells. Besides that there really isn’t much else for me to say. Hopefully you can find those Lord Souls and open up that sacred door.
Thoughts
I absolutely loved Death’s Door and even though my time was short with the game I adored every aspect of it. Sure it’s not a game for everyone, but the amount of care put into the game is shown brilliantly and all the exemplary aspects of Death’s Door is what helps me ignore some of the major shortcomings that would have made it okay. First is the artstyle which goes for the papercraft look that games like Abzu or Ashen aim for. It’s vibrant, smooth, the attention to detail is great, and the way they animated the characters really brings this world to life. There’s this cartoonish feeling I get whenever I see some of the many characters Death’s Door has to offer. You meet a guy named Pothead, a courteous knight who had his head transformed into a pot and has the generosity of Siegward of Catarina. There’s a bunch of other characters I can reveal, but I don’t want to spoil it for you guys anymore. It's charming to say the least. The story and world building of Death’s Door is excellent as it really makes you care about the characters and your journey. The game tackles the theme of death and how there are individuals out there who fear what may lie at the end of the tracks. They want to be remembered for a heroic deed, or live longer so that the afterlife doesn’t remove what made them whole. You begin to question your own journey, your reason for living, and ask if it is truly worth working towards. It’s just such a wholesomely written adventure and the twist near the end explains the mysteries behind it all.
The combat and exploration reminded me of another game that took heavy influence from The Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls. A game I really love and is one of my top ten most favorite indie games of all time. Hyper Light Drifter. From the simplistic combat, the way the mana system is handled, and how you end up in each dazzling area of the game. Between the two games I prefer Hyper light Drifter more, but Death’s Door does fix up the jaggedness that Hyper Light’s gameplay had while expanding it. There are more weapons options and play styles in Death’s Door, dodging is more consistent, and the controls feel much better. The only thing I hate is that while each weapon is fun to use and there were times I swapped up my playstyle I can expect a lot of players to stick to the starting sword since it’s the easiest to use. Plus there's no way to upgrade your arsenal or abilities were compared to Hyper Light Drifter the upgrade points you picked up expanded what you could do on the field. So get used to just dodge rolling.
The music is great as it's the symphony of battle I love to hear from gaming. May just be one of the best soundtracks that 2021 had to offer. The game has a reasonable amount of side content, and there’s even a secret ending that somehow connects back to Acid Nerve’s previous gem. The game lasts around seven to eight hours long which is a good runtime for a game like this. I really don’t have that much to complain about with Death’s Door. It’s not a perfect game and compared to a lot of soulslikes, which is the category it apparently falls under on the Steam store page, I would choose a lot of other soulslikes over this as they have more intriguing mechanics, aim to innovate within the genre, level design is more creative, and much more. There's a lot to be desired by the end of Death's Door, but my time with the game was well spent and you don't get gems like this very often. I still heavily recommend Death’s Door because it’s the happiest I’ve been this year and it’s one of the many games I wish more people would check out. It's one of the more accessible soulslikes out there and it may convince you to try out Hyper Light Drifter. Wink wink. Death’s Door is a near masterpiece and in the end I give this game a 9/10 for excellence at best. Happy New Year everyone! Here’s high hopes that 2022 will be great.
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