Author: Rich Meister
Death’s Door is a delightful melting pot of things that I love. It combines the formula of classic top-down Zelda-inspired dungeon’s and puzzles, a charming but bleak lore-drenched world, and combat that comes about as close to Hyperlight Drifter as any other game I’ve played. It’s an impressive resume and one that mostly delivers.
Death’s Door(PC [reviewed], Xbox One, Xbox Series X)
Developer: Acid Nerve
Publisher: Devolver Digitial
Released: July 20, 2021
MSRP: $19.99
You play as a Crow and employee of the Reaping Commission. Your job is simple: enter a door and reap the target soul within, then return to the Commission with the aforementioned soul. When a target soul is stolen from you, it ends up locked behind Death’s titular door, and you’ll need to travel across the world to collect three giant souls to open it.
The narrative hook is simple and easy enough to follow but littered with depth if you’re looking for it. Journal entries found throughout add layers to both the Commission, which may not be as noble as it seems on the surface, and the ancient souls you’ve been sent to reap.
The world is delightful to explore and uses muted color palettes and somber music to portray a world in decay. The scenery is beautiful, and some of the characters act as a charming, upbeat contrast to their surroundings, my favorite being Jefferson, the totally human bar owner. While the overworld is laid out in an easy enough to understand manner and filled with fast travel points in the form of doors to the commission, I can’t help but feel a map would’ve gone a long way.
While I never felt lost, the world is littered with secret collectibles and shrines to increase your health and magic power, and it’s particularly difficult to find everything in when you can’t quite pinpoint what you’ve yet to pick clean.
Puzzles are plentiful both in and out of dungeons, and you’ll use spells unlocked in each dungeon to solve them. Our Crow starts by packing a simple bow and arrow conjuring spell but eventually gets things like bombs and even a Hookshot to assist him in combat and puzzles.
I mentioned earlier that Death’s Door lifted a bit from Hyperlight Drifter, and that’s all present in the combat. You often encounter large waves of enemies, and combat is precise, fluid, and fast. Spell charges, of which you start with four, are refilled by attacking with melee, and you don’t hit particularly hard, so you’ll want to strike quickly and roll out of the way to fire off some projectiles while you have the chance.
You can return to the Commission with souls you’ve reaped from enemies and trade them to up basic stats like the strength of your magic or melee and even base movement speed. Your overall health level and spell charges can only be upgraded by finding hidden shrines. While increased health is a bonus, it’s still not terribly hard to beat the game without it.
Fights can be challenging, especially boss encounters, but the speed and split-second decision-making constantly have you going after just one more try. Death comes often, but it never feels punishing or unfair.
You start the game with a basic reaper sword, but you can unlock various weapons like daggers and a war hammer. Every weapon tends to lean in the direction of speed or strength, so you’ll mainly want to decide whether you prefer hitting hard or fast. The fast but weaker Rogue Daggers were my weapon of choice for most of the game.
Verdict: Death’s Door is a delight to play. It finds humor in its melancholy world while never skipping a chance to remind you that we all die eventually. The Gravekeeper, another standout character, even takes the time to give a moment of silence for departed bosses. Reminding us that while they were technically evil, we should still wish them off peacefully.
Buy it
[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer.]