Death’s Door – First impressions (PC)

So, this game caught my eye during the Devolver Digital E3 conference (the best E3 conference by the way). As soon as I heard that it was not a roguelike I was in. The Art looked amazing; you play as a crow (birds FTW), and it looked like a solid effort inspired by the old LOZ game. I am happy to report that the game does indeed live up to the fantastic trailers.

Story

So, I don’t want to spoil anything here, but the basic premise is that you are a grim reaper (yes, crows are grim reapers) and you get assigned to take down a fairly large soul. Once you take down the first boss, the soul you’re about to reap gets stolen and your journey starts from there. There is more story than I expected; there are strange things going on with the reaper organization, and the stories in the world are great and fit the game perfectly. In fact, the characters and character designs are one of the game’s strong points.

Visuals

One thing that stuck out in the trailers was the art direction and it does shine here. The enemy designs, environmental art, character designs, everything is superb. The graphics are basic but stylized and highly effective. Every area is distinct and different, have their own identity, and the layout of each area is well thought out and designed. This is an indie game that actually tries to be something rather than just copy almost every other indie out there and it succeeds.

Sound

I cannot praise the game’s soundtrack enough. Each overworld theme is perfect and matches the area. The sound effects are solid and there is something about the soundtrack that is just…consuming. I am guilty these days of having other music on or media when playing games, as most soundtracks just don’t do it for me. Death Door’s, however, is something special. The boss fight themes are also brilliant. I love the use of guitar within the boss themes as the track progresses; it feels epic, and I cannot recommend the soundtrack enough. Oh, and if you buy the deluxe edition, the OST comes in FLAC and MP3. (ALL HAIL, FLAC!)

Gameplay

The game is quite basic, but due to the nature of enemy encounters, it’s far from boring. The weight on the character and overall movement feels spot on too, which is where many other indie titles fail. You have a dodge that has a cooldown, you have a basic and strong attack, ranged attacks of which you can unlock more of, and you can dash into a stronger attack.

There are different weapons and ranged attacks to equip throughout the game. Enemy variety is very high and the encounters become quite hectic; a lot of enemies are thrown at you at the same time. In fact, I would liken the encounters to those in Ratchet & Clank. You really need to think on your feet since you only have 4 health bars for quite a while, which means 4 hits and you’re out. The healing system is interesting. You collect seeds (because crow, I guess), and you’ll come across plant pots in each overworld which you can then plant the seeds you’ve collected in, which you can then use to heal. It only has one use, but when you die and respawn, the plant respawns and can be used again.

My only main concern is there seem to be only three main bosses, although there are mini-bosses. The first main boss was rather disappointing; the attacks, design, and so on were truly memorable and great, unfortunately, they had a very limited move set and just repeated predictable patterns in the same order. Very Nintendo-like and uninspiring mechanically. Their backstory was actually quite interesting though, so overall, the bosses seem genuinely great in every way bar the attack patterns. Hopefully, this will improve. Every enemy you kill gives you a soul which can be used to upgrade your damage, agility, ranged attacks, and so on.

Conclusion

As of now, Death’s Door is a brilliant indie game that’s not just a clone of the old LOZ-style games and actively strives to do something different. It’s infinitely better than the TUNIC demo and the whole package outside of the boss encounters are top-tier. I’ll be exploring to see what other areas the game has to offer and you can expect to see a review from me at some point. Right now, I would give it a solid 8 out of 10.

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