thedonproject
Death's Door
◉ ◉ ◉ ◉ ○(4/5: great)
Playstation 5
Devolver Digital (2021)
Adventure
DEATH



Crows are too intelligent to be birds. They recognize people, they understand gifts, and they have funerals for their friends. The crow in this game is charged with gathering the souls of the dead while using various weapons and magic to murder various semi-sentient objects and beasts. It also gathers a collection of shiny things it shares with its work colleagues. Basically, completely plausible crow stuff.

A charming isometric 3D land of magic doors and hidden secrets awaits you in this excellent indie title. The combat, a mix of hack-n-slash and projectile magic, is old school Zelda simple enough to be accessible but challenging enough to need to take a break from time to time. I may or may not have spent several of the hours of gameplay retrying boss battles... and that is the drawback. The story and charm kept me coming back to fight grandmas and yetis and faceless knights over and over, but others may not have the patience to learn the patterns. The difficulty is a bit uneven, with a bunch of time spent wandering through one- and two-hit foes until you stumble upon a group battle or mini-boss that sometimes sends you back to the start of the level to seek them out again. Not an unfamiliar game mechanic, of course, but one that does get annoying (kind of like the repetitive music) if you lack skill, like me, or if the story doesn't motivate you.

Death's Door is a pretty great game with lots of humor and joy amongst the death and destruction, pretty graphics to animate your challenges in game play, and an interesting world to explore and puzzle through. A good time and maybe even worth a replay to try to get that last trophy... maybe.

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Last updated: 09/16/2023
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