Death's Door is Wonderful

Back when Deaths Door came out, I attempted to play it on Game Pass. Or at least, when it came to Game Pass, I attempted to play it. I just did not enjoy it. But with my recent stint of playing a bunch of games that are both out of my comfort zone and are more Metroidvania/souls like, I decided to give it another try. And wouldn't you know it, the game was on sale for 4 bucks. So I grabbed it.

Deaths Door I think fits perfectly into a subgenre of Souls-lite. That is, a souls-ish game with less punishing mechanics that is still difficult and requires you to learn how to approach a fight with a boss. So, as I'm not a giant fan of the punishing mechanics of some of the souls-like genre, it fell right into the sweet spot for me. Its both somewhat difficult without feeling tedious, it's unique and whimsical without losing the mildly oppressive atmosphere that many Souls-likes adhere to. It's got interesting combat and a lot of exploration. It's genuinely, a fantastic game. Even if it does have a decent amount of flaws. So let's get into it.

The Premise

In Deaths Door you play a new little crow reaper who goes around collecting the Souls of those whose time has come. But, when one of your souls gets stolen just before you can collect it, you have to chase after the one who stole it as you certainly can't deal with the shame and punishment of not having completed your job. During your journey, you'll come across fellow Reapers, a big ol' Door, and even a Yeti like creature. Will you manage to get the Soul you were sent to Reap? Will you help those around the world who have dealt with some influential people just not dying? Will you discover what's wrong with the world and maybe even fix it? Or will you fail at your mission and be forever exiled from your whole reason for being? Hopefully, you'll be fine.

The Good

The combat of the game isn't super deep, but it still all feels good. You're able to do basic slashes of combos that limit is determined by the weapon (for instance the base sword does 3, but the lightning-hammer-axe thing that I used for half the game does 2). You're also able to roll and attack which can really allow you to get close to a boss and strike, then quickly roll away. It's pretty damn fun once that clicks. You also get a charge up attack that's great when you know your enemy won't be moving soon but can be quite useless if they move just before you finish the most powerful charge.

There's also the 4 abilities that you unlock over the course of the game, 3 of which are super useful for combat and 1 that I was never able to get quite right for that instance. Those abilities, however, really allow you to attack from a distance and be able to mix up your close strikes and far abilities. The three I'm talking about are bow, bombs, fireball. They're all great and are used for environmental purposes as well.

In fact, one of my favorite boss fights, the Toad King, requires you to use your bow during the fight in a way that the game teaches you earlier in that area. This is something fundamental about the game that I think some other games need to get better at, teaching. Not throwing you into a difficult section in order to teach you how to use some new ability or deal with some new environmental object. The game slowly trickles in new mechanics that then get used later on in boss fights so by the time you get to them you're an expert on how to both recognize and deal with those mechanics. It does this so incredibly well I was actually really surprised. I think the best way to get your players to want to keep playing and not feel stuck with new mechanics is to slowly introduce it. Again, not dropping the player in a really difficult section to force them to learn while also having to deal with death and the punishment that comes with it.

One of the best things about it is how little punishment you get for death. The game decides it'll give you tough fights. Both in boss fight and gauntlet form, and that it doesn't want to punish you for failing. It wants you to learn and improve without having the stress of losing something alongside it. The only real punishment takes place during gauntlets and it's just a run back to the gauntlet. That's literally it. Not losing things on death really helped me be able to zero in on getting better, on learning the bosses moves. Multiple bosses took close to 20 tries, if not more, but I almost always felt like I was learning something new. It was really effective.

The bosses are all interesting and have good designs but the best part are the health bars. Or rather, the health representation. Instead of a standard health bar, you start to see cracks spread across the boss/enemy. It's a really helpful representation that doesn't "impede on immersion" and still communicates beneficial data. I had so many moments in every boss fight where I knew, because of just how many damn cracks were in the boss, that after I died I had been so close. It drove me to keep playing. If you're not gonna have a health bar, you need to have some kind of visual representation for that kind of communication. It helps the player and drives them.

The story and setting are also incredibly intriguing. The best part I think is how the world is dealing with the oppression of a purveyor of death that is rather authoritarian and mean. You see that very early on for instance in the Gravedigger wanting you to kill him. He's tired of death and wants his time to end but you're not strong enough at the time so he just says "maybe when you're stronger" and moves on. You also have Eulogies after every boss fight that feeds into the themes of death being a constant and something the world is struggling with.

Finally, I think one of my favorite things in the game is the humor of it all. The world might be dealing with the oppression of the system of death they find themselves living in but that doesn't mean the game doesn't want you to enjoy your time in this world. The first sign I got that showed me it was a game that I was going to love was the introduction of the character Pothead (picture above). He's a character in one of the areas where you're chasing a soul. Just seeing him made me think to myself "okay so this game knows it's weird and enjoys that". There's nothing more endearing to me than a game that knows its weird and fucking runs with it.

As an example of running with it, I'd like to highlight exhibit A. One of the bosses name sequence. It slowly kept growing initially only showing the name and the first line but then kept adding and adding more lines. It knew that it was absurd. It knew that it was funny. That's the best part. That enjoyment that I can only assume the developers felt making it is also one that the player is meant to feel when playing it and the Devs did a perfect job making me enjoy these little moments of humor in a world gripped with death.

The Bad

There's no way to heal during combat or just wondering around until you find a seed pot. This. Fucking. Sucks. Its not so bad in regular exploration but once you come across gauntlets where you're fighting multiple waves and then where you're dealing with water being a hazard that takes away some health. Well. That just makes it seem like an oversight, even though it's definitely not. I do appreciate that the game isn't super duper difficult, but being able to heal once or twice mid combat would be such a big improvement for the combat experience. But hey, at least the enemies only do one damage per hit.

Another thing. The game is at this 3/4ths perspective which is, most of the time, great. But then there are times like the image above. See, you're able to end up behind a wall which makes your silhouette displayed so you can still tell who you are. Which is great right? But enemies don't have that. So you can have moments where enemies chase after you, you end up behind a wall, and you have no way of knowing where the enemies are so you're able to get around them or fight them. You're left to just hope your attack hits. Plus then there's the times when the water hazard can occasionally also exist behind a wall and you can't predict exactly where it is so sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong and fall into the water. This is a product of the camera angle but I think at least adding enemy silhouettes would be beneficial to the experience.

Also, there's no map. The areas feel like a maze and there's no damn map. It's a massive issue where I'm trying to remember where I need to go and how I can get there. After enough times wandering around in circles I managed to learn the places layout pretty well...but I shouldn't have to wander around in circles for so long. Give me a map where it's on a piece of parchment or in a book like the ones the other crows are writing in and then have there be some feathers or something. Just. Anything. It's such a design flaw to make levels like this and not have a fucking map.

There's also a significant overuse of gauntlets that is quite frustrating. Some of them are easier than others and when you get them down you'll end up often stuck on the last round, but it's still exhausting having to go through them over and over again when you're fucking up. This happened a lot in the Mushroom dungeon level for me where you have water hazards in several of them and I just kept accidentally walking into it and fucking up over and over and, as I said, there's usually no heals so I would be fucked. There were several moments where I just gave up for that try because I knew I wasn't gonna get it. Figured I should start fresh with full health. Adding a healing plant in some of the gauntlets would have been awesome and made them much less frustrating. But that said, I did get through the water hazard ones eventually. After getting lucky several times.

The Ending - Detailed

**Start Spoilers**

Okay first off, there is a "true ending" to the game that you can complete by going around and collecting and doing a bunch of stuff, including defeating another boss and shit. I did not do that. Im sure it's good but i had other stuff to do so this is the ending of the game that I played not of the true ending.

Welp. Turns out Death was stuck in the "Deaths Door" the whole time. Who would have thought. The Lord of Doors kicked Death in and after defeating the grey crow you're able to free him. You then go to defeat the Lord of Doors back at the office.

You have 2 phases to the fight with the Lord. After confronting him you go through a bunch of platforming and short moments of fighting in all of the main locations you've been too. It's a really cool part of the fight and it introduces all the moves you have to deal with during the second phase. It's a really well put together segment and then leads you back to the home office.

The Lord seems to have wrecked the place and you have to do one more fight with him. It's a long one and you have a lot of stuff to remember and you can't get greedy but once you're done, that's it. The world is saved. We get a eulogy to The Last Lord of Doors and then Death kicks his soul into the remnants of Deaths Door. Credits.

During the credits you get to see small moments where the characters in the game are trying to find a way back to normal, which is really adorable.

**End Spoilers**

The Ending - Reaction

I loved it. The fight was tough but fun and I figured out that the best place in the last arena during the laser section was just to hug the left wall which made the fight much easier. I had a damn good time. Seeing the little moments of calm during the credits was also really sweet and made the experience even more worthwhile. I loved every single moment.

The Conclusion

I loved Deaths Door. It didn't take a ton of time to beat, but most of that time was rather enjoyable. The game's somewhat difficult, sure, but it's not overly so. And most importantly, it doesn't punish you as much for dying as other Souls games do. It doesn't assault you with adds in boss fights as some more recent difficult games do (cough cough Silksong cough cough. It's a very well designed game that just has some flaws that I wish had been thought of. Specifically not having a map and not being able to see enemies behind walls like you can see yourself were the most frustrating.

Besides that, if you're someone who likes the idea of a Souls game that has more humor to it than you'd expect, and isn't nearly as punishing for failure, I'd say this is a great game for you! There aren't difficulty settings, which sucks, but with how the game is structured it's much less egregious not having them. Not that having them would have ruined the game, just that it's a lot easier than you'd expect so it's more easy to look past. Overall, it's a great experience and I highly recommend it.

Meow,

Cat