Death's Door Review (Sul)
If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to become crows.
- Henry W. Beecher
Death’s door, exactly what is this game about, you’re wondering? It’s a game about doors, but the most important one of them all; The Death’s Door. You’ll be opening and closing lots of doors in this game and exploring or fighting whatever that’s behind them.
When I first started playing this game, I really enjoyed it. It is one of those numerous creative small-sized titles, by a small studio, that don’t really insist on themselves and are not formulaic unlike so many AAA games. I loved it, it has nice gameplay, a cute crow for a protagonist (conspicuously named ‘Beakface’), great exploration, and I cannot stress how gorgeous the visual and artistic style of this game is. It’s truly breathtaking at times. This was when I was on my first few hours of the game, but after finishing the game and replaying it, I realized it was something much more, and since I finished it around its release it’s been a fond and lasting reminder for me to cherish the AA/Indie industry.
Gameplay
Combat
Death’s Door is an isometric action adventure with light RPG elements (stats for the main character). It has 4 different melee weapons, which are found over the course of the game (1 of them being in a secret area that requires a detective’s eye for clues). It has formulaic combat for its scope, you can attack (light attacks, chained together, or a heavy attack that can be held down to charge it up, or a dodge attack that is strong and unleashes at the ending stage of your dodge animation). The little crow can also dodge as you guessed (the roll animation of dodging has some invincibility frames), and you can use ranged weapons (you start with only a bow, but over the course of the game 3 more ranged weapons are unlocked, each with a different purpose or ability, and each has a use outside of combat for exploring or interacting with the world). Beakface has 4 stats that the player can level up, each one controls some the performance of each weapon and some also affect things outside of weapon performance, such as agility speeding up beakface's recovery from dodging and the speed of his walking.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2703356607
Death's Door has a diverse array of interesting enemies (except the jumping blobs of goo, those are as boring as you'd expect if you encountered them in various other games). Many enemy attacks can birth incidental interactions, some enemy attacks can be deflected back at them or deflected to other enemies, some enemies can be goaded into attacking each other through the inertia of their movement, some can be goaded into rolling off an edge, which produces the foundation for funny and peculiar encounters in many fights. The physics engine of the game is the icing on the cake of is cool combat. Who doesn’t love watching enemies ragdoll all over the place after being blown up?
There are 4 major boss encounters. You can expect a typical boss fight from an indie game, it’s not the stuff of legend, but they are still well-made fights. Each one has their own phases, patterns, difficulty curve, and the fleeting feeling of satisfaction once you defeat them. They're not cakewalks at all, but they're not Slave Knight Gaels ether. Each boss will introduce themselves in the typical way a villain set on destroying the world does before the grand slam with intense music begins, of course.
World and level design
I can’t stress how beautiful this game’s world is. It’s an endless cascade of allure. Death’s Door has a sort of interconnected world outside of its main hub where you start in a largely barren cemetery and can explore 3 worlds extending in 3 different directions. Each strand you explore typically has a multitude of differently themed biomes (Exploring the Pot Witch’s abode starts with exploring her magnificent gardens, then you enter her huge mansion, then you enter a final area, and so on). The sense of exploration also goes for the main hub as well, as beakface explores the game’s world, he will frequently find himself opening doors to hidden, disconnected or disjointed parts of the starting area, which offers various awards (new weapons and documents that reveal a thing or two about the world’s mythos). Other locations can only be accessed through tools acquired later in the game.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2703356373
Progression works in a linear manner. Despite non-linear interconnectivity, you have to explore the 3 lands in a linear fashion, each one will give you a method to access the next, and so on you reach the final area of the game and the ending. Each area is unique from the other ones, with its own enemies, its own puzzles, and in general its own style of gameplay and adventures. There is also no small amount of exploration for those who like to veer off the beaten path or backtrack over already trodden ground. With weapons unlocked later in the game or keys acquired, backtracking can give the player access to troves of secrets they did not find in their first journey through each level.
Death’s Door doesn’t entirely conclude once you defeat the ‘final’ boss and finish the apparent goal of the story and beakface. There is (optional) continuation of the story, that takes you back in the worlds you explored, that can help the player unlock the true story of beakface’s world and how it came to be. But that would require detective skills to finding secret areas and knowing what door the odd key might open. This post-story continuation is what really ascends the game to something higher than a typical AA video game into a more lasting and gripping memory, and exudes a sense of quality, refinement and an existing spirit of creative passion. It’s not just a product meant to sell, some people also wanted to communicate their creativity through a world and its story.
Art style & Music
I’ll reiterate earlier that one of the best characteristics of Death’s Door is its enchanting, mesmerizing artistic design and music score, and that's why I'll dedicate a section for this. It has one of the most pleasing visuals of any game I played in a long time. It looks prismatic in a muted way, if that makes sense – the sense of detail is incredible, the graphical fidelity is commensurate to the scope, the isometric-like view fits the design perfectly. Sometimes the atmosphere of the game is bleak, sometimes it’s prismatic, sometimes it’s almost monochrome, it’s very alluring and dazzling. Each environ also has its own enemies that match its theme and world, and on each level if often means new gameplay opportunities. The music will also not escape my praise, most tracks were incredible and adrenaline-pumping, especially the Avarice section fights. Hearing the music blasting just invigorates me with impetus and rejuvenated fighting spirit against the waves of attacking enemies pouring out of their doors.
Performance
The game runs smoothly without any hiccups, framerate drops or bugs on 1440p@144hz with the following specs;
GTX 1080Ti
Ryzen 5 3600x
16Gb DDR4 3200Mhz
Note: this game supports refresh rates beyond 60hz
Verdict; 9/10 (Excellent)
Follow our Curator page, Summit Reviews , to see more high-quality reviews regularly.